Govt ignoring Irian Jaya's religious leaders
Govt ignoring Irian Jaya's religious leaders
JAKARTA (JP): The big sin the government committed in
developing the dominantly Christian Irian Jaya was overlooking
local religious leaders, according to a native Irian academic.
Benny Giay of the Walter Post School of Theology in the Irian
Jaya capital of Jayapura said the government should have given
local religious leaders more say in development.
"I suggest they be given special status as the people's
conscience," Giay said in a seminar on transformative development
and human rights in Irian Jaya.
The last of the two-day seminar organized by the Forum for
National Concern of Human Rights in Irian Jaya also featured
Mohamad Sobary from the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI),
environmentalist Emmy Hafild and Budhisantoso from the office of
the State Minister of Environment.
Giay said Irian religious leaders have acted as middlemen in
extreme cases such as the recent kidnappings by separatist
leaders, but that the government has not treated them as the
community leaders they are widely considered by the Irianese.
Jakarta's policy on development of the eastern-most territory has
been overly focused on economics and cultural transformation
linked to economic and political benefits.
"Religious leaders should been given the freedom to carry out
their duties and act as the people's conscience," he said.
Church leaders played a pivotal role in the development of the
western half of Papua Island, which became part of Indonesia in
1963, he said.
Missionaries entered the Irianese jungles to introduce
Christianity to primitive people long before it became part of
Indonesia, he said.
Like on the first day, the seminar taking place at the
Theology School was enlivened by debates on the endless social
conflict surrounding PT Freeport, the American gold and copper
mining company, and the soldiers that guard it.
Tribes in Timika, where the giant company is based, have
protested, occasionally violently, against the acquisition of
their communal land for the project.
Troops in charge of safeguarding the company have allegedly
resorted to violence to quell protest at the site, which non-
governmental activists say benefits the natives little.
Mohamad Sobary, a well-known columnist, came out in defense of
Giay's opinion, stressing that government officials should treat
local religious leaders as partners in development.
"The government should pay special attention to the locals'
faiths to make them accept its development policy," he said. "Who
would not respect missionaries for implanting universal religious
values among Irianese tribespeople?"
Indonesian officials, he said, should learn from religious
leaders on how to bring peace to the 200-plus Irianese jungle
tribes.
"They have lived in peace for decades. But why did problems
start cropping up after we came in?" he said.
Sobary said the government should make the best use of all
local cultures and all other potentials to develop the vast but
sparsely populated Irian Jaya.
A key issue to make the development a success, he advised, is
to treat the indigenous people like any other Indonesian
citizens, instead of treating them as "backward" people.
Emmy Hafild from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment said
development in Irian Jaya concentrates excessively on economic
gains and drains natural resources out of the province while the
people remain poor.
She said Irian Jaya is politically and economically dominated
by people from outside the province. "They take Irian's wealth
and leave the natives poor," she said. (pan)