Jayapura – Regional Representatives Council member Sophie Maipauw wants the Indonesian government to help with the implementation of autonomy in West Papua with the immediate issue 19 government regulations.
The Home Ministry should make the regulations a priority as guidelines to the bylaws, she told The Jakarta Post. "The special autonomy status has been running for eight years but it has not been supported with special regulation for its implementation," she said.
An example was the bylaw for the management of the special autonomy fund; issued in 2007 it lacked the technical regulation necessary to its enforcement and this provided opportunities for corruption.
Cendrawasih University Rector Bert Kambuaya warned the absence of regulations for the management of the special autonomy fund could serve as a trap that could put officials in jail.
"People come to the regents' offices to ask for money. The regents then give them from the special autonomy fund," he said.
"This is a real situation in Papua. If what the regents do is considered as corruption based on the latest regulation, then all the regents could be incarcerated."
The Jakarta Post quotes Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi as saying that as it was now ten years since Indonesia created its first autonomous region, an evaluation of the law would now be made.
The performances of the 205 autonomous regions and their 127 mother regions would be assessed, he said. "We will focus on evaluating prosperity, the quality of administrations and public services and their competitiveness."
In January, speakers at rally of about 1,500 West Papuans in Timika demanded a referendum to settle the sovereignty of their homeland.
The speakers argued that the 1969 so-called act of free choice, or Pepera, which made the former Dutch procession part of Indonesia, did not accord with international law. The United Nations should review the poll, the speakers said.
The call for the referendum was made as the West Papuans paraded through Timika to support the registration of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua and the International Lawyers for West Papua with the European Union.
Rally coordinator Mario Pigei of the West Papua National Committee asked those European government that provided funds for the implementation of special autonomy in Papua to stop disbursing the money because 60 percent of it had been used for military operations.
"Through the national committee for West Papua, Papuans urge the United Nations Security Council to unveil human rights violations in Papua committed during the military operations," he said.