1) Transmigration Is the Last Thing That Papua and Its People Need

2) Police personnel dismissed  for allegedly selling ammunition 

3) Many Ways to Smuggle Ammunition and Firearms into Papua

4) Regent Promises to Improve Merauke Hospital’s facilities

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http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/transmigration-last-thing-papua-people-need/

1) Transmigration Is the Last Thing That Papua and Its People Need

By Bobby Anderson on 09:30 pm Nov 10, 2014

Category Commentary, Opinion

Tags: Marwan Jafar, Papua, transmigration

(JG Graphics/Modina Rimolfa)

Marwan Jafar, President Joko Widodo’s new minister for village development, disadvantaged regions and transmigration, announced on Oct. 31 that he would make Papua more attractive to Javanese migrants by working with the police and military to provide security there. Marwan, from the National Awakening Party (PKB), one of the smaller parties in Jokowi’s cabinet, might have been seeking to impress his boss with his can-do attitude. Instead, his statement reveals a complete ignorance of the volatility in Indonesia’s easternmost province, of which tension between migrants and Papuans is a part.

Papuans are utterly marginalized by the Indonesian government, from the ministerial level on downwards. They have the lowest life expectancies in Indonesia, the highest maternal and child mortality rates, the lowest educational levels, and the lowest incomes. In the hinterlands where most indigenous Papuans live, the presence of the state is found in shuttered schools and empty clinics. The area hosts the last active insurgency in Indonesia, and the majority of Papuans support independence because the state has no relevance in their lives. Special Autonomy has provided nothing beneficial to ordinary Papuans: returns from Papua’s mineral wealth are soaked up by a constipated bureaucracy or otherwise misused.

And then there’s migration. Migrants from other parts of Indonesia now constitute over half the population of Papua province. In 2010, the ratio of non-Papuans to Papuans was 52-48. The indigenous Papuan population grows at 1.84 percent a year; the migrant population, 10.82 percent. The 2014 ratio may be 60 migrants to every 40 Papuans.

In Papua’s towns, where the most of the functioning schools and health clinics are found, and where migrant populations are concentrated, the ratio is even more extreme. Jim Elmslie at the University of Sydney predicts that indigenous Papuans will be only 29 percent of the provincial population by 2020. If mines, palm plantations, and other extractive enclave investments continue to expand, unregulated migration will increase in tandem, and Elmslie’s prediction will prove to be conservative.

Migrants absolutely dominate Papua’s markets. Papua’s towns are characterized by migrant businesses operating in fixed and permanent abodes, while Papuan businesses are out on the sidewalks, with goods laid out on blankets: vegetables from garden plots, betel nut, shoe repair, and so on. Most Papuans engage in subsistence-level agriculture, petty trades, and day labor. The service industry favors hiring migrants, as do construction contractors. Papuans are generally found in either the civil service or in subsistence.

Papuans cannot compete for a few important reasons.

Firstly, education: migrants have benefitted from schools in their areas of origin: second- and third- generation migrants are concentrated in towns where their kids attend working schools. But rural areas where the majority of Papuans live have never benefitted from a systematic and functioning educational system. Papuans aren’t getting the educations that are required for market transactions, because most of the teaching positions are no-show jobs. Markets are not understood instinctively: we learn them theoretically in school and practically in business. Capitalist markets are themselves alien to Melanesian societies were exchanges are meant to form reciprocal bonds, not generate profit (this is why bargaining in indigenous markets doesn’t work).

Second, discrimination: most migrants do business within ethnic and extended family-based networks that have no place for Papuans except at the bottom rung.

Third, affirmative action: this aspect of Papua’s special autonomy dissolved into the awarding of no-show civil service jobs rather than the building of an effective workforce and managerial class.

