Unresolved Papua issue: A challenge for the new President

Neles Tebay Rome

Papua is not a determining factor in the presidential campaign as it has a very small number of voters. Neither Megawati Soekarnoputri or Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono need to pay too much attention to wooing voters from among the some two million indigenous Papuans as these only account for one percent of the total number of voters in the country.

In reality, they can ignore the small number of indigenous Papuan voters, and focus their campaigning on more densely populated provinces.

But it would be a big mistake for them to underestimate the dangers presented by a failure to resolve the Papua issue.

For whoever is elected as the next president, the Papua issue will require greater attention if a peaceful settlement is to be achieved.

In the last four years, the Papua issue has been receiving greater attention from the international community. The government needs to be reminded just who the actors are who are spurring interest in the Papua issue and how the topics related to the Papua issue have been changing.

The growing international focus on Papua may be viewed from two aspects.

The first aspect concerns the actors who are heightening awareness of the Papua issue in foreign countries.

In the past, only a very few overseas non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were interested in the Papua issue. But now, it has become the center of attention for many leading NGOs from various foreign countries. Their campaign has become more effective since the establishment of the International Solidarity Group for West Papua, which holds an annual conference on the Papua issue.

The Papua question has also become the subject of study and research among scholars. As a consequence, it is receiving more attention from political, social and legal experts at a number of leading universities and research institute. Through their studies, the issue is being analyzed from different perspectives. Their work, in turn, strengthens the West Papua campaign.

Some governments have begun to closely follow socio-political developments in the western half of the island of New Guinea. Whatever their motivations are, it is clear that the Papua issue has been raised at some bilateral and multilateral meetings with the Indonesia government.

The second aspect concerns the issues raised by the above groups in relation to the Papua question. It is interesting to analyze the topics raised, particularly by foreign parliamentarians and governments.

They repeatedly insist on maintaining the territorial integrity of Indonesia, including Papua. Therefore, they are not supporting the Papuan independence movement.

They also clearly state that Indonesian territorial unity cannot be maintained by a security approach alone as military operations result in human rights violations. Instead, they repeatedly emphasize the necessity for constructive dialogue as part of an effort to tackle the root cases of the Papua issue.

When Law No.21/2001 on special autonomy for Papua Province was passed, the international community was warm in its praise and gave its wholehearted support to the Indonesian government. However, when Megawati's government postponed the implementation of the Papua autonomy law, the international community began to put pressure on the government to fully and effectively implement the legislation.

Stronger pressure was brought to bear when President Megawati issued her controversial Presidential Instruction No. 1/2003 on the division of Papua into three provinces.

With the government's failure to implement the Papua autonomy law, the focus of attention of foreign parliamentarians and governments changed.

They began raising human rights issues. Unresolved human rights violations, such as cases of summary executions, torture, arbitrary detention, rape and other rights abuses both in the past and at the present time in Papua are now being discussed. The necessity of addressing these rights abuses has been recognized.

They have been putting pressure on the Indonesian government to address these unresolved human rights abuses in Papua.

Some have even sent letters to the secretary-general of the United Nations asking him to send a UN representative to Indonesia in order to monitor the human rights situation in Papua.

This is because human rights are universal, and violations of these rights are a universal problem, even though the Indonesian government always claims that these are internal matters. More pressure on human rights violations may be expected, and the government will need to be ready to respond to this pressure.

The latest bad news for Indonesia is that the international community is now beginning to raise that very sensitive issue (for Indonesia) -- the 1969 plebiscite, or the so-called "Act of Free Choice" (AFC). It has become the subject of attention not only of NGOs, but also of many legal experts, parliamentarians and governments.

Therefore, the government will need to ready its diplomatic weapons (The Jakarta Post, July 16). In my opinion, only two weapons are needed, namely implementation of the Papua autonomy law and the consequent revocation of the presidential instruction on the division of Papua into three provinces, and engaging in a constructive dialog with the Papuans with the mediation of a third party.

Without these weapons, other countries will not be convinced no matter what the Indonesian government does.

They already know about the problems in West Papua, the root causes, the way the government is tackling these problems, and what the government will say at diplomatic forums.

If the next President perpetuates Megawati's way of handling the Papua issue, then the government must be ready to accept more international pressure.

The writer is a postgraduate student at Urbaniana Pontifical University in Rome.