Would An Independent West Papua Be A Failing State?
David Adam Stott
“Where it cuts across the island of New Guinea, the 141st
meridian east remains one of colonial cartography's more arbitrary yet
effective of boundaries.”1
On July 9, 2011 another irrational colonial border that demarcated
Sudan was consigned to history when South Sudan achieved independence.
In the process an often seemingly irrevocable principle of
decolonisation, that boundaries inherited from colonial entities should
remain sacrosanct, has been challenged once again. Indeed, a cautious
trend in international relations has been to support greater
self-determination for ‘nations’ without awarding full statehood. Yet
Kosovo is another state whose recent independence has been recognised by
most major players in the international community.2 In West
Papua’s case, the territory’s small but growing elite had been preparing
for independence from the Netherlands in the late 1950s and early
1960s, and Dutch plans envisaged full independence by 1970. However, in
1962 Cold War realpolitik intervened and the United States engineered a
transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia under the auspices of the United
Nations. To Indonesian nationalists their revolution became complete
since West New Guinea had previously been part of the larger colonial
unit of the Netherlands East Indies, which had realised its independence
as Indonesia in 1949. In West New Guinea, most Papuans felt betrayed by
the international community and have been campaigning for a proper
referendum on independence ever since.
Jakarta has staunchly resisted any discussion of West Papua’s status
outside of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia. However, in February 1999
Papuan civil society representatives convened in Jakarta for
unprecedented talks with President Habibie, Suharto’s successor who was
eager to demonstrate his reformist credentials. Habibie’s own successor
Abdurrahman Wahid initially attempted a policy of tentative engagement
with Papuan civil society, which included sponsoring the Papuan Congress
of May 2000. This so-called ‘Papuan Spring’ of 1999-2000 marked the
zenith of pan-Papuan organising and solidarity, prompting speculation
that West Papua might follow East Timor in conducting a referendum over
its status. During this period Papuan nationalists were also able to fly
their Morning Star flag for the first time without fear of long jail
terms or violent reprisals. However, as hardliners in the Indonesian
military consolidated power after a period of relative weakness, the
flowers of the Papuan Spring withered and Wahid was removed from office
in July 2001.3
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Papuan girl at an independence rally in Wamena, August 2011. Photo by Alexander Pototskiy
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In response to the Papuan Spring, the Indonesian authorities have
pursued a dual strategy — a repressive security approach that also
characterised the Suharto years (1966-1998) and co-option of local
elites through the 2001 Special Autonomy Law, which has been used to
promote greater Papuan participation in local administration. The
security approach has combined increasing troop numbers with greater
surveillance of civil society, and since mid-2000 the state has again
responded to flag-raising ceremonies with violence and long prison
terms. In a symbolic act, the Indonesian military’s special forces also
killed Papuan Congress chairman Theys Eluay in November 2001. Meanwhile,
the Special Autonomy Law, on paper a much more comprehensive devolution
of authority than most other provinces gained under Indonesia’s
nationwide regional autonomy legislation of 1999, was designed to
assuage Papuan demands for independence.4 However, whilst the
territory does receive the biggest per capita allocation of central
government development funds in Indonesia, Jakarta does not trust
indigenous Papuan officials enough to properly implement Special
Autonomy and has therefore severely curtailed much of the promised
autonomy.5 Its halting implementation has also been accompanied by increasing numbers of Indonesian migrants settling in West Papua.
So far, this dual strategy of dividing Papuan civil society and
increasing the costs of Papuan resistance has appeared effective since
the momentum generated during the Papuan Spring has not been sustained.
Nevertheless, the frequent demonstrations across the territory
protesting the failures of Special Autonomy and demanding a referendum
have taken on a greater urgency since Indonesian migrants now constitute
more than half of West Papua’s population. However, if allowed to vote
in a referendum it is probable that many of these settlers would view
continuing integration with Indonesia as more in their interest. This
raises the question of whether they could or should be excluded from
participating in any vote on West Papua’s status. At the time of East
Timor’s referendum in 1999, Indonesian migrants constituted around 10%
of its population and were excluded from the voter registration process.6 For
Papuan nationalists, the demographic situation is therefore much more
perilous, and it has also been argued that an independent West Papua is
unviable.7 This paper will attempt to analyse what kind of
independent state West Papua might become if the territory were to
follow Timor-Leste and South Sudan into statehood. Would it become
another so-called ‘failing state’, like its closest neighbours Papua New
Guinea (PNG), Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands? By examining some of
the difficulties affecting West Papua’s neighbours post-independence
this paper will introduce some of the main challenges an independent
West Papua could likely face. In conclusion it will examine the
prospects for a better future for ordinary Papuans, whether through
independence or genuine autonomy within Indonesia.
Melanesia or Asia?
