Police disperse Papuan students as they hold a protest against the Indonesian government's plan to develop new administrative areas in the country's easternmost Papua province, near Jayapura, Papua on May 10, 2022. - AFP
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The House of Representatives unanimously passed a set of laws on Thursday (June 30) to establish new administrative units in Papua, in what critics say could undermine indigenous rights and stoke further tensions in the restive region.
The legislation has carved three new provinces out of what was previously the province of Papua: South Papua, Central Papua and the Papua Highlands. West Papua has remained as it was.
“We hope that this will not only reduce conflicts but also bring equitable development to the whole of Papua,” Ahmad Doli Kurnia, chair of the House Commission II overseeing home affairs, said on Thursday (June 30).
The commission had fast-tracked deliberations on the bills so that they could be brought to a House plenary meeting that day. Home Minister Tito Karnavian said at the plenary session that the establishment of the new provinces was intended to spur development, improve public services and create more opportunities for Papuans to become civil servants.
Jakarta’s push for redistricting had intensified after the House passed an amendment to the Papuan Special Autonomy Law last year that bypassed the requirement for the government to consult with the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP), which represents the region’s indigenous peoples, and the local legislative council (DPRP) before the creation of new provinces in the region.
Late last month, the three bills on the new Papuan provinces were listed as pieces of priority legislation.
Lawmakers had been scrambling to marshal support for the plan from the local elite, with some representatives visiting Papua last week to meet with regents and inviting senior Papua administration officials — who also represented Governor Lukas Enembe — and representatives from the DPRP to meetings in Jakarta.
They got the nod, but critics have said the Papuan elite do not represent grassroots voices, which have rejected the plan over fears that it will be used as a pretext to tighten government restrictions on Papua.
As the House held the plenary session on Thursday, human rights groups including Amnesty International Indonesia hosted a press conference to express their opposition to the laws.
They criticised lawmakers and the executive for pressing ahead with the major redistricting plans without listening to the voices of indigenous Papuans. Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid asked why policymakers had pushed the legislation through so rapidly when the MRP was still challenging the autonomy law at the Constitutional Court.
“This is new evidence that the government is moving to undemocratic governance, as there is no such decentralization, only recentralization of power,” he said.
MRP chair Timotius Murib, who attended the civil society groups’ press conference, said Ja- karta had been encroaching on the rights of Papuans since the amendment of the autonomy law last year.
“The Papuan people’s trust in the government has been low ever since,” he said. Nabire-Mimika tensions Discord arose between Papuan groups after policymakers announced that the city of Nabire would be the new capital of Central Papua, in a Jakarta-centered decision that drew strong opposition from the city of Timika in Mimika regency.
A number of Mimika residents held a peaceful protest on Thursday to demand that Timika be made the capital instead, kompas.com reported.
“If the decision is [to make the capital] Nabire, we will close Freeport so that mining operations cannot run,” one of the protesters, Antonius Beanal said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.
Freeport is a mining company that controls the largest reserves of gold and copper in the world, which are located in Mimika.
Meanwhile, Dora Balubun of the Tanah Papua Bible Christian Church, who attended the civil groups’ press conference in Jakarta, said the unilateral decision on the new capital could trigger further conflict between Nabire and Mimika.
She noted that the dispute between the regents of Nabire and Mimika had been apparent as House members visited Papua last week, where they met with the regents to hear their views. But the House had insisted on passing the bills into law.
“Lawmakers should have solved that problem first,” she said.
