Neles Tebay, Abepura, Papua – The Indigenous Papuans have begun calling for referendum to decide the future political status of Papua province. The call was raised by the Papuan youth. I do think that the same call will be raised in days and months to come.

There are two major factors that trigger the Papuans to call for refendum.

Firstly, the call for referendum is raised due to the government's failure in implementing properly and consistently the Law no.21/2001 on the Special Autonomy for Papua Province.

The Papuans know that their problems have already been accomodated in the Papuan autonomy law. Therefore they have been calling upon the government to address their grievances through an effecitve implementation of the law. However, they see that the government has no moral commitment to put the law into practice. It has even no willingness to enforce the law consistently.

Instead, the government has deliberately produced some policies conflicting against the Papuan autonomy law, after having deliberately postponed for four years to issue the government regulation on the formation of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP).

One example is that the central government establishes a new province of West Papua, although by violating the Papuan autonomy law, and imposes upon the Papuans to accept the existence o f the Province.

The government under the leadership of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has not issued all necessary government regulations (peraturan Pemerintah), except one on the formation of the MRP, and therefore some articles of the autonomy law can't be executed in Papua.

Instead, President Yudhoyono has decided to issue new controversial government regulation to accomodate the presence of the West Papua Province. The regulation on West Papua will make the autonomy law more difficult to be implemented. How can the autonomy law for Papua Province be implemented also in other province?

The House of Representative, on its part, has not considered the implementation of the autonomy law as a solution to address the Papuans' grievances. Therefore the house never encourges the government to produce necessary government regulations and to do monitoring the Papuan provincial government's role in implementing the law.

Ignoring the necessity of implementing the autonomy law, the House agreed to form some four new provinces in Papua, namely West Papua, South West Papua, Central Papua, and South Papua.

The Papuan provincial government also never produces the special implementing regulations (Peraturan Daerah Khusus/Perdasus) and provicial regulations (Peraturan daerah Provinsi/Perdasi) which are necessary for implementing properly the autonomy law.

The present governor has even not yet approved the special implementing regulation (Perdasus) on how to spend properly the autonomy fund. As a result, the use of autonomy funds is completedy up to the individual governor and the regents and it can't be monitored by the people for not having legally approved criteria. Therefore, much of autonomy fund are allegedly misused by the government officials.

The Provincial legislative council (DPRP) still needs to be encouraged to prioritize the implementation of the autonomy law.

So in the eyes of the Papuans, the central government, the House of Representative, the Papuan provincial government and legislative council, all of them fail to implement the autonomy law.

As a result, the Indigenous Papuans' prosperity is not improved yet. In February of this year, Papuan governor Barnabas Suebu announced that some 80 percents of the total population in Papua province were identified living under poverty line. It means that the implementation of the law for seven years has never brought about any change in terms of the living standard of the Papuans.

The Papuans have repeatedly called for a comprehensive evaluation on the implementation of the autonomy law by involving the all Papuans in the whole process of the evaluation. The evaluation is meant to jointly identify the obstacles to the enforcement of the law and seek the solutions to remove the obstacles so that the law can be executed properly.

The government never responds to the call for evaluation, however. It means that the government wants to keep repeating the errors it has been committing for seven years. So, the Papuans already come to the conclusion that the government does not want to implement the autonomy law, properly and consistently, despite its repeated empty promises.

Secondly, the central government has not demonstrated its willingness to engage in peaceful dialogue to settle the Papua case. The call for dialogue has repeatedly been raised since 2000 by the Papuans and supported all civilian society's elements in Papua, including the Papuan rebels in the jungle.

However, Jakarta is not interested in the proposed dialogue. It means the government prefers violent approach to settle the Papua case. Perhaps, it is the reason why the central government increases number of troops in Papua.

New military commands are established in newly formed regencies. New military posts are set up along the land border with the Papua New Guinea. New battalions are formed. All battalions are added with more troops. Thousands of troops will be deployed in the future. All these make Papua as the Indonesian military occupied territory.

So the call for referendum is raised due to the government's failures to implement the autonomy law and its refusal to have dialogue with the Papuans while increasing the number of troops in Papua.

[The writer is a lecturer at the Fajar Timur School of Philosophy and Theology in Abepura, Papua.]