The division of New Guinea between two states, indeed between two
continents, can be traced back to 1828 when the Dutch proclaimed their
territorial possessions ended at the 141st meridian east, roughly
halfway across the large island. During the scramble for empire that
also decided the colonial demarcations of Africa, New Guinea’s eastern
half was to be administered by German, British and, subsequently
Australia colonial governments, before gaining independence in 1975 as
Papua New Guinea. However, the western half of New Guinea remains a
colony, having being forced in 1962-3 to swap Dutch colonialism for a
much more pernicious, militarised Indonesian form. As such, this
accident of colonial cartography has proved remarkably durable, and
through Indonesian control officially demarcates the border between Asia
and Oceania, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to
its west and the Pacific Islands Forum to the east.
Indigenous Papuans are a Melanesian people in common with Pacific
neighbours PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji, and
are thus racially and ethnically distinct from the vast majority of the
Indonesian population. With the exception of partly Polynesian
contemporary Fiji, Melanesian countries are characterised by an
extremely large number of indigenous ethnic groups due to geographic
factors that have encouraged massive linguistic diversity and clan-based
ethnic identities. In the case of New Guinea such factors include
mountainous terrain, dense rainforests, steep valleys, impenetrable
marshland and large distances, which have combined to create isolated
communities speaking different languages and developing different
cultures. Indeed, New Guinea is home to almost 1000 indigenous
languages, with a reported 267 on the Indonesian side, representing
around one-sixth of the world’s ethnicities.8 In PNG, Solomon
Islands and Vanuatu these micro-polities are so numerous that none are
able to impose hegemony over others at national level. Whilst these
micro-polities have often fought each other, ethnic conflict is usually
restricted to a local level, unlike in sub-Saharan Africa where it has
also existed at a national level, most notoriously Rwanda in 1994. Thus
creating small, relatively heterogeneous single-member electoral
districts or constituencies has been viewed as a potential strategy to
minimise ethnic tensions at a local level in PNG, Solomon Islands and
Vanuatu.9
Whilst such extreme ethnic fragmentation is rare outside of
Melanesia, the presence of large numbers of Indonesian settlers makes
the situation in West Papua uniquely complicated. Indeed, Indonesian
migrants in West Papua themselves constitute a plethora of ethnic
groups, representing the archipelago’s ethnic diversity. Most Indonesian
settlers in West Papua come from Maluku, Sulawesi or Java. Despite the
diversity of both native and migrant groups, both view the distinct
differences in skin tone, hair type and even diet as symptomatic of
intrinsic differences that override any other ethnic categorisation.10
The first wave of Indonesian migrants in the colonial era were
Christian teachers, officials and professionals from the nearby
territories of Maluku and North Sulawesi, brought in by the Dutch
administration to help run the territory prior to World War II.11 After
1945, the Dutch forced the departure of many of these functionaries to
prevent the spread of Indonesian nationalism but around 14,000 of them
were still living in Dutch New Guinea in 1959, with around 8,000 being
from the neighbouring Maluku archipelago.12 Since many of
these middle-ranking officials had served the brutal Japanese occupying
regime, the seeds of Papuan resentment towards Indonesian settlers had
already been sown.13 The United Nations-administered
transition period of October 1962-May 1963 effectively began the
Indonesian takeover, and resulted in an influx of Indonesian civil
servants and security personnel, mostly Muslims from Java. This too
caused resentment since they replaced Papuans who had been trained under
the Dutch for self-governance. In February 1966 a hundred Javanese
families set sail for the territory, thus slowly beginning the West
Papua chapter of Indonesia’s nationwide transmigration programme, which
subsidised families to move from overcrowded regions to less-populated
parts of the archipelago.14 Between 1969 and 1989, the
programme moved some 730,000 families from Java, Madura and Bali to
Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and West Papua.15
The transmigration policy reached its zenith in the 1980s, and the
number of ‘official transmigrants’ in West Papua is now dwarfed by
‘spontaneous transmigrants’ who migrated internally with little or no
government help. This constitutes two separate patterns of migration
since many of the largely Muslim Javanese official transmigrants were
originally settled in rural areas where few other migrants ventured. The
self-funded migrants originate mainly from eastern Indonesia, mostly
Muslims and Christians from Sulawesi and Maluku who usually settle in
urban areas along the coast.16 It is these self-funded
migrants whose numbers are rising vertiginously. In addition to
spontaneous economic migration, other drivers of contemporary Indonesian
migration into West Papua are the expansion of the bureaucracy that
accompanies the national decentralisation process and large-scale
agricultural ventures such as palm oil plantations and the proposed
Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate. Plans to convert even more
land to palm oil and other plantation crops will likely increase the
rate of migrant population growth. By contrast, the indigenous Papuan
population is unlikely to grow much faster in light of poor healthcare
in rural areas and much higher rates of HIV among indigenous Papuans
than Indonesian migrants.
