RI rejects foreign research on Papua, Aceh
RI rejects foreign research on Papua, Aceh
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government has announced a plan to restrict foreign
researchers' access to conduct field work in Papua and Aceh,
saying that many came with intentions other than academic goals
that could amount to an interference in Indonesia's domestic
affairs.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirajuda specifically named
researchers from the Netherlands and Australia who are planning
to conduct studies in the two troubled Indonesian provinces.
Critics have said the government's stance on researchers
reflect its own lack of confidence in regards its own position in
Papua and Aceh, where clandestine wars for independence had been
going on for years.
Hassan acknowledged that the government was not in any
position to reject foreign researchers from coming to the country
because of the existing visa-free facility granted to visitors
from Western countries, including the Netherlands and Australia.
"The problem is that the short visit visa-free facility given
to tourists is often abused by researchers," he told reporters
after meeting with President Megawati Soekarnoputri.
He said, however, that the visa facility could be restricted
for visits to Aceh and Papua, without elaborating further.
Currently, visas granted upon arrival is good for visiting any
part of the archipelago.
An Australian-based researcher and an American nurse were
convicted last week for violating visa regulations when they
visited Aceh last year and wandered into separatist territory.
Hassan said the government would be monitoring any suspicious
activities by the Dutch and Australian researchers, who are
reportedly planning to visit Papua.
He said these research studies could be part of a plot to
"internationalize" Papua's independence issue, an independence
that is being sought by some people in the province.
He noted that the Dutch parliament has urged its government to
conduct research into the process by which Papua, once a Dutch
colony, became part of the Indonesian republic in the 1960s.
Such a research topic could not be for purely academic
purposes, he insisted. "Why now, and not 10 years ago?" he asked.
He feared that the researchers would look at the question of
the act of self-determination in Papua in the 1960s only
partially instead of wholly.
The minister also noted that the planned research ran parallel
to demands for a revision of the history of Papua's integration
with Indonesia by the Papuan Presidium Council, the group which
is openly demanding for an independent state.
Besides this research commissioned by the Dutch parliament, a
number of Dutch non-governmental organizations and Australian
researchers had also been trying to enter Papua to conduct their
own research, he said.