Tribal chiefs give up land for resettlement

Tribal chiefs give up land for resettlement

JAKARTA (JP): Three tribal chiefs in Fakfak regency, Irian
Jaya have given 390,000 hectares to the Ministry of
Transmigration and the Irian Jaya transmigration office for a
resettlement site.

"No compensation has been offered in return," said the head of
the Irian Jaya transmigration office, N. Hutapea, in the
provincial capital of Jayapura yesterday.

"They gave up their land because they want to see more
resettlers in their areas. They believe they can boost
development activities in their region with the help of
resettlers," Hutapea was quoted by Antara as saying.

He said the area offered was isolated and the chiefs hoped to
free it from isolation with the help of the resettlers.

Hutapea said Chief Arguni gave up 200,00 hectares of land,
while Chief Buruai and Chief Komoro provided 100,000 and 90,000
hectares respectively.

"As a sign of goodwill on the part of the government, we
provided some funds to Chief Arguni. We also assisted him when
he went on a haj pilgrimage to the Holy Land last year," Hutapea
said.

Hutapea said the Komoro tribe in the regency of West Mimika
appeared pleased with the progress enjoyed by their brothers in
East Mimika following the resettlement program there.

Hutapea said the 390,000 hectare gift would enable the
ministry to save funds, usually allotted to clearing land, for
when it next planned to establish new resettlement sites.

Earlier this month, Minister of Transmigration Siswono
Yudohusodo insisted the sparsely populated Irian Jaya needed more
settlers from Java to speed up development. However, Emmy Hafild,
chief of the Indonesian Forum for Environment, argued that the
influx of resettlers would threaten the less educated Irian
natives.

According to government statistics, at 421,981 square
kilometers Irian Jaya is Indonesia's largest province but has a
population of only 2 million.

Since 1964, a year after becoming part of Indonesia, the
government has made Irian Jaya a major transmigration
destination. This year it is earmarked to be the second main
destination after Central Kalimantan.

Siswono said through the program Irian Jaya now had 3,000 kms
of new roads, 103 new bridges and other facilities. The
government since 1964 has moved more than 246,000 people from
Java to the island and will shift another 110,000 migrants by
1999.

Emmy argued that migrants already constituted 20 percent of
Irian Jaya's population and the newcomers were politically and
economically dominant.

"If the government really wants to improve the Irianese
people's well-being, it should improve the health, status and
skills of the indigenous people first," she said. (swe)