The majority of ordinary Papuans are left behind in Indonesia: they have been cheated out of educations, healthy lives, and meaningful work. The migrants who surround them in the cities are emblematic of their marginalization. This is not the fault of individual migrants, who are only seeking to better their lives: the average Papuan and average migrant have more in common with one another than they have with their own predatory elites. But current migration is viewed as nothing but a continuation of the previous transmigration program, with new arrivals resembling an undifferentiated mass of invaders who are taking jobs and economic opportunities. Papuans see migration as different points on the same continuum that ultimately leads to their extinction.

Under transmigration, the poor from densely populated islands like Java, Bali, and Madura were shipped to lesser-populated parts of the archipelago — Maluku, Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. It relocated as many as 20 million people, with the greatest numbers settled in Kalimantan and Sumatra. Javanese were primary transmigration targets because Java is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, and this was transmigration’s primary concern. It was also a social engineering experiment: officials in the Suharto era were never shy about their intention to blur ethnic boundaries in the interest of solidifying an ‘Indonesian’ identity. Transmigration didn’t succeed in alleviating poverty; instead, it distributed it, and the preponderance of transmigrants that now work as airport porters and ojek drivers in Papua attests to this.

Between 750,000 and one million transmigrants were sent to Papua: low indigenous population density ensured that they would create huge sociological and demographic impacts. They were given incentives to relocate, including grants, land and homes. Papuans were provided no such things. Health and education services were provided in migrant areas: Papuan areas did not receive the same services. Traditional land ownership was not recognized and compensation was not given for land seized to make way for these new settlements. When Papuans tried to assert their rights over the land, they were answered with violence. This also reveals the depths of the minister’s ignorance about this issue: every square meter of Tanah Papua is claimed by a clan or extended family that derives sustenance from it, worships the ancestors that dwell in it, or simply has used it in the past and plans to use it in the future. Many of these borders were fought hard for, drawn in blood in the time before Indonesia. None of this land is “empty.”

Transmigration was drastically reduced after Suharto’s fall. At present, such population transfers are generally based upon provincial requests, of which none will be forthcoming from either Papua or West Papua. Governments there have rejected the program.

Papuans need what other Indonesians need: the rule of law and protection from the predations of their own elites. They need health care; a functioning educational system; controls on migration; a legitimate affirmative action program, not just in Papua, but nationally; and an equitable distribution of the wealth that their land produces, not simply an allowance for elites to siphon funds. Papuans need a special autonomy law guided by legislation and with limited discretionary funds: the “special autonomy plus” draft created by the government of West Papua contained many of these provisions but they were not incorporated in the flawed final draft which was ultimately rejected by Jakarta. That rejection is an opportunity under Jokowi’s administration.

The last thing that Papuans need is transmigration. By asserting that Javanese transmigration will be re-started in Papua, either the minister has no clue what he’s talking about, or, more frightening, he knows exactly what he’s talking about. I’m betting on the former. He should do a little research before he speaks: Papua is not a stage for a new minister’s fatuous utterances to the press.

This underlies the need for the Jokowi administration to rapidly design an innovative policy on Papua that transcends failed past approaches that were founded in the belief that every problem can be solved with either cash or guns. The new administration’s diverse ministries must speak on Papua with one voice, and be reprimanded when they speak otherwise.

Bobby Anderson (rubashov@yahoo.com) works on health, education and governance projects in eastern Indonesia, and travels frequently in Papua and West Papua.

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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/11/10/police-personnel-dismissed-allegedly-selling-ammunition.html

2) Police personnel dismissed  for allegedly selling ammunition 

An officer from the Nduga subprecinct police station in Nduga regency, Papua, First Brig. Tanggam Jikwa, has been dismissed from his unit for having violated ethics and discipline as a member of the National Police.

The police’s code of ethics commission head, Comr. Irwan Sunurdin, said Tanggam was proven guilty of selling ammunition to an armed civilian group at Papua’s Pegunungan Tengah region.

“Tanggam was proven to have repeatedly committed violations. He was proven guilty of having violated rules; therefore, we sanctioned him in accordance with Article 22 of the National Police decree No.14/2014 on the permanent dismissal of a National Police member,” said Irwan when he read out the commission’s ruling during a code of ethics session in Jayapura, Papua, on Monday.

