Jakarta (Antara) – Intelligence expert Suripto strongly suggests the Indonesian government withdraw military support from Papua to avoid the image of an ongoing confrontation between locals and the military.

"The massive deployment of troops does not solve the problem. That will instead spark suspicions and sentiments of a new form of colonialism," said Suripto in Jakarta today.

He added that the government's current strategy to deploy thousands of troops to Papua could be misunderstood as a form of confrontation or military invasion of the region, and that the government must learn from past experiences.

"We must learn from the East Timor incident," he advised.

He said that a military approach was not the perfect approach to stem a number of problems in the region that involved issues such as political identities.

As a solution, he called on the government to suppress potential conflicts and resort to persuasive approaches by respecting the identity of Papuans.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1244594/intelligence-expert-suggests-military-withdrawal-from-papua