Indigenous and Indonesian settler population in West Papua17
One particular difficulty that would immediately confront policy
makers in an independent West Papua is the fact that the territory has
become divided into two realms - of the (mostly coastal) towns and
cities, where migrants constitute the majority and dominate all
commercial activity; and the rural interior, which is overwhelmingly
Papuan, employed in subsistence farming and often only loosely connected
to the modern, cash and international economy. For example, data from
the 2000 census shows that in Mimika regency, where the huge Freeport
gold and copper mine operates, those born outside of the regency made up
some 57% of the population and in Jayapura regency, the territory’s
biggest urban centre, they constituted 58%.18 Whilst the
towns and cities are relatively prosperous by Indonesian standards, the
countryside is populated by an underclass of indigenous tribes who
suffer the worst living standards in Indonesia. Since the coastal areas
contain most of West Papua’s industries and work opportunities in the
formal economy, they also attract better-educated Indonesian settlers
who invariably secure the best private sector positions. For instance,
it has been estimated that these migrants possess more than 90% of all
trading jobs in the territory, and they also dominate the manufacturing
sector.19
Papuan rural to urban migration in search of employment actually
predates the Indonesian takeover since it began during the Allied war
effort and increased with the Dutch expansion of government after their
return in September 1945. Wage labour for the war effort and
subsequently the Dutch colonial administration was the major form of
employment for almost twenty years but such opportunities became scarcer
for indigenous Papuans after the Indonesian takeover, forcing many back
into a subsistence lifestyle. Migrant domination of the coastal towns
and cities continues to crowd out indigenous Papuan migration to urban
areas, thus reducing their employment opportunities in the formal, cash
economy. Indeed, as migrants continue to arrive they consolidate
existing ethnic networks, which are vital for gaining choice employment
in Indonesia. Given the relative paucity of the indigenous business
class, such ethnic networks work against Papuan job hunters, with the
result that Papuans continue to work mainly in subsistence farming.
Exacerbating this divide, migrants have also achieved greater success in
commercial agriculture, allowing them to take control of local markets.
This reality is already a significant issue for both provincial
administrations to handle, and has prompted calls for positive
discrimination for indigenous Papuans to better compete in the job
market. How an independent West Papua deals with this problem would
likely have a substantial bearing on the stability and viability of the
nascent nation state.
Failed States
In 2007 Chauvet, Collier and Hoeffler estimated the total cost of
failing states at around US$276 billion annually in lost GDP, with
Pacific island nations accounting for US$36 billion of that.20 The
Failed States Index, which perhaps should be described as the failing
states index, defines a failed state as “one in which the government
does not have effective control of its territory, is not perceived as
legitimate by a significant portion of its population, does not provide
domestic security or basic public services to its citizens, and lacks a
monopoly on the use of force.”21 In the 2011 Index some 177
sovereign states are ranked on their vulnerability to collapse according
to 12 indicators, among them conflict, corruption, demographic
pressures, poverty and inequality. The rankings are headed by Somalia
and dominated by countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Timor-Leste was
perceived to be the most vulnerable state among West Papua’s neighbours,
although its 23rd place ranking reflects an improvement in its domestic
security situation since 2008. The Solomon Islands was ranked 49, PNG
54, Indonesia 64 and Fiji 68.22
Whilst the spillover effects of state failure to their neighbours are
reduced since Pacific countries are islands, Chauvet et al (2007) warn
that, “The cost of failure might be higher than average in small islands
because they are atypically highly exposed to the global economy”. This
is largely due to the fact that, “Both capital and labour are likely to
be highly mobile internationally in small islands.”23 The
implication is that the residents of the country itself shoulder most
costs of state failure in the Pacific, in contrast to other regions
where the spillover effects to neighbours are much higher. The same
research calculated that over a 20-year period the total cost of such
state failure in PNG amounted to some US$33.5 billion, or around US$1.7
billion in lost GDP per annum, whilst in the smaller Solomon Islands it
reached US$2.2 billion, equivalent to US$0.1 billion per year.24 If
correct, this hypothesis suggests that state failure could be
particularly damaging to an independent West Papua trying to find its
feet.
Failed states are usually characterised by high political
instability; rampant corruption; dysfunctional economies; collapse of
government services; breakdown of law and order; internal conflicts; and
loss of state authority and legitimacy. Such state paralysis allows
local and traditional leaders to displace the state’s power in their
respective areas, and the state becomes effectively unified in name
only. In Melanesia’s case a youth bulge also further threatens
stability, and PNG and the Solomon Islands are the states most closely
associated with state failure within the whole Pacific islands region
which also encompasses Polynesia and Micronesia. In both countries high
crime rates, extensive political corruption and rampant tribalism are
becoming increasingly threatening. By analysing the present situation in
West Papua this section will consider whether some of the pressing
issues gripping its neighbours would likely affect an independent West
Papua too.
Political Instability
“Melanesia and East Timor are now widely perceived in official and
academic circles as an ‘arc of instability’ within which economic
development has also largely stalled.”25 Whilst only Fiji has
suffered military takeovers, political instability has characterised
Melanesia since independence. Across the region unrepresentative elites
often manage to seize control of the state and use their positions for
self-enrichment and empowerment of their own narrow constituencies,
usually confined to members of their own clans or language groups. The
pre-eminence of these so-called ‘Big Men’ is highly entrenched and feeds
a situation in which locals see themselves as “followers of the state”,
that is “personified as a big man . . . bound by . . . reciprocity to
look after and redistribute resources to his followers”.26 The
legitimacy of such big men and their administrations derives both from
their ability to sustain patronage networks and from international
recognition and assistance. As has been the case across both Indonesia
and Melanesia, diverted development funds and revenues from commodity
exports enriches politicians, their cronies and public servants,
engendering mistrust of the authorities, hampering development efforts,
fostering rising levels of crime, and even encouraging internal
rebellions.27
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Topographical map of West Papua
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The extent to which such a patronage-based style of politics has
contributed significantly to state weakness and political instability
across Melanesia and the Pacific is particularly visible during
elections. A familiar pattern in elections in PNG, for instance, is an
unwieldy number of candidates and parties competing against each other
in which over 50% of sitting candidates are not returned. Many new
members win their seats with under 10% of the vote and consequently
cannot or will not represent the remaining 90%. Intense bargaining often
ensues after the votes are tallied, with the many independent
candidates trading their votes for handouts to their supporters.
