The Indonesian government has suspended plans to divide the province of Papua into three, after days of sustained street fighting. But Jakarta says it has not abandoned its plan to divide the resource-rich province, to improve administration. There are fears the real agenda is to undermine the long-running separatist movement.
Presenter/Interviewer: Sonya De Masi
Speakers: Dr Agus Sumule, University of Papua; Dr Chris Ballard, Australian National University
De Masi: Fierce street fighting broke out this week when supporters of the province's division marched through the town of Timika, to mark the inauguration of the newest province to be declared, Central Papua.
A presidential decree issued in January divided Papua into three provinces, Central, East and West. Dr Agus Sumule is an academic at the University of Papua, and lives in the town of Manokwari, the capital of the new Western Papua province.
Sumule: This is one way to paralyse the whole effort, which has been built painstakingly from Papua to find a peaceful solution to antagonistic relationship with Jakarta. I think the current situation in Timika has already proved the situation ahead will be unfavourable unless there is a willingness from Jakarta to sit down with the government of Papua and find a solution to this current conflict.
De Masi: Dr Sumule is one of a group of people appointed by the governor of Papua to put together the special autonomy package which was passed into law in October 2001. He says that package requires the central government to form a Papuan People's Assembly or MRP, which he says should have preceded any moves to split the province.
Sumule: The law of special autonomy actually allows the province of Papua to be divided. The problem is the procedure is not followed by the central governemtn. The first thing is to have the Papuan Assembly formed first, a bicameral system, just normal Parliament then an indigenous assembly.
De Masi: Are you saying that decree is illegal?
Sumule: It is illegal. Under any definition it's illegal.
De Masi: He says Jakarta has also failed to consider critical issues in dividing the province.
Sumule: The first one is the so-called cultural grouping, here in Papua we have more than 250 local languages, that's already an indication it's not an easy thing to draw a line in a map. Secondly it has to take into consideration economic potential, and thridly of course is to anticipate future development. Not those three things have not been considered properly.
De Masi: Indonesia's Security minister, Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono, has announced the government will now take into account these economic and socio-cultural factors, before deciding whether to pursue the division. He's also been reported as saying the government would also review the establishment of the Papuan People's Assembly, MRP. But Dr Chris Ballard, from the Australian National University, says there is some confusion about what the governent's actually announced.
Ballard: Reuters certainly have him saying the regional augmentation in the province of Papua, that is the splitting into three except Western Irian Jaya is postponed, the status quo will remain for the time being, that's a fairly clear indication the far western province, Western Irian Jaya, is still standing but the splitting of the other two provinces is postponed. On the other hand, you have the Jakarta Post, the leading English daily in Indonesia, declaring the recent inauguration of West and Central province had been retracted.
De Masi: Would there be any reason for excluding the Western part?
Ballard: Well, the Western part of Papua or Irian Jaya has always been most likely to set up separately, and there's been a strong push from within that part of the province, certain Papuan elites to push for a separate province, there are major oil and gas reserves which lie in the West and make that province financially viable, but I imagine there's debate now in Jakarta whether to proceed, or whether to postpone and allow events to subside.
De Masi: Independence supporters believe Jakarta intends to put an end to separatist aspirations in Papua once and for all, and fear the proposal to continue to divide Papua will be resurrected soon enough. Dr Chris Ballard says there's strong evidence that this will happen, since moves to split Papua have been around since the 1980s.
Ballard: They've almost always been sponsored by security issues and by the security forces, who've seen it as essential to break up the apparent unity of the Papuans and their push for independence.