2) Military, police to form joint task force to help tackle outbreak in Papua
3) Secretary Mattis seeks ties with once-brutal Indonesia special forces unit, with an eye on China
--------------------------------
1) In Indonesian Papua, Dozens of Children Have Died From Measles and Chickenpox While Awaiting Medical Care
Written by Ian Morse Posted 23 January 2018 15:02 GMT
In the remote Indonesian region of Papua, a series of measles and chickenpox outbreaks have killed 69 toddlers and left hundreds of people hospitalized since September 2017.
The diseases have begun to spread to other regions, making some fear the total toll could breach 100. This week, the Indonesian government has sent the military to Papua to try to control the outbreak.
The Papua region is home to a mostly indigenous population that lives alongside the world's largest gold mine, one of the largest tax payers in Indonesia. Yet Papuans are among the country's poorest citizens.
Indonesians typically get measles vaccines as babies, but Papuans say the necessary medicine rarely reaches distant villages, and poor nutrition means the disease can be more damaging. Papua military spokesman Muhammad Aidi noted that, “Measles is not dangerous, it’s a mild disease. But because those children are malnourished, they can’t cope in that condition.”
Since mid-January, children in the region have also begun to die of chicken pox, a disease also easily overcome with regular nutrition. More doctors and paramedics were expected to be sent to the region on January 23.
The Asmat district of Papua has a severe shortage of doctors for a population of roughly 130,000. To make matters worse, the affected areas can only be reached by plane, helicopter, then boat. Pegunungan Bintang, a regency next door, has equally remote areas locked among mountains. Reports indicate 27 residents have died there.
The Indonesian government sent in the national military (TNI) to provide medical supplies and nutrition to regions in Asmat, but they are struggling to reach affected villages. Medical facilities are also few and far between. Forty-three patients with malnutrition could not find a place at the hospital in Asmat’s capital city but were treated in a church nearby.
Even when departing from the same island, it takes more than a day at best to reach the area. Some villages in Pegunungan Bintang require a day’s walk to reach. The remoteness also delayed the news of the outbreak.
Al Jazeera reports that some Papuans have had to travel by boat over long distances to other villages to find treatment, only to be denied care. Some children have died on the way and had to be buried on the riverbanks.
A measles outbreak was reported for the first time in September, but little was done do mitigate its spread or effects. Experts say the deaths could have been avoided months ago.
Phil Karel Erari, an environmentalist in Papua, wrote in a Facebook post that he told President Joko Widodo to improve the “concerning and bad quality” medical and education services in Papua. He also placed blame on local officials for not moving fast enough.
News site Tirto.id reported that the Minister for Social and Cultural Affairs, Puan Maharani, denied that the government response was weak and unprepared.
A local health department spokesman preferred to move on from blaming others.
We have very limited staff, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t trying very hard. What we need is not to be criticized but to be given real help. Those who criticize us, I want to invite to help here.
Hendrik Hader, a priest in Asmat, asked whether anyone really cared about the children who were dying.
Does anyone want to go there and get real data about their condition? And why do we only now say this is a problem?
The speaker of the People’s Representative council, one of the two houses of parliament in Indonesia, said that he would donate his salary to the efforts in Asmat.
In the early 1960s, with the help of the United States and a sham referendum in which only a handful of Papuans were able to vote, Indonesia invaded and took control of Papua. They allowed the US company Freeport-McMoran to operate the Grasberg mine, which has the world's second largest copper mine in addition to the more gold than any other mine.
An independence movement and low-level insurgency in Papua and West Papua, another province on the island, demands self-determination, economic development, and investigations into human rights abuses for the two provinces’ more than four million people, most of whom have indigenous roots and represent an ethnic minority in the country.
In an editorial, the Jakarta Post noted that the separatist flag often raised by Papuans in the news is more a red herring than a red flag.
Few question the arrest, torture and shooting of Papuan protesters, without questioning why anyone in a poor province would demand independence. As critics among Papuans reiterate, most Indonesians care about the rich land much more than their Melanesian brothers and sisters living too far from the capital and other more developed areas.
-----------------------------
2) Military, police to form joint task force to help tackle outbreak in Papua
Jakarta | Tue, January 23, 2018 | 03:42 pm
Safrin La Batu The Jakarta Post
The Indonesian Military (TNI) and the National Police will soon establish a joint task force to help address health problems in remote areas in Papua, the country's easternmost province where outbreaks of measles and malnutrition have recently been occurring.
The plan was made following President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s instruction he issued during a military-police leadership meeting at the TNI headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, on Tuesday, said TNI chief Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto.
"The military commander and the police chief will soon discuss the technicalities and other details so the task force could start the operations there very soon," Hadi told reporters after Tuesday's closed-door meeting.
Among the planned duties of the task force, which is expected to operate for a year, are to regularly transport medicine and doctors to Papua, as well as to monitor health issues in the province, particularly in Asmat, a regency in the southern part of Papua, and other areas prone to outbreaks.
The measles outbreak, along with malnutrition, has claimed at least 59 children in Asmat from September 2017 to January this year.
The Health Ministry had tried to prepare for the health emergency since September last year when they first received reports about the situation in Asmat, but some districts were difficult to reach quickly.
Jokowi had earlier also instructed the ministry and the TNI to work closely in tackling the health problem in Asmat, recently prompting the military to send its medical team and food supply. (ipa)
------------------------
3) Secretary Mattis seeks ties with once-brutal Indonesia special forces unit, with an eye on China
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is pushing to reestablish contact with Indonesia’s premier counterterror force, he said Tuesday, decades after it was barred from working closely with U.S. forces because of human-rights abuses.
Mattis told reporters a major component of discussion with Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu is broadening education and training with counterterror units in the country, including the special operations group known as Kopassus.
“We’re going to go down and let ourselves be guided by the facts on the ground,” Mattis said, referring to the State Department process known as “Leahy vetting” that clears foreign troops and units receiving U.S. assistance like training and equipment.
The regulation bars contact with those found to commit human-rights violations including rape, torture and murder, and it must be shown that action was taken against offending troops and units such as disciplining personnel or reassigning commanders.
“One of the sanctions is clearly that they are not allowed to go to America. They can’t do training together, and he will reopen this,” Ryacudu said after his talk with Mattis.
---------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.