Political parties in PNG, and in other Melanesian states, are usually
centred on an individual leader rather than being ideologically based.
Thus, political parties frequently splinter in light of the competing
interests of their leaders, and it could be many years before
issues-based politics become entrenched across the region. The
inevitable outcome is a fractious coalition government fused together
only by corruption and bribery in the absence of party loyalties and
awareness of the public good. Ironically, disillusionment with a
fragmented national parliament further fuels instability since electors
increasingly vote for smaller political parties or local independent
candidates instead of the major national parties. As a result, the
failure of leadership across Melanesia to act in the national interest
is seemingly putting the systems of democracy under threat, especially
in light of the region’s rapidly growing, increasingly urbanised young
population.
The Westminster system of parliamentary democracy as practiced in
Melanesia has not proved able to hold elected politicians to account
partly because the electorate seems to have little concept of how the
system is meant to operate. Furthermore, many of the MPs that get
elected have no genuine understanding of how the Westminster system
should operate. Instead, many only care about getting in to parliament,
securing a government post that guarantees all the perks and privileges,
and then clinging onto power. A politician in Melanesia needs to pay
back those who voted for him, and a government position is usually the
only means to do so. The inevitable result is that politicians spend
their entire term in parliament maneuvering to get into government by
any means necessary, leading to frequent motions of no confidence in the
sitting government by those attempting to form the next government. As a
consequence, the whole basis of democracy in Melanesia appears
inherently unstable, and illustrates the problematic nature of grafting
liberal democratic political systems onto traditional authoritarian
arrangements of hierarchy and leadership.
Indeed, democracy appears to be in crisis in all of West Papua’s
closest neighbours. Whilst PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are all
formally constituted on the Westminster system of parliamentary
democracy, each suffers regular constitutional crises and parliamentary
votes of no confidence. For instance, PNG’s acting prime minister is
currently facing a Supreme Court challenge over his, allegedly
unconstitutional, appointment in December 2010, whilst his predecessor
had been trying to install a new governor-general, an appointment beyond
the remit of the prime minister. The widespread fraud and violence that
overshadowed PNG’s general elections in 2002 and 2007 also suggests
that democracy is under siege. Meanwhile, the Solomon Islands has had 15
governments since independence in 1978, the vast majority of which have
been unstable coalitions in a persistent state of flux and under
constant threat of no-confidence votes. Indeed, the very first act of
the newly appointed opposition leader in April 2011, himself a former
prime minister, was to lodge a motion of no confidence in the sitting
government. In Vanuatu the government was toppled in a similar
no-confidence vote at the end of 2010, whilst Fiji was formerly a
democracy but a military coup in 1987 ushered in alternating periods of
military rule and parliamentary democracy. The most recent coup of
December 2006 re-established military control and elections scheduled
for March 2009 have been postponed to September 2014 at the earliest.
East Timor also has had a difficult transition to independence.
Violent clashes flared in 2006 when approximately 600 soldiers,
constituting some 40% of the armed forces, were dismissed after
protesting alleged discrimination against troops from the west of the
country. This necessitated the deployment of peacekeeping forces from
Australia, Malaysia, Portugal and New Zealand to quell the violence and
looting in the capital Dili. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was forced to
resign and other members of the political elite were implicated in the
troubles. In February 2008 rebel soldiers broke into the homes of
President José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, resulting
in a serious gunshot injury to Ramos-Horta and the fatal shooting of
rebel leader Alfredo Reinado. Gusmão managed to escape from his home
prior to the rebels’ arrival but his car was peppered by gunshots on its
way to Dili. Whilst political tensions have gradually subsided since
then polarisation ensures the nascent state remains fragile.
