Splitting the provinces<\/p>\n
The President B. J. Habibie administration has apparently
\nunlimited resources in sending shock waves throughout the vast
\narchipelago. The people here have been often caught by surprise
\nby its maneuvers.<\/p>\n
Take, for example, the sensational decision to let people
\ndecide whether they will stay with the republic or be an
\nindependent nation. The way Habibie repeatedly shook up the
\nAttorney General's Office has also made the public ask what he
\nmeant by the puzzling steps.<\/p>\n
As many people have failed to understand his queer moves, they
\nhave the tendency to conclude that the policy is meant to shift
\ntheir attention from his reluctance to carry out an order of the
\nPeople's Consultative Assembly (MPR), the country's highest law-
\nmaking body, for the government to investigate former president
\nSoeharto's alleged wealth, which was allegedly stolen from the
\nnation. Plus his refusal to make public those involved in the
\nfatal shootings of the students at Trisakti University and the
\nSemanggi cloverleaf. And then there are the officers whose hands
\nare soaked with the blood of innocent people during the nine
\nyears of military brutality in Aceh.<\/p>\n
One of the latest in a series of government products of
\nastonishment is its plan to submit a bill to the House of
\nRepresentatives which proposes to divide Maluku, the recent riot-
\ndevastated area, into two provinces.<\/p>\n
As this kind of separation has been regarded as taboo by the
\nauthorities for more than two decades, people are aspired to see
\nthe authorities come up with a sort of logical reason for the
\npolicy.<\/p>\n
But as of yesterday there were more make-believe reasons than
\nwhat Ryaas Rasyid, director general of public administration and
\nregional autonomy, said about the move which the administration
\nexpected to ease recent tension in the northern part of Maluku.<\/p>\n
The question now is if several dozen northern Maluku students
\ncan get what they want by taking to the street, what will the
\nauthorities do next because many other parts of this immense
\narchipelago have the potential to do the same. And Maluku, with
\nits population of two million occupying small islands of 85,000
\nsquare kilometers, is one of the smallest province in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
If the recent bloody religious conflict in Maluku is also the
\nreason for breaking up the province will the authorities do the
\nsame if a similar drama takes place in North Sumatra. And what
\nwill be the limit of this unfamiliar tolerance?<\/p>\n
The same question is also applied to the military leadership,
\nwhich will grant Maluku its own regional command. Isn't it a
\nhumiliating setback from the 1980s measure that successfully
\nreduced the number of regional military commands from 17 to 10?<\/p>\n
The policy to divide the province looks ironically like
\nhistory repeating itself but in a more ill-advised way from the
\n1957 policy to break up Central Sumatra into three provinces. It
\nwas an apparent effort to defuse the anti-Jakarta sentiments
\nwhich were boiling over into the regions then.<\/p>\n
While authorities still have to answer these questions
\nsatisfactorily, the people have been told of its plan to split
\nIrian Jaya into three, separating the rebel-plagued and natural-
\nresource rich sections from the others.<\/p>\n
In all of this game, the present transitional regime is
\ndemonstrating its ambition to get all its plans passed by the
\nHouse, which was a product of the Soeharto authoritarian regime,
\njust before a democratic government is established.<\/p>\n
What does the Habibie regime expect to get from this ploy?<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/splitting-the-provinces-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }