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Luhut says government will focus on Papua
Jakarta Post - August 19, 2015
Speaking after a two-hour meeting with heads of the ministries and institutions under his supervision, Luhut said on Tuesday that he would step up monitoring work in the province, which he said would be the first step toward stamping out injustice, leading to the region becoming more accessible to outsiders.
"There is a problem of injustice that we must solve. We are also trying to overcome the perception by foreigners that we do not take care of Papua," he said at the Office of Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister in Central Jakarta.
Luhut said that the perception of a neglected Papua was false, especially since the province received the largest share of the state budget.
However, he acknowledged that one of the priorities in solving problems in Papua was to figure out where most of the provincial funds went as they had not led to any development.
"Papua receives the largest share of the state budget, but we must figure out where all of the Rp 37 trillion [US$2.6 billion] has gone to," he said.
He said that the central government would pay close attention to officials at the Papua provincial government, who were alleged to have misused the development funds.
"During the meeting, the home affairs minister [Tjahjo Kumolo] said that his ministry recently discovered that many of the officials [in Papua] did not even live there and were often outside of the region," he said, adding that the time to blame the central government for lack of progress in Papua was over as locals had not done their jobs.
With regard to granting access to foreign journalists to Papua, Luhut said his office would soon set up a website explaining the situation in the restive region. He said that violation of no-go policies in Papua could have consequences.
"We don't want this country to be blamed for unfairness. We also refused to be dictated to by others abroad. You can't look at us in a negative light and violating our laws leads to certain consequences," he said.
For the past decade, journalists intending to report on Papua were required to fill out permission request forms, which needed approvals from various government institutions. Any foreign journalists caught making news reports without permits could face criminal charges.
In 2014, two French journalists, Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat, were arrested and jailed for not having proper permits to report in Papua. The journalists were caught trying to make a documentary on the Papuan separatist movement.
Separately, Attorney General M. Prasetyo said that the Attorney General's Office would do its part by setting up a team to monitor development in different provinces to make sure that the provincial budgets were not misused.
"The teams will be based in the center [Jakarta] and also in the regions to supervise state officials and make sure that funds are not misused, whether accidentally or otherwise," he said.
Prasetyo said that the teams would provide legal counsel to state officials in charge of development programs to ensure that the projects would be free from graft.
Separately, National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) member Muhammad Nurkhoirun said that most of the injustice experienced by locals in Papua was due to the fact that the government had failed to protect their rights.
He said that many people in Papua lived in poverty despite the province being rich in natural resources. The paradox, Nurkhoirun said, was due to the fact that locals were not given the rights to be involved in development projects affecting their lives.
"Locals in Papua must be involved in the development of the province so that they also can benefit and understand what is happening. Right now, Papua's development is only found in the imagination of those creating policies in Jakarta, or only benefiting the elites of Papua," he said. -
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/08/19/luhut-says-government-will-focus-papua.html.
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