Reduction in air services may cause famine in Irian Jaya
JAKARTA (JP): An official has warned Irian Jaya, especially Jayawijaya regency, could suffer a repeat of last year's famine because ample food stocks may be depleted by the grounding of commercial and missionary airline flights during the crisis.
Moch. Santoso, the head of the provincial State Logistics Agency (Dolog), was quoted by Antara news agency as saying in the capital of Jayapura on Sunday that his office relied on the Army's Hercules aircraft to transport rice rations for civil servants and the local community in Wamena, the capital of Jayawijaya. Much of the mountainous province is inaccessible by land.
"Commercial airlines have stopped their service," he said. "Without the Hercules flight to Wamena, people in the remote area will surely starve."
Airlines which have stopped flights to Wamena are Airfast, Trigana and SMAC. Merpati Nusantara Airlines has reduced its weekly flights from seven to two.
Santoso also said his office held regular market operations to sell rice at the subsidized price of Rp 1,000 per kilogram for 153,000 poor families in Jayawijaya. The average price elsewhere is Rp 4,000 per kilogram.
He said 750 metric tons of rice was set aside for market operations. The same program was also being conducted for the poor living in coastal areas, using the Navy's patrol and pioneer ships.
Irian Jaya has a stock of 55,000 tons of rice, projected to be enough to last the province's two million inhabitants for the next eight months, he said.
Some of the stock was imported and part was donated by Japan. The province also has a further 17,000 tons of rice produced by local farmers in Merauke regency.
Irian also has a stockpile of 18,000 metric tons of sugar, enough to last three months, and wheat flour stocks of 15,000 metric tons, sufficient for two months.
"Irian is not among those facing food shortages," he said.
Last week, Santoso's colleague Abulebu said the province had sufficient stocks of rice and other staple foods despite the crisis and attendant food shortages.
Last year, the El Nino weather phenomenon caused severe drought in many parts of the country, including Irian Jaya, where starvation and disease killed 700 people.
The government has insisted that nationwide rice stocks are sufficient to last the country's 202 million people for the next eight months. Public stocks currently total seven million tons and an additional 2.2 million tons are held by the State Logistics Agency.
Separately, Governor Freddy Numberi said on Monday in Manokwari it was high time Irian Jaya was granted full autonomy in a bid to avert unrest.
"All this time, the results of (exploitation) of Irian Jaya resources have all been funneled to (Jakarta), so the Irianese are now facing the threat of poverty," he was quoted by Antara as saying.
He said autonomy would serve as a breakthrough to empower the people and allow them to catch up in development gains with other provinces.
He also said billions of U.S. dollars from the province were absorbed by the central government and others. He also pointed out how American gold and copper mining company PT Freeport Indonesia -- which makes US$1.5 billion annually -- had increased its monthly production of 150,000 tons of ore to 300,000 tons.
"Imagine if only $1 billion, or Rp 11 trillion, was given by the central government to the province. Our people would be prosperous, we could even help people from other provinces ... so we wouldn't need loans from the IMF (International Monetary Fund)," he said.
The poverty of the people of Irian Jaya, in contrast to the province's vast natural wealth, left it prone to unrest because its population believed they were treated unfairly, he said.
"Please realize that in Indonesian's history, Irian is the country's inseparable part... it's not true our people want independence," he said. (25/swe)