New Region Policy: Knitting Together or Chopping Up Papua?
The state's continuing inconsistency in formulating its development policies for Papua will only bury its noble intentions and destroy the OAP's hopes for a happy life.
J Kristiadi
Only a donkey falls into the same hole twice. The message is that only an idiot makes the same mistake twice.
This adage enters the mind of those observing the government’s legislative process pushing for the formation of new autonomous regions (DOB) in Papua.
Many people feel that the process of ratifying the expansion policy for Indonesia's easternmost province has been too quick. A more important and urgent agenda is to accelerate the development and elevate the degree, dignity, and welfare of the indigenous Papuan people (OAP). This agenda has left a mountain of problems that still have not been resolved.
It is reasonable for civil society to not only ask questions, but also smell the odor of mystery behind the policy. A loud alarm has started to sound that the formation of the new autonomous regions in Papua is a biased interest of power politics. It is suspected that the state intends to make puppets of the regional administrations so they can be fully controlled.
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This is ironic, because Law No. 21/2001 on Papua's Special Autonomy and Law No. 2/2021 on amendments to Papua's Special Autonomy Law manifest the state's noble political intentions. The nobleness of the regulation is more authentic because it is accompanied by the acknowledgment that the state had neglected development and allowed decades of human rights violations in the region. The state has made an extraordinary effort in issuing the two special autonomy laws, which accord special treatment to the indigenous Papuan people. Only an OAP can become the governors of Papua and West Papua.
This aim is quite consistent. In the second edition of the Special Autonomy Law, the state has again tried to make a breakthrough by establishing the Steering Committee for the Accelerated Special Autonomy Development of Papua (BP3OKP), headed by the Vice President (Article 68A of Law No. 2/2021). Surprisingly, more than a year since the issuance of the amended Special Autonomy Law, the agency at the heart of accelerating Papuan development has still not been formed.
The state’s noble intentions have not been accompanied by a high level of sensitivity. The official in charge should follow up immediately, seriously, diligently, and in a focused way, and possess a burning passion to realize the age-old slogan: the approach to Papua’s development is to capture the hearts and minds of the indigenous Papuan people.
Ironically, however, forming new autonomous regions was the breakthrough in accelerating development. The impression is that the state has not learned from the bitter and traumatic experience of the past. From 1999 to 2014, as much as 80 percent of newly formed autonomous regions failed because they were not readied well. The state's policy response was very precise. Since 2014, a moratorium has been imposed on the expansion policy, but the practice has been to allow regional expansion without careful planning to thereby result in a tragedy.
The policy of establishing new autonomous regions is like waking a sleeping tiger. There is a long line of hundreds of regions wanting to expand. Even in Papua and West Papua, dozens of regions want to expand. Opening Pandora's box is only a matter of time. Indonesia will be like an amoeba, dividing itself endlessly until it collapses.
The threat of the failure of Papua’s new autonomous regions overshadowed a webinar (28/7/2022) organized by the Special Staff of the Vice President, in cooperation with the Regional Autonomy Institute, themed mitigating the post-establishment risks of new autonomous regions in Papua.
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First, Papua’s new autonomous regions are not oriented towards the broad framework of regional structuring. These new regions should be an integral part of the grand design strategy for regional structuring.
This includes forming and adjusting regions, as well as merging regions. Comprehensive understanding is very important, considering that each expanded region needs to be monitored, evaluated, and given a certain time limit for transitioning. If the trial deadline passes and the region’s performance does not meet the target, the new region must rejoin its parent region.
Second, the failure of the first Special Autonomy Law has left behind many complex and complicated problems, and therefore requires high focus and a strong will to overcome them.
The state's continuing inconsistency in formulating its development policies for Papua will only bury its noble intentions and destroy the OAP's hopes for a happy life.
Third, the resistance of the OAP is massive and varied. In addition to the initiative of the Papuan People's Assembly to petition the Constitutional Court to repeal the new autonomous regions, mass protests have spread across a number of areas, including the cities of Jayapura, Wamena, Paniai, and Yahukimo, which also claimed lives. The tug-of-war over the capital city of Central Papua province between the Mimika and Nabire regents has also worsened the situation. This kind of conflict can easily trigger a horizontal conflict that can sever the fabric of the Papuan people.
Hopefully, the difficult public record over Papua’s new autonomous regions will not be drowned out in the frenzy of the 2024 General Election. The state's continuing inconsistency in formulating its development policies for Papua will only bury its noble intentions and destroy the OAP's hopes for a happy life. Hopefully, the excesses of the newly formed autonomous regions can be controlled through an extra hard effort to accelerate the development of the OAP.
J. Kristiadi, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo.
