Tiarma Siboro and Tony Hotland, Jakarta – A government's plan to go ahead with an earlier administration's plan to split the province into five has met with strong opposition from Papuan leaders.
The leaders were responding to the government's determination to go ahead with the plan, despite an Supreme Court ruling that the split was unconstitutional.
Papuan leaders met in Jakarta on Monday to witness the installment of the new acting governor for the province, Soejuangan Situmorang.
Situmorang, a former director general at the Ministry of Home Affairs, is replacing the late J.P. Salossa, who died in office late last year. In a press conference, several influential Papuan figures called for the central government to promote dialog with locals about the issue.
House of Representatives Golkar legislator Simon Patrice Morin said the government should explain to Papuans why it was still insisting on splitting the province into smaller territories. That move undermined Special Autonomy Law No. 21/2001, which stated that all authority to demarcate the province was in the hands of the Papuan People's Council (MRP), Simon said.
Former Papuan governor Barnabas Suebu suggested Sodjuangan, as the new governor, clarify the status of the province. This was especially important since a Netherlands report made public last year called the 1969 plebiscite making Papua part of Indonesia a sham.
"Why does the government seem to have a hidden agenda in Papua... (Why has it) committed so many violations of the law, including the special autonomy law," he said.
After the ceremony, Papuan representatives held a meeting with Vice President Jusuf Kalla.
At the meeting, Kalla agreed that neither central government nor the acting governor could make any policies regarding the planned division of Papua into smaller territories, pending the election of a definitive governor, which will be held in March at the latest.
The meeting took place amid increased protests over the planned creation of West Irian Jaya province.
Moves to separate the province into three smaller provinces began when former president Megawati Soekarnoputri issued Decree No. 1/2003 to reinforce Law No. 45/1999 on the division of the province into three provinces. Megawati's government did little to explain this divide-and-rule policy, apart from saying it was done for security, political and economical interests.
The move has been rejected by locals because it runs against the special autonomy law, which stipulates any policies regarding Papua should go through the MRP – a legislative branch established in late 2005.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has also set up a plan to divide two northern-tip of Sorong and Merauke into two more provinces.
"If the government refuses to hold a comprehensive dialog with us, I guess we should file a class action against the government because it has violated the law," a legislator Rev. Karel Phil Erari said.