3) The View from Indonesia
Jayapura, Jubi – Numbuk Telenggen, the commander of the Third Defense Command of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) in Ilaga stated that they will not remain silent following the security forces’ action of apprehending Komputer Tabuni, also known as Alenus Tabuni. Telenggen asserted that they would obstruct and reject the implementation of the Regional Head Elections in November 2024.
Telenggen made this statement during a phone call with Jubi on Tuesday (5/3/2024). He admitted that Komputer Tabuni, who was arrested in front of the Ilaga Community Health Center on February 18, 2024, is a member of their group.
“During the Presidential Election and Legislative Election, we did not engage in any activities. However, the security forces arrested Komputer Tabuni in Kago, Ilaga. We need to remind that because of this, the TPNPB will resist all activities of the Indonesian government in Papua, especially in the Puncak Regency,” said Telenggen.
According to Telenggen, Komputer Tabuni is a member of the TPNPB Third Defense Command in Ilaga. “When the police arrested him, he was carrying a pistol,” he said.
Telenggen admitted they had seized SS1 firearms from a member of the Ilaga Airport Air Security Unit Police Post on February 1, 2024. However, Telenggen denied that Jukius Tabuni, who was apprehended by the Cartenz Task Force Cartenz on Saturday (2/3/2024), was a member of the TPNPB.
“I want to emphasize that Jukius is not a member of the TPNPB. Jukius is an ordinary civilian who was arrested and interrogated by the security forces. I heard he has been released due to lack of evidence. My members who seized the weapons were with me. So, soldiers or police should not arbitrarily arrest civilians,” said Telenggen.
Telenggen affirmed that they would disrupt all Indonesian government agendas. “As the operational commander, I need to affirm that we will cancel all Indonesian government activities in Puncak through our actions in the field. We will continue to resist until we expel Indonesia from our homeland,” he said. (*)
Timika, Jubi – Agustinus Hanggaibak, chairman of the Central Papua’s People Assembly (Central Papua MRP), announced that his party has formed a special committee to analyze the environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) of PT Freeport Indonesia, with Yehuda Gobay appointed as the chairman of said committee.
“We have established it, and Yehuda Gobay has been appointed as the chairman of the Freeport’s AMDAL committee to examine the involvement of indigenous communities, including the Amungme and Kamoro,” he said in Timika on Tuesday afternoon (5/3/2024).
Hanggaibak added that Yehuda Gobay would visit Timika to observe firsthand and meet with the Amungme and Kamoro communities.
“The formation of this committee is crucial because of the leadership dualism in Lemasa and Lemasko, so their involvement in the AMDAL is also a concern of the Central Papua MRP as it concerns the future of the Amungme and Kamoro tribes in the Land of Amungsa,” he said.
He emphasized the need to involve Lemasa formed through indigenous deliberation (musdat) in the AMDAL preparation process, as it is for the benefit of indigenous communities, ensuring that no parties exploit the dualism in traditional institutions.
“Traditional institutions must start through indigenous deliberation, and in the future, a Customary Court will also be established to resolve land and other issues,” he said, adding that the Amungme and Kamoro communities must unite in discussing their future through the Freeport’s AMDAL committee to ensure everyone is involved and accountable.
Meanwhile, the second AMDAL from Freeport is still in progress. Freeport hopes everyting will proceed smoothly.
“The Second AMDAL of Freeport is still in progress. We are optimistic that the process will proceed as expected,” said Agung Laksamana, EVP External Affairs of PT Freeport Indonesia in response to Jubi’s inquiry via WhatsApp on Sunday (21/1/2024).
It is known that the Second AMDAL of Freeport concerns underground mining and tailings.
Separately, Enrico Kondologit, an anthropologist from Cenderawasih University, stated that a team from Cenderawasih University’s anthropology department participated in technical meetings on Wednesday (17/1/2024), as well as the AMDAL commission meeting on underground mining and tailings from Freeport on Friday (19/1/2024).
He added that the faculty’s dean, also an anthropologist, Marlina Flassy, participated, and they all returned from the AMDAL commission meeting on Friday night (19/1/2024).
According to Jubi sources from Jakarta, all AMDAL teams are under the auspices of PT Widya Cipta Buana, conducting an AMDAL study on Freeport’s underground mining. PT Widya Cipta Buana collaborates with the Research and Industry Affiliate Institute (LAPI) of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). (*)
3) The View from Indonesia
On 14 February 2024, in Jakarta’s old Chinatown district of Glodok, a chain-smoking gentleman with a nephew studying in Melbourne gave me his shorthand view of that day’s election. “In Indonesia,” he began, before an exhale of kretek fumes, “we always know who is going to win before the vote.”