Given that none of its neighbours have enjoyed political stability
since independence, it would be a challenge for an independent West
Papua to avoid similar problems, especially since it is currently
suffering from other symptoms that characterise failing states in the
region. A foretaste of instability might be glimpsed in the controversy
surrounding the MRP (Majelis Rakyat Papua or Papuan People’s Assembly), a
body established under Special Autonomy to be staffed entirely with
indigenous Papuans and to represent Papuan cultural interests. Whilst
the body is not equivalent to a second chamber of the provincial
parliament, it does have a role in the legislative process and in theory
should possess significant political authority. However, elections to
the MPR have been dogged by allegations of irregularities, most recently
in February 2011 when Papuan civil society complained about a lack of
transparency in the vote counting process. The provincial parliament and
three Protestant churches were among the dissident voices expressing
their disapproval of the MRP, whose membership and leadership have also
been subjected to interference from the central government. For example,
Jakarta rejected the recent re-election to the MRP of Agus Alue Alua
and Hanna Hikoyobi, the body’s chair and vice chair for the 2005-2010
period respectively, amid accusations that the pair had been using the
MRP to promote Papuan independence. Moreover, the history of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka
(OPM, or Free Papua Movement), the territory’s main armed resistance
movement since 1965, has been riddled with internal ethnic rivalries
that have compromised the group’s effectiveness.28
Corruption
In addition to political instability, corruption is also endemic
throughout Melanesia, particularly in PNG and Solomon Islands but also
to a lesser extent in Vanuatu and Fiji. Indonesia’s reputation for
corruption is well founded too, with many observers arguing that it has
actually worsened and become more diffuse since Suharto’s fall in 1998.29 Transparency
International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2010
ranked Indonesia and the Solomon Islands joint 110th worst out of 178
countries for “the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist
among public officials and politicians”.30 Vanuatu was ranked 73 and PNG 154.31 PNG’s
Public Accounts Committee found in February 2010 that only five of some
1000 government departments, agencies, provincial governments and
statutory organisations it investigated had satisfied the Public
Accounts Management Act to properly account for government funds.
Nonetheless, Port Moresby has shown little inclination to seriously
prosecute corruption cases, strengthening the perception that nepotism
and cronyism are becoming increasingly entrenched. Whilst PNG probably
deserves its low ranking, one weakness of the CPI is that it does not
account for local variations within countries, as anecdotal evidence
suggests corruption varies significantly among the cities, districts and
provinces of many states. The CPI also fails to take into account the
foreign drivers of corruption, which characterise resource extraction
schemes in particular.
Nevertheless, most politicians in Melanesia tend to be motivated by
self-enrichment and localism, an obvious recipe for corruption that is a
strong feature of government in PNG and is being replicated in West
Papua. As part of its policy response to the Papuan spring of 1999-2000,
Jakarta has cultivated an elite of indigenous Papuan politicians and
bureaucrats in order to ameliorate separatist sentiment. The Special
Autonomy Law of 2001 specifies that provincial governors must be
indigenous Papuans and that indigenous Papuans are to be granted
priority appointment as judges and prosecutors. Aside from the position
of governor, Indonesian settlers have controlled the territory’s
bureaucracy, especially at the higher levels. However, under Special
Autonomy the indigenous elite has demanded a greater role in running the
territory, in response to the increasing numbers of Indonesian migrants
dominating the formal private sector. Their vehicle has been the MRP
whose members have also pushed for laws stipulating that local
administration heads and their deputies must be native Papuan. Although
real efforts to employ more Papuans in government service only began in
the late 1990s, as a result of Special Autonomy it was estimated in 2005
that around 35% of the civil service was indigenous Papuan.32 This
contrasts with Dutch efforts that had Papuans comprising around 30% of
the civil service in 1957 and around 75% in September 1962 on the eve of
the Dutch departure.33
Special Autonomy has also dramatically increased the amount of
government money flowing into West Papua. The World Bank has calculated
that transfers from the central government to the territory have risen
over 600% in real terms since 2000, with the result that Indonesia’s
decentralisation policy has mainly served to increase local level
corruption in West Papua.34 In addition to dispersing an
average of US$ 240 million per annum in 2002-2006 under the Special
Autonomy legislation, Jakarta has also provided extra funding for
infrastructure development. This amounted to US$ 72 million 2006 and US$
95 million in 2007.35 Some 60% of Special Autonomy funds are
distributed to the two provincial governments and 40% to local district
governments but these transfers have resulted in little improvement in
health, education and development outcomes in much of the territory.
Despite having been largely marginalised since 1963, it seems that
Papuan bureaucrats and politicians have learned quickly from their
Indonesian colleagues how to enrich themselves via government positions.
Civil servants and local politicians in West Papua have also
benefitted from national level reforms that have created new
administrative divisions throughout Indonesia under a policy known as pemekaran
(literally blossoming or blooming). In West Papua, this process has
again been driven by indigenous elites lobbying for the creation of new
regencies, districts, subdistricts and villages in order to promote clan
interests and gain access to government funds.36 For
instance, local government in the territory had expanded to 38 districts
by 2010 from nine districts in 1998. Such new administrative units
offer customary leaders the opportunity to occupy newly created
positions and to financially benefit from their creation. This has
prompted greater competition for power and influence, fuelling tensions
between ethnic elites particularly in Ayamaru, Biak and Yapen, as well
as between coastal Papuans and those from the highlands interior.37
The territory of West Papua was itself also partitioned in February
2003 into the provinces of Papua and West Papua, with a third province
also proposed. This division of West Papua into three provinces was also
driven by indigenous elite rivalries, and led to violent demonstrations
in which several protesters were killed. Whilst the proposed Central
Irian Jaya province was later shelved, the creation of West Papua
province was allowed to stand as a fait accompli despite the
Constitutional Court ruling that this split violated Papua province’s
Special Autonomy Law. The establishment of West Papua province stemmed
from Papua province’s 1999 gubernatorial elections won by Jaap Solossa.
