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.