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Indigenous Indonesians protest

Source
Agence France Presse - March 22, 1999

Jakarta – Scores of Indonesians from 54 of the archipelago's different ethnic groups, many in native costume, rallied at the national parliament here Monday to demand more control of their lands and respect for their birthright.

The ethnic groups, united under a name they adopted at a landmark week-long conference – The Alliance of the Indigenous People of the Archipelago – said they had been "marginalized," "colonized" and their lands and natural wealth taken over by the central government.

The group was at first blocked at the locked back gate of parliament and surrounded by 50 anti-riot troops before nine of their representatives were let in.

"We have been colonialized for the past 30 years and yet it is so difficult for us to meet with the government," screamed one participant at the troops who surrounded them.

"It is so easy for the government to steal from the provinces," he said referring to long-standing grievances over the wealth from mines and oil fields, forests and fisheries on their lands going to the central government.

The group had earlier said they wanted to present MPs with a declaration which they issued late Sunday.

In the manifesto the group said that long before Indonesia was declared a nation state (in 1945), the indigenous people had developed their "own systems of organization" and that the state "must respect the sovereignty of the indigenous people."

Because of the diversity, there is "no place for a uniform state policy" it said.

At the conference, held in a Jakarta hotel, the group which included Papuans from Irian Jaya and Dayaks from Indonesian Borneo, said some 200 ethnic groups had been "systematically victimized in the name of economic development."

The group also said they wanted the question of indigenous rights to figure in general elections June 7, the first since the fall of former president Suharto.

Some of the representatives have warned that separatist movements would flourish if the government did not listen to their grievances.

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