His defeated opponent was Marine Brigadier General (retired) Abraham
Atururi, who had been one of the three deputy governors under the
previous governor. Whilst both Solossa and Atururi benefitted from Dutch
primary and secondary education and subsequently worked with the
Indonesian authorities after the sovereignty transfer, ethnic
differences characterised their political rivalry. Within the proposed
new province of West Papua, Solossa drew support from the Ayamaru and
Sorong elites who had been disenchanted with Atururi when the latter was
Sorong district head. Similarly, Atururi was backed by other Bird’s
Head regional elites dissatisfied with the ethnically Ayamaru district
head. As Governor of Papua province, Solossa opposed any partition of
the province, whilst Atururi saw the creation of West Papua province as a
political opportunity.38
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West Papua province, carved out of Papua province in 2003
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Ethnic tensions and competition for resources also shaped the actual
composition of West Papua province. For example, new districts such as
Raja Ampat and Fak-Fak initially preferred to remain within the rump
Papua province since they feared domination by politically savvy Sorong
and Ayamaru elites.39 West Papua’s creation also resulted in
the founding of 28 new regencies, among them Teluk Bintuni that hosts
the Tangguh liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plant operated by
multi-national BP. Project development began in 1999, and the plant
finally started shipping LNG to China, South Korea and the United States
in 2009. This US$5 billion scheme gave greater impetus to the creation
of West Papua province, which is also home to substantial logging
interests around Sorong.
Regional ethnic rivalries over the capture of resource revenues were
also visible in the proposed establishment of Central Irian Jaya
(Central Papua) province, which was supported by elements in the central
highlands and the southern coastal plain who feared domination by the
northern coastal elite. Given that this province would contain the
Freeport mining operations near Timika, the biggest gold mine and second
biggest copper mine in the world, the potential rewards were very high.
Clemens Tinal, Timika district head, and Andreas Anggaibak, Speaker of
the Regional House of Representatives, lobbied vigourously for its
creation, apparently receiving support from Indonesia’s State
Intelligence Agency.40 Opposition to the establishment of
Central Irian Jaya province came from the Amungme and other Timika
ethnic groups, and was closely linked to existing inter-ethnic disputes
among communities surrounding the Freeport mine over access to Freeport
community support funds and community leaders’ ties to the Indonesian
military. When Anggaibak formally announced the province’s creation in
late August 2003 riots ensued in which five people were killed and
dozens injured.
The rioting over the proposed establishment of Central Irian Jaya
province prompted elites from Biak and Nabire to argue that their
regions would be a safer choice to site the new province’s capital.41 This
laid bare tensions between northern coastal elites and highlanders over
access to revenues from the Freeport mine. Indeed, Timmer (2007)
suggests that, “Highlanders and people from the south-coastal regions
(Mimika, Merauke) are often consumed with envy about the power enjoyed
by northern coastal elites who have a remarkable acquaintance with
Indonesian ways of doing politics”.42 Whilst the local
population enjoys greater representation in district governments of the
highlands and the southern coastal plain, among Papuans in the
provincial bureaucracy those from northern coastal communities in Biak,
Yapen, Sentani, Sorong and Ayamaru do indeed predominate. The
comparatively low level of development across most of the highlands
exacerbates such ill feeling, and presently most violent resistance to
the Indonesian state is incubated in the highlands region. As a result,
highlanders are known to characterise northern coastal Papuans as
collaborators with the Indonesian authorities. This could yet
affect political stability in the territory since the proposal to create
Central Papua province is now back on the agenda, comprising 14
regencies with Biak as the capital and Dick Henk Wabiser, a retired
admiral from Biak as the acting governor.43
Indeed, district heads in several regions across West Papua have
pushed for their districts to become the capitals of new provinces under
pemekaran and decentralisation.44 They include
Merauke, Yapen Waropen, Serui, Biak, Nabire, Fak-Fak and the highlands
as the creation of new provinces promises access to power and resources
to regional Papuan elites. For instance, Merauke politicians have
campaigned for a South Papua province since Merauke is home to West
Papua’s largest concentration of Catholics and whose leaders have long
felt excluded by the largely Protestant and migrant dominated provincial
capital Jayapura. This proposed new province has also been home to
locally significant tribal rivalries since Merauke was divided into four
districts in 2002.45
Whilst the Papuan spring of 1999-2000 seemed to indicate that over
thirty years of Indonesian rule had inculcated a genuine pan-Papuan
national identity, in contrast to neighbouring PNG, “local support for
partition demonstrates that Papuan unity is fragile and the development
of a coherent territory wide identity remains a work in progress”.46 The
division of the territory polarised the Papuan elite between those such
as former Governor Solossa, prominent Papuan intellectuals and many
civil society groups who opposed it and other elites who stood to
benefit from the founding of new provinces, regencies and districts.
