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)