Mengintip Negeri Juche
A documentary made during the celebration of the centenary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung, in April 2012.
Give Peace a chance in Papua
Couple weeks ago, I saw this tagline in a friend timeline ‘Give Peace a Chance in Basque country’, yes a friend from Basque. Basque is located in Spain and France, although if you go to Basque you will find some poster said ‘Remember, you are not in Spain nor in France’. But the thing that I like is, the words said Give peace a chance, so let me borrow the tagline for Papua.
Papua, this region has come up in the front page in Indonesia media, lately. The fact that the Free Papua Movement or OPM has just opened an office in Oxford, UK created fury from many people, particularly Indonesian.
However, here I would like to highlight the debate on the Papua itself. Let me begin with the history of the integration of Papua as part of Indonesia, for sure it’s inseparable from the Act of Free Choice (PEPERA) that was held in 1969, to let Papuan voted whether they want to join Indonesia or they want to have a different state. Why there was PEPERA in Papua? Why they finally integrated to Indonesia? Why there is a resistance group in Papua?
Well, as we (all Indonesian) know that the country declared independency from the Dutch colonialism in 1945. Then what is Indonesia? Let me borrow Bennedict Anderson explanation here: ‘Indonesians were those who shared the burden of white colonial rule in the Netherlands Indies’ which then we call as Sabang to Merauke. But, in fact that the Dutch colonialist was excluded Papua, which then created a dispute between Government of Indonesia and the Dutch over the territory. Both side finally agreed to meet and signed the New York Agreement in 1962, with one of the point is giving Papuan a choice to decide it by themselves through PEPERA that would be held in 1969, while UN will temporary administer the areas. In fact, the agreement was made without the consent of Papuan or any of their representatives. Owing to this, in 1962 UN sent the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) to Papua, but then left the region in 1963, and let Indonesian government took control over the region. Some scholars argued that during this time, Indonesian government has used military oppression and committed human right violation in Papua, which gave birth to the armed struggle of OPM. I would say OPM reacted to the oppression and marginalisation of their communities. Budiarjo and Liong (1988) explained to ensure the result of PEPERA would benefit Indonesia, massive military troops sent to Papua and attacked not only the OPM members but also civilians.
International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and Elsham reported that before PEPERA was held, military operation launched including operasi sadar in order to diminish OPM. Marcus Kaisepo, President in exile of West Papua explored that in March 1967, Indonesian government attacked Manokwari area through air, sea, and land and killed more than 2000 people (cited in US declassified document regarding to Memorandum of Conversation on Papuan Independence and the West New Guinea Plebiscite, 1967).
Soeharto regime at that time also rejected the use of one man one vote as asked by the UN. Soeharto applied his own model of voting by taking 1,024 representatives (one man represent about 750 people), as a result 1,022 people vote in favour of the integration with Indonesia.
What I want to underline from the historical background above is that the government of Indonesia at that time has used violence to pursue their goal. Am I in favour for Papuan independency? I don’t say so, but let me write my thought on it. Whose interest is protected here? I would say all the violations committed by Indonesian government at that time was motivated by some foreign interest, particularly for the natural resources in the region, well ‘paradox of plenty’ or ‘resource curse’ if I may quote.
Then let us see what has happened after the PEPERA that decided Papua as part of Indonesia. We can borrow Lord Acton thought about nationality in Essays on Freedom and Power that published in 1949 here:
“The co-existence of several nations under the same State is a test, as well as the best security of its freedom. It is also one of the chief instruments of civilisation; and, as such, it is in the natural and providential order, and indicates a state of greater advancement than the national unity, which is the ideal of modern liberalism…. Inferior races are raised by living in political union with races intellectually superior”
Referring to Acton, I believe there would not be any problem if Papuan has not been marginalised. Military oppression, centralisation policy, transmigration policy that make Papuan as ‘the other’ in their own land under the New Order regime, obviously has marginalised Papuan. As a matter of fact, even after Soeharto stepped down from the presidency, the situation has not change much, why because the use of military oppression or violence still used by the government. What about autonomy that has been given? Well, borrowing William Easterly term of ‘native autocrats’ as one way used during the colonialism, that’s what I thought.
So, I would argue in the case of Papua, negotiation should be the way out, the government of Indonesia and OPM should sit together to negotiate and talk. We should have learnt from Aceh that the used of military oppression and violence never give us the way out of the situation. Obviously, only through peaceful means peace in Papua can be achieved and one thing for sure violence will only give birth to another violence.
I remember, once I came to Johan Galtung conference, as he always believe in, he also said that negotiation is the only way out for the conflict in Papua. Galtung (cited from abstract presentation he delivered ‘Four components of Peace’, in Tutu Centre, Liverpool Hope University on 28-30 January 2013) made his own formula in creating peace, where the two numerator factors believed the more the better, while the two denominator leading to direct violence and structural violence, the less the better.
Constructing Equity: cooperation for mutual and equal benefit;
Constructing Harmony: emotional resonance, in the Daoist sense of enjoying the joy, and suffer the suffering, of other;
Reconciling past trauma: clearing the past, acknowledging wrongs, wishing them undone, dialogues about how and a future together;
Resolving present conflict: making incompatible, contradictory goals more compatible, softening negatives attitude and behaviour.
And there is nothing can be finished in one night, it’s only a fairy tale we heard when we were kid, about a thousand temples that built overnight, sorry but I will say there is no such a thing. One man cannot change everything in one night only, so does peace. It takes time and it has to face a long way before achieved its goal. Aceh took several negotiations before the signing of Helsinki MoU, Basque nationalist movement (ETA) has declared ceasefire and broke several times before decided to use political way, and our neighbour Philippine has just sign the peace agreements with the MILF after years of negotiation. So, Why don’t we give peace negotiation a chance in Papua?
*the history compiled from several sources
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