Complicating matters, the security forces have also supported the
creation of new administrative units since their establishment has
frequently been accompanied by the creation of new military and police
commands. Whilst all provincial governors under Indonesian rule have
been indigenous Papuans, they have had to tread carefully with the
Indonesian military, which has been the single most powerful state actor
since the Indonesian takeover. Greater Papuan participation in the
public sector has also seemingly destabilised the territory, with the
elections for district government heads, in particular, becoming an
arena for political conflict. So widespread has this trend become that
one analyst was moved to state, “ethnic differences play a significant
and sometimes alarming role in land and resource politics”.47 Just
as in other Melanesian states, these rivalries are playing an
increasingly visible role in West Papuan politics, not just between
different indigenous groups but also between Papuans and Indonesian
settlers. These developments indicate that corruption and political
instability would be a further challenge for an independent West Papua
authority to overcome.
Poor Government Services
The nexus of corruption, ethnic rivalries and chronic political
instability, characterised by frequent parliamentary votes of no
confidence, greatly undermines Melanesian governments’ capacity to
effectively deliver public services. In PNG, resource revenues and
international assistance have not translated into better roads, schools
and health services. Despite receiving billions of dollars of Australian
aid, scant development has occurred and per capita incomes have barely
improved since independence in 1975. Particularly during the monsoon
season, impassable roads hamper local trade and fuel internal migration
into cities and towns. Moreover, evidence suggests that public service
delivery is more problematic in multiethnic democracies.48
Likewise, West Papua is already suffering from the poor delivery of
public services, especially in rural areas where indigenous Papuans
predominate, and evidence from its neighbours indicate the delivery of
public services would be unlikely to improve after independence. Over
the last decade, the indigenous Papuan middle class has benefitted from
an expanding civil bureaucracy and increased local government funding
under decentralisation and Special Autonomy. However, it is obvious that
this newly empowered and enlarged Papuan bureaucracy has little ability
to dispense public services. Since educational standards have long
lagged behind those in the rest of Indonesia, there is a dearth of
sufficiently qualified people and many of these bureaucrats apparently
have little relevant education or experience. Indeed, it has even been
claimed that primary school teachers without administrative experience
are running agriculture departments.49 At the very least, this illustrates that Papuans badly need better education services.
"Special Autonomy has failed: Papuans’ right to life is threatened" |
Those in West Papua who advocate the creation of new administrations
argue that it improves public services in hitherto isolated rural areas
but there is little evidence that this has actually happened. Instead, pemekaran
devours much of the territory’s development budget to pay for office
construction and the hiring of the extra staff, with the result that
West Papua has the highest per capita expenditure on civil service in
Indonesia but with little indciation that performance has improved.
Indeed, in 2005 the World Bank found that in parts of Papua province the
amount spent per capita on civil servant salaries was 60% above the
Indonesian national average.50 Whilst more Papuans have
secured jobs in the civil service, their lack of education and training
has also resulted in the recruitment of more Indonesian settlers to
shore up the administration of the expanded civil service. The
territory’s poor relative performance was underlined in Indonesia’s
Regional Economic Governance Index, which surveyed 245 regencies and
municipalities across 19 of Indonesia’s 33 provinces in 2011. Districts
and cities in West Papua and Maluku comprised nine of the 10 worst
ranking units in the survey, with Waropen regency in Papua province
rated the worst of all.51 Interestingly, in a list dominated
by districts in Java and Sumatra, Sorong in West Papua province was
rated fifth best in the Index.
One of the reasons for the poor performance among indigenous Papuan
civil servants is that West Papua has long had the lowest per capita
expenditure on education in the country. This is despite it having the
highest per-capita revenue of all six Indonesian regions thanks to its
resource earnings and small population.52 In 2006 it was
reported that West Papua also had the worst participation rates in
education, with enrolment for primary education at 85%, dropping to 48%
for secondary school and 31% for high school.53 Furthermore, some 56% of the population had less than primary education and 25% remained illiterate.54 These
figures cover both migrants and indigenous Papuans across both
provinces, and are exacerbated by an unequal distribution of educational
resources, concentrated in the coastal towns and cities at the expense
of rural areas. Indeed, figures from 2005 indicate that the average
distance to junior secondary schools in densely populated Java was 1.9
kilometres whilst in West Papua it was 16.6 kilometres.55 Government
data from 2008 indicated that only 17.63% children in rural Yahukimo
district had completed their primary education. Moreover, even
indigenous urban residents are still twice as likely as migrants to have
little or no formal schooling, a disparity that was first recorded in
the 1970s.56 Newer figures from the UN Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) suggest that secondary school enrolment in Papua province is
only 60% compared to the Indonesian national average of 91%. Where
schools do exist, often there is a serious lack of books and teachers,
especially in rural areas of the central highlands since most teachers
prefer to live in urban areas.
Health indicators also paint a vivid picture of indigenous Papuan
deprivation. In 2004 West Papua had the lowest per capita expenditure on
public health in the country, despite its resource earnings.57 As
a consequence, indigenous Papuans also suffer the lowest health
standards of any Indonesian citizens. In results published in December
2010, Pegunungan Bintang district in Papua province placed last in the
Ministry of Health’s Community Health Development Index, which measures
health care across all 440 districts and municipalities in Indonesia.
