1) PNG
promotes engagement with Indonesia over West Papua
2) Timika
Airport to Be Publicly Run
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1) PNG promotes engagement with Indonesia over West Papua
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has called for engagement with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the way forward for the issue of West Papua.
Attending the Pacific Islands Forum in Majuro this week, the PNG Prime Minister said: “We are generally encouraged by the response that we are getting from the Indonesian government – especially the President – where he has stated to us very clearly that he wanted to engage with us to resolve issues in West Papua, so there is a level of autonomy for the people of West Papua.”
The issue of West Papua was high on the agenda at the June 2013 summit of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) in New Caledonia, where delegations from the Indonesian government and the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) both addressed the summit plenary.
However the topic of West Papua was not on the Forum agenda in Majuro and there was no mention of human rights concerns in the final Forum communique.
At the time of the MSG Summit, Prime Minister O’Neill and PNG Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato were leading a major delegation to Indonesia.
This week, O’Neill stressed the importance of engagement with Indonesia, given their opposition to independence for the western half of the island of New Guinea, which Jakarta administers as the provinces of Papua and West Papua.
“I want to make it very clear again that any resolutions we may have to come to in respect of West Papua will always include Indonesia,” O’Neill said. “It pays for us to stay engaged with Indonesia.”
The major focus of O’Neill’s June visit to Jakarta was trade and investment, but security issues and border relations were discussed.
“We look forward to working closely with them and also developing joint economic areas with the border area,” O’Neill said. “Some of the vast natural resources we have around the border area we can develop together.”
The PNG Prime Minister said that over time there has been improved dialogue on the issue: “I’m encouraged by the events that are taking place, including the Melanesian Spearhead Group ministers are going to have a tour to West Papua. But I’m also happy that the Indonesian government has asked us, the Papua New Guineans, to resolve some of the issues in West Papua.
As yet, details of the proposed MSG Ministerial Mission to Jakarta and Jayapura have not been finalised. In Majuro, Vanuatu’s Deputy Prime Minister Edward Natapei confirmed to Islands Business that no dates have yet been set for the visit.
In unprecedented language, the final communique of the MSG Summit in Noumea supported “the inalienable rights of the people of West Papua towards self-determination” and criticised “human rights violations and other forms of atrocities relating to the West Papuan people.”
The West Papuan nationalist movement has been lobbying for the Forum to follow the MSG’s example, and address these issues in their meetings, as occurred at the time of the “Papua Spring” in the early 2000s.
In the lead up to the Majuro Forum, the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) said the Indonesian government was unlikely to allow a ministerial visit, despite the commitment given to MSG leaders.
WPNCL Secretary General Rex Rumakiek told Radio Australia: “Their way of breaking MSG solidarity is a divide and rule policy. They’ve done that to the West Papuan people and been very successful, and they think they can do it to the MSG leaders as well.”
He says the agreement was for MSG Foreign Ministers to visit West Papua for an inspection tour together, but, Jakarta is “using the tactic of divide and rule by inviting the Group's leaders one by one.”
For the Vanuatu government led by Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil, the MSG’s engagement with Jakarta must be conducted together.
The leader of Vanuatu’s delegation in Majuro, Deputy Prime Minister Natapei told Islands Business: “We believe that the MSG should conduct this ministerial mission together, with all of us intact.”
Last month, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo made a state visit to Indonesia - the first Solomon Islands leader to visit the South East Asian nation.
In a statement after the visit, the Solomon Islands government said: “Prime Minister Lilo’s recent trip not only produced greater technical cooperation, trade commitments and people-to-people relations, but has been hailed by Indonesia for the country’s ongoing active role in multilateral forums such as the Coral Triangle Initiative, the G7 Plus and also APEC.”
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2) Timika Airport to Be Publicly Run
Public ownership of infrastructure in the eastern part of Indonesia has moved a step forward with agreement by US-owned gold and copper mining company Freeport Indonesia to hand over management of its Mozes Kilangin Airport in Mimika district, Papua province, to the Indonesian government.
The deal to put the airport in public hands was signed in Jakarta on Thursday by representatives from Freeport, the Mimika district government and the Transportation Ministry.
Herry Bakti S. Gumay, the ministry’s director general for air transportation, said the development would allow the government to better service the country’s easternmost districts.
“We welcome this and hope [improvements] will be finalized within t h e next one or two years, so that the airport can be immediately be used to serve the larger public,” Herry said.
Freeport Indonesia managing director Rozik B. Soetjipto said the company had agreed to the deal because it recognized the rapidly growing need for transportation to the Mimika area.
The airport was built at Timika, now the capital of Mimika, by Freeport in 1970 to serve its Grasberg mine in nearby Tembagapura. However, in recent years, it has also been utilized as a stopoff by general commercial flights headed from Denpasar to Jayapura’s Sentani Airport.
The airport reportedly serves an average of 200,000 passengers per year.
With the signing of the deal, management of the airport will be taken over by the public airport management unit, which will develop it to better support the local economy. It is expected the airport will focus on trade and tourism facilitation, and be expanded into a hub that connects the rest of the Indonesian archipelago with Mimika district.
Herry said that despite being put into public hands, the airport would still provide special facilities for Freeport.
“We want this to be turned into a public airport, but later there will be a special terminal for Freeport,” he said as quoted by Detik.com.
“So Terminal 1 will be for the public while Terminal 2 will be for Freeport.”
Herry said with sufficient funds, the developments could be finalized soon.
“If the budget is there and everything goes well, then it can be done in one year,” he said.
He added that funds would be provided from the national and regional budgets, in addition to a contribution from Freeport as part of its ongoing corporate social responsibility programs.
Abdul Muis, the Mimika district chief, said upgrades to the airport had long been awaited by the people of Timika and that he hoped construction would soon begin.
“The people of Timika have been waiting for this, hopefully it will come through,” he said.
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Posted at 05:58 on 06 September, 2013 UTC
The New Zealand government says the next planned programme of community policing training by New Zealand police in Indonesia’s eastern region of Papua is still on track.
The government says the Eastern Indonesia Community Policing Programme is likely to commence early next year.
New Zealand ran similar training programmes in Papua region between 2008 and 2010.
The overall design and scope of the programme being planned is yet to be finalised, but will incorporate findings from the design scoping mission undertaken last October.
The programme’s base location is to be the Papua provincial capital Jayapura, and it will work across Papua, West Papua and Maluku provinces.
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Posted at 05:58 on 06 September, 2013 UTC
Indonesia is being accused of buying the support of Solomon Islands over the prime minister Gordon Darcy Lilo’s recent trip to that country.
Mr Lilo has faced strong criticism from civil society groups and others for not giving concrete reasons for the trip, which he says Indonesia has funded, as well for the size of the delegation he took with him.
The interim head of the Joint Civil Society Group says Solomon Islands has no formalised bilateral agreement with Indonesia but his group has documents showing Mr Lilo has issued invitations to Indonesian investors.
Barnabas Henson says it appears Indonesia is trying to buy support for its stance on West Papua.
“Indonesia has had a long record of human rights abuses in West Papua and so that is one issue I can assure you that the country is not with the prime minister on.”
Barnabas Henson says his group is finalising a people’s petition calling on Gordon Darcy Lilo to resign.
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