Tanggam was arrested in Wamena on Sunday, together with the armed group leaders, Rambo Wendan and Rambo Tolikara, as well as several other members.

During the raid, Tanggam was caught red-handed selling 29 rounds of ammunition worth Rp 3.5 million (US$287.64). The Nduga Police officers later found 231 rounds of assault rifle (SS1) ammunition when they searched Tanggam’s house.

During the investigation, Tanggam admitted he had sold ammunition to the armed group, saying that he was forced to do it in the hope that he could get his firearm back, which was lost in 2013.

Tanggam said he lost his revolver when riding on a two-wheeled vehicle with a local resident. Tanggam then began to make friends with the local armed civilian group in hopes of getting his lost revolver returned to him.

In April, Tanggam sold 18 rounds of ammunition to the Rambo Tolikara group, from which he earned Rp 600,000.

Tanggam never had his revolver returned by the armed group by the time he was arrested on Sunday.

Tanggam was reported to have committed ethical and discipline violations three times. In 2011, he was detained for 21 days for having been proved careless in carrying out his duties so that a prisoner was able to flee from a detention facility. Tanggam was also reported to have once been involved in a fight with a police officer colleague and had often run around drunk.

Apart from the code of ethics trial, Tanggam also will face charges in front of the Jayapura District Court. (ebf)(++++)

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http://tabloidjubi.com/en/?p=3289

3)Many Ways to Smuggle Ammunition and Firearms into Papua

tabloidjubi.com Nov 6th, 2014 0 Comment

Jayapura, Jubi – It is difficult to end ammunition and firearms smuggling into Papua because of porous border control, said Cenderawasih XVII  Military Commander Major General Fransen Siahaan.

Despite utmost efforts to guard the border, there are still many gaps and opportunities for those who have the intention to smuggle ammunition, Siahaan said.
“Military police have not been able to close the gaps and there are definitely opportunities for rogue elements to help supply ammunition to armed groups or separatists,” he said on Wednesday ( 5/11).

He said he hoped that the community could trust the military police forces in maintaining security in order to realize the peaceful land of Papua. “We also support the true vision and mission of the Governor in order to achieve a peaceful land of Papua,” he hoped.

The media reported earlier five suspected suppliers of ammunition and firearms had been arrested by Special Teams Police in Papua I and Manokwari, West Papua, on Saturday (1/11) and  taken to the police in Papua on Tuesday (4/11).

They are Saiful Duila, (26),Stenly Salmau (37), Amirullah (34), Leonard Takaria (34) and Herry Lawalata (19).

Papua Deouty Police Chief  Brigadier General Paulus Waterpauw said police investigators are investigating from where the ammunition came from and why  the suspects had the ammunition and firearms.
“Whether it is used for armed groups or for their own benefit, it is still being investigated,” Waterpauw said. (Indrayadi TH/ Tina)

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4) Regent Promises to Improve Merauke Hospital’s facilities

tabloidjubi.com Nov 7th, 2014 0 Comment

Merauke, Jubi – Merauke regent, Romanus Mbaraka, visited the State Hospital and promsied to improve facilities there.

The regent said that many shortcomings were found in the hospital and that the surgery room and other medical facilities should be improved.
“Yes, we will make some improvements in health sector and will be focused in 2015,” he told reporters on Thursday ( 6/11).

“I also visited ICU room. It will be discussed with the Head of Medical office and Director of the Hospital to find better place strategically in order to maximize service to the community, “he said.

He added that in 2015, it will be built as well as the hospital type B for the referral of the patient in the southern region of Papua ie Mappi, Asmat, and Digoel. “We will soon be realized, because this is also one of the programs of the Papua Governor, Lukas Enembe,” he said.

Merauke Health Chief Stephen Osok said the hospital still lacks adequate facilities and efforts will be made to improve it.

Asked about the plan to build a Type B hospital, he said the government has prepared a location. “We have planned it for long time and the governor is paying serious attention to it,” he added. (Frans L Kobun/ Tina)

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