Let the Irianese choose how to live

I would like to comment on the article about Irianese life expectancy (The Jakarta Post, Feb. 16, 2000), reflecting my own experiences while traveling in Irian Jaya.

A life expectancy of 40 years is quite normal under the circumstances in which remote tribes live, and is comparable to other indigenous groups elsewhere on the planet. In Irian Jaya, these circumstances differ quite a lot between different areas. The peoples of the highlands are less prone to catch deadly diseases and many of my Dani friends are 60 years and older -- and that does not seem to be an exceptionally old age for them.

The lowland tribes do live in a harsher environment and many children die of malaria, dysentery and other diseases. But their reproductive rate is much higher than the highland tribes. These people are usually not malnourished at all and their subsistence economy works very well for their communities. But when we look at the main towns, resettlement areas and port towns, we see a different picture (and the photo depicted in the article is no question from such an area). Indigenous tribes taken from their original homeland cannot feed themselves adequately, often because of a lack of funds, inappropriate housing and the contracting of conditions like HIV from migrants.

Also, I wonder how the government comes up with the figures mentioned in the text, when there are large areas of Irian Jaya which no government official has set foot in, let alone counted heads.

And why is Irian Jaya a cash-strapped province when it is so rich in resources? Maybe the government should reconsider how it spends money and start to clean up the coastal towns with the migrants, rather than in the hinterland, which has already been disturbed too much by interference from the outside. Let the people live the life they have chosen for them to be the best.

CLAUDIA LANG

Jakarta