Wamena, Jubi – Human rights activists criticized law enforcement operation plans in 'red triangle' regions of Puncak, Puncak Jaya and Lanny Jaya regencies by security forces.
The chairman of the Papua Human Rights and Law Enforcement Advocacy, Theo Hesegem, said law enforcement operations in Papua central highlands are not a solution to resolve the problems.
"I think it is exaggerated, what is needed in Papua is a dialogue with people, not military or law enforcement operations," he said in Wamena, Jayawijaya on Wednesday (23/3/2016).
According to him, there is no major terrorist threat in Papua, because the OPM (Papua Free Movement) is an organized group established for years and its ideology is certainly different from religiousy-motivated terrorists. So, it is not proper to link the OPM with the terrorist.
He eventually thought the law enforcement or military operation is an evidence of the Central Government's inability to resolve the problem in Papua for decades.
"Central Government must observe the problem in Papua carefully. The economic, health and educational approaches are not enough, thus, a political approach is needed. And the law enforcement would trigger the human right violations that would degrade the Indonesian image upon the international community," he said.
In addition, the law enforcement operation will not guarantee on conflict resolution in Papua, on contrary it is concerned to cause many fatalities among civilians and have potency of human rights violations.
Yap Thiam Hien Award 2009 winner Pastor John Jonga said the law enforment or military operation is exaggerated effort in responding the shooting incident occurred in Sinak Sub-district of Puncak Regency, Papua Province.
"If the consideration is non-conducive atmosphere, both Police and Military must have self-reflection because I see a disappointment on law enforcement that misconducted by Military and Police," he said.
I am eventually fear if the law enforcement would sacrifice the civilians. "Better the Police and Military to initiate an approach to such groups who opposed the Republic of Indonesia. Because by using the military approach, would they guarantee to not wrongly arrest or shot the people; moreover if they go to the forest for hunting people randomly because they don't know who perpetrators are," he said. (Islami/rom)