Papuan aspirations
Papuan aspirations
The chorus for independence during the week-long Papuan
Congress which wound up in Jayapura on Sunday sent the loudest
and clearest message to date about the extent to which many
people in the region, which is still officially called Irian
Jaya, feel about their place in the republic.
Before the congress, the aspirations for a separate West Papua
state had been dismissed by Jakarta as small and sporadic at
best. The Free Papua Organization (OPM), for example, is actually
shorthand for several armed rebel groups, scattered in jungles
across the expansive territory. They have no link to one another
and the only thing they have in common is their goal. Dealing
with low level insurgency has, therefore, been relatively easy
for the Jakarta government and the Indonesian Military.
The Papuan Congress has changed all that. For the first time,
a wider cross section of the West Papuan people, including the
urban intelligentsia, has presented a united front in calling for
secession from Indonesia. The congress articulated their demand
by first "correcting" the history of the territory's
incorporation into the Republic of Indonesia in the 1960s, and
then reviewing the unhappy experience of being ruled by Jakarta,
including the endless human rights abuses by the military. When
presented in such a way, naturally they came to the conclusion
that they no longer wanted to be part of Indonesia. From now on,
Jakarta can expect a more coherent and organized movement for
independence from West Papua.
Judging by the reactions in Jakarta, however, the message from
the congress has not fully registered with top government
officials. President Abdurrahman Wahid believes that the
aspirations came from a minority of the Papuans, while Vice
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, during her visit there last
month, said the majority of Papuans only wanted more prosperity
and justice without leaving the republic. House of
Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung, meanwhile, has called on
the government and the military to deal harshly with the
proindependence Papuans, ignoring the fact that the military has
been the biggest part of the problem all along. A military
option, therefore, is clearly not the answer.
How long is Jakarta going to stay aloof and maintain this
denial mode, which clearly will not solve anything at all? The
Papuan Congress was real and the aspirations echoed there were
also real. In the absence of a referendum -- something that
Jakarta is not likely going to allow to take place in any case --
it is difficult to gauge the extent to which these independence
aspirations reflect the will of the people. But the congress
showed that these aspirations are significantly large enough for
Jakarta to start taking them seriously.
The West Papuans have President Abdurrahman to thank, because
consistent with his own democratic principles, he has let them
voice their aspirations in the open, something which they had not
been able to do previously. But what good is letting these
independence aspirations come out in the open if they cannot be
channeled through the existing political system?
Since all political parties in Indonesia by law must be based
in Jakarta and must support the unitary state of Indonesia, these
independence aspirations will never be taken up by any of the
political parties. Not finding any accommodation, their
aspirations will look for outlets outside the system. Therefore,
we cannot rule out the use of force. We have seen this happen in
East Timor, Aceh and to a lesser extent in Irian Jaya.
For better or worse, the Papuan Congress is a rude wake-up
call for Jakarta to rethink its approach toward the regions, and
toward the aspirations that exist there, not just in Irian Jaya,
but also Aceh and all the other provinces. At the core of this
problem is the concept of the unitary state itself, which is so
rigid that it allows no room for regional aspirations.
If the Abdurrahman administration is consistent with its own
democratic principles, then it should go the full distance and
provide legitimate channels for these regional aspirations within
the system. Let them form their regional parties, and let them
fight whatever cause they pick -- be it independence, autonomy,
special status or whatever -- at the ballots against the national
parties. Even if they eventually prevail, at least they will
leave the republic in an honorable and peaceful manner.