INDONESIA: Irian Jaya Hostage Crisis Highlights a Wider Problem

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Yuli Ismartono

JAKARTA, Jan 24 1996 (IPS) - The hostage-taking by rebels in Indonesia’s eastern-most province of Irian Jaya highlightg a continuing and wider political problem facing the Jakarta government — separatist movements across the archipelago.

For all the infrastructural and developmental programmes the government seeks to promote in conflict areas, Jakarta is time and time again confronted by independence movements whose actions can prove particularly difficult to play down in the eyes of the international community.

Besides Irian Jaya, other trouble spots are East Timor and Aceh, an area located at the tip of Sumatra island.

In East Timor, remnants of the insurgent Fretilin group manage to remain a disruptive element in their quest for independence from the Jakarta government despite the imprisonment of their leader Joao Gusmao Xanana since 1992, serving a 20 year prison sentence in Java.

Gusmao Xanana, a Timorese reporter and poet, has led the anti- Indonesian guerrilla movement from 1975, and though he was captured in Dili in 1992 he is still recognised leader by the independence fighters.

Shortly after East Timor gained independence from Portugal in 1975, it was invaded by Indonesia which formally annexed the territory in 1976 — a landgrab that the United Nations refused to recognise.

Human rights organisations claim that as many as 200,000 people out of a total population of 650,000, may have been killed by the Indonesian armed forces during the invasion and annexation.

In Aceh, the military campaign against groups fighting for a separate Islamic state, has failed to completely suppress dissent, making the area vulnerable to potential rebellion.

So that 50 years after gaining independence from the Dutch colonial government, Indonesian archipelago is still struggling to ward off the dangers of division among its culturally diverse population of 190 million people.

Scattered throughout its 14,000 islands are peoples from more than 200 different ethnic backgrounds, united only by a common national language.

Among the 1.9 million people of Irian Jaya alone are tribes of Melanesian and Polynesian origin, speaking 250 distinct languages.

Although 90 per cent of Indonesians are Muslims, the state constitution protects and guarantees freedom of worship to the minority Christians, Buddhists and Hindus.

Irian Jaya, formerly the western part of New Guinea island, became Indonesia’s 26th province in 1969, following a United Nations-monitored plebiscite. Human rights groups however charge the referendum was rigged and did not reflect the real sentiments of the local people.

Opposition to the Indonesian government is led by the Organisasi Papua Merdeka Free Papua Organisation) or OPM, whose current leader is Kelly Kwalik, a former schoolteacher and a member of the Amungme tribe.

In an attempt to highlight their struggle, the OPM, led by Kelly Kwalik, kidnapped 24 people on Jan. 8 near the village of Mapenduma in the central highlands.

The team of 24 were conducting biodiversity research in the Lorentz mountains for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Eleven members of the team were subsequently released, but seven Indonesian environmentalists, four British and two Dutch were on Wednesday still being held.

Three Protestant missionaries from a small church known in Indonesia by the acronym GKII, which includes Amungme people among its flock, have traveled to Mapenduma to try to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages. Amungme also number Catholic worshippers among the tribe.

Kwalik and his group are demanding compensation for damages incurred by the loss of traditionally-owned land and participation in the decision-making process, according to a statement from the West Papua Association in Australia.

However, some local analysts question Kwalik’s motives. “I don’t think he represents the majority of the local population. Members of his Amungme tribe number less than 15,000 people and their main gripe seems to be against Freeport,” said a Jakarta- based analyst for a brokerage firm.

Freeport McMoRan, a New Orleans company, which operates the world’s largest gold mine at Grasberg some 140 kms west of the hostage drama, has become a key target of the local population and environmentalists who accuse the U.S. firm of systematically destroying the flora and fauna of areas around the mines.

But Jonh Otto Ondawame, of the Sydney-based West Papua Association, made clear in an IPS interview earlier this week that the main demand of hostage-takers is for independence.

“With hostages, the point is that the demands are political rather than material demands. The fundamental issue is self- determination. For that we are calling upon the international community including South Pacific Forum countries to put the Irian Jaya issue on the international agenda.”

Analysts say a root cause of dissent in Irian Jaya is land ownership, which traditionally has been communal property. But with the advent of commercial enterprise as well as an influx of settlers from the other islands, disputes often arise between traditional land rights and state law.

Since the early 1970s, the government has relocated some 45,000 families from over-crowded Java to Irian Jaya, about 3.5 times bigger than Java but much less populated and developed.

The settlers, some of whom came from nearby Sulawesi island, tend to cultivate rice, creating resentment among local residents who grow sago and sweet potato, the island’s two main staples. The locals say the forced resettlements pose a threat to the social and environmental balance.

Some Irianese also fear the domination of Javanese culture.

“The government wants our people to adopt Indonesian culture, but it (Javanese) is really the majority culture. I think there is a danger of us losing our identity,” a community worker in the town of Wamena told the ‘Far Eastern Economic Review’ in a recent interview.

The government however says it has not been niggardly in investing in the country’s largest island and the richest in mineral resources. Last year’s budget allocation for Irian Jaya totalled 607.8 billion rupiahs (265 million dollars) — an increase of 34 per cent on the previous two years.

Priority is being given to constructing roads linking the main provincial centres, such as the 800-kilometre Jayapura-Merauke road as well as the planned trans-Irian highway.

Additionally, the provincial capital of Jayapura also gets 80 per cent of the 15 million dollars in annual royalties paid out by Freeport to the central government.

The people of Irian Jaya however remain unhappy with the present state of affairs. They complain they are often overlooked and left out of the decision-making process.

For example, companies doing business in the area often prefer non-Irianese over the local population and many tribal areas are still deprived of educational and health facilities.

“They want to develop industry here…but I think the local people are not given more chances to participate, they will be left out, just like the aborigines in Australia,” said the community worker.

Until the fruits of development are more equitably distributed in Irian Jaya, the likelihood of rebellion remains an ever-present threat to stability there — as it does in East Timor and Aceh.