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.