The joke harks back to the Suharto era, when elections were held but with the president firmly controlling power. A quarter-century after Suharto was ousted by a people’s movement, the joke still lands with the man’s friends. The polling lead enjoyed by Prabowo Subianto and vice presidential candidate Gibran Rakabuming Raka was so commanding that the result was a foregone conclusion even with booths still open. Canberra knew which way the wind was blowing – Anthony Albanese was the first world leader to call with his congratulations.
For the year leading up to the vote, however, nothing looked certain. Prabowo’s hat in the ring for the third time prompted pity and derision. The highly connected former general, who was once married to Suharto’s daughter, had lost twice to President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, the everyman from smalltown Java. But by 2020 Prabowo was Jokowi’s defence minister, and any lingering animosity between the duo had disappeared as the country looked to 2024.
Jokowi, fighting his own battles with PDI-P – the party led by former president Megawati Sukarnoputri that got him to the presidential palace – turned away from his party and towards Prabowo. Some quick maths showed that the presidency was winnable if Prabowo’s 2019 vote held and Jokowi mobilised even a portion of his supporters in his former rival’s favour.
Some funny business helped too. The questionable dissemination of welfare payments raised eyebrows, as well as Jokowi’s involvement in campaign events – technically legal, but not appreciated by many who saw the president as violating norms established by his predecessors since the return of democracy. The race was won, however, in the halls of the Constitutional Court. A minimum age requirement for candidates was overruled for 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, Jokowi’s eldest son, on the grounds that his term as mayor of Solo demonstrated enough experience. It didn’t hurt that Jokowi’s brother-in-law Anwar Usman headed the court.
These tactics weren’t of much concern to the nearly 60 per cent of Indonesians who voted for the ticket, nor to an Australian government desperate to strengthen ties with Jakarta. Albanese, after his post-election call with Prabowo, said in a tweet that the pair chatted about Albanese’s “ambition for the future of Australia-Indonesia relations”.
Those ambitions were on show on 20 February after Australian Defence Force chief General Angus Campbell met with Prabowo and General Agus Subiyanto, the newly appointed head of the Indonesian military. The meeting was highly publicised in local media. The trio chatted “about the longevity of defence relationships between the two nations as well as opportunities for closer collaboration on a shared vision for an open, stable, and prosperous region”, according to Tempo.
By 23 February, Prabowo had met with his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, in Jakarta, where a new defence cooperation agreement was hatched; it is set to be signed in the coming months. While details are slim, Prabowo called the agreement “very significant”. Marles raised the rhetoric – and expectations – during a post-meeting press conference, saying that “Australia and Indonesia have a shared destiny and a shared collective security and that is the basis on which we are moving forward with our own defence planning”. Indonesian media reported that the agreement is expected to be significant, perhaps trumping the landmark 1995 security deal signed between President Suharto and Prime Minister Paul Keating.
The post-election readjustment of the relationship should be much smoother than that experienced by Jokowi and Australia’s revolving door of prime ministers. In the opening years of the Jokowi era, damaging incidents in the relationship piled up, including the execution of Bali Nine ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, revelations of Australian spying on powerful Indonesians, and issues with live exports of cattle from Australia into Indonesia.
It’s hard to see any scandals that might loom on the horizon. Even mild tensions – particularly the response to the AUKUS security agreement in Jakarta and elsewhere in South-East Asia – are of little concern to Prabowo, a leader inclined to staying out of others’ business if it means they’ll stay out of his. While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta was none too thrilled to learn that nuclear-powered submarines could soon be lurking in waters nearby, Prabowo is accepting. Having noted the official position of the Indonesian government, he told media that he understands the Australian urge to “protect their national interest”.
The Australian government is happy, and so are the tens of millions who support Prabowo. That still leaves, however, a sizeable minority who remember the Suharto era and Prabowo’s various roles in it. A world away from my new friends in Glodok, an old friend took her younger sister to a booth in leafy South Jakarta. “Will I get to vote next time?” her sister, just shy of the voting age of seventeen, asked her. In a show of the gallows humour in which Indonesians are world leaders, my friend responded: “I hope so.”
Erin Cook is a Southeast Asia-based journalist who covers the region through her daily Dari Mulut ke Mulut newsletter.
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