Indeed, of the lowest 20 districts across the country 14 are found in
eastern Indonesia, mostly in Papua province. The quality of these health
care rankings are based on 24 indicators such as the per capita ratio
of doctors, immunisation rates, access to clean water and the incidence
of mental health problems.58 Geographic inaccessibility is undoubtedly a factor in such discrepancies, however.
As with education, health services in rural areas remain very poor,
with only a minimal government presence outside of areas with military
bases. Whilst health centres have been established in all sub-regencies,
these clinics remain poorly staffed and equipped. For instance, in 2006
it was reported that in Papua province the average distance of a
household to the nearest public health clinic was 32 kilometers, whereas
in Java it was 4 kilometers.59 In 2009 there were only 12
government hospitals, six private hospitals and 213 clinics across the
whole territory. Such inadequate primary health care affects life
expectancy, already the lowest in Indonesia. West Papua also has highest
HIV/AIDS rates in the country. The UNDP Report for 2010 notes that the
territory has the highest per capita rate of HIV/AIDS infection in
Indonesia at 2.4%, well above the national average of 0.2%, with aid
agencies critical of the government’s lack of response. Malaria and
tuberculosis rates exceed national figures also.
As a result of poor government performance in education, health and
welfare, West Papua also continues to post the lowest human development
index (HDI) scores in Indonesia, along with the country’s widest
variation in district HDIs.60For instance, in 2004 the
central highland regency of Jayawijaya had Indonesia’s lowest HDI
classification of 47, whilst the multi-ethnic port city of Sorong scored
73. In 2009 the new district of Nduga in the deprived central highlands
scored 47.45, compared to 74.56 in Jayapura, the territory’s biggest
city. The HDI also assesses how economic growth in GDP (gross domestic
product) translates into improvements in human development by comparing
average per capita GDP in each province with its HDI ranking. In 2004
Papua province scored worse than any other Indonesian province since it
ranked third in terms of GDRP (gross domestic regional product) but only
29th (out of 30 total provinces at the time) in HDI. Newer
data compiled by Statistics Indonesia in 2009 produced a similar
outcome, and ranked Papua province as 33rd out of 33 provinces and West Papua province 30th.61 Whilst
it can be argued that much of this disparity is due to the Dutch
colonial legacy and the difficulties in delivering basic services in
remote areas, the UNDP concluded that these figures are “a clear
indication that the income from Papua’s natural resources has not been
invested sufficiently in services for the people”.62
Given the wide cleavage between the migrant-dominated coastal urban
areas and the deprived, overwhelmingly indigenous interior, such
disparities in human development become even more marked. The UNDP
definition of poverty uses factors such as illiteracy, access to health
services and safe water, underweight children and the likelihood of
people not reaching 40. Under this definition, the HDI research found
that within Papua province some 95% of all poor households resided in
rural areas, markedly worse than the national average of 69% and a clear
indicator that poverty was concentrated in the indigenous population.
The UNDP also found that only 40% of poor households had in excess of
five family members, again under the Indonesian average, which reflected
higher than average infant mortality rates.63 Indeed, among
children aged under five and classified as poverty stricken, over 60%
were malnourished, as opposed to only 24% of poor children in the
Java/Bali region.64 Of these poor households in West Papua,
some 69% lacked access to safe water, 90% suffered inadequate sanitation
at home and over 80% had no electricity. Half of all poor households in
the territory lived in villages accessible only by dirt road, hampering
the rural poor’s access to markets. At the same time, some 90% of poor
households lived in villages with no telephone, 84% lived in villages
without a secondary school and 83.5% lacked access to bank or credit
facilities.65
|
Papuan children in the rural highlands, Papua province
|
Whilst both provinces in the territory continue to post HDI outcomes
well below the Indonesian national average, their scores since 1999 have
shown an upward trend, although how much of this is the product of
rising rates of in-migration is difficult to quantify. For instance,
Papua province’s HDI rose from 58.80 in 1999 to 64.53 in 2009, whilst
that of West Papua province was 63.7 in 2004 and 68.58 by 2009. By
contrast, the Indonesian national average was 64.3 in 1999, and had
risen to 71.76 in 2009.66 Over the border in PNG, HDI figures
have been consistently lower than those of West Papua with worse
results in all the key indicators of life expectancy, literacy and per
capita GDP. Nevertheless, the existence of large rural to urban
variations and high numbers of migrants in West Papua make any direct
comparisons between the indigenous populations of PNG and West Papua
difficult.
In the poor delivery of government services West Papua already shares
much in common with its neighbours, particularly PNG and the Solomon
Islands. Prior to Australian intervention in mid-2003, the central
government in Honiara had lost control of the country and services had
largely collapsed. Many civil servants had simply stopped turning up to
work, whilst those who did often received no salary. Treasury officials
and government ministers were also frequently intimidated at gunpoint.
Whilst the situation in PNG has never plumbed such depths, tribal
fighting in the past two decades has exacted a heavy toll on public
service delivery, especially in Southern Highlands, Enga, Western
Highlands and Simbu Provinces. In these populous regions the destruction
of schools, medical facilities and other government infrastructure has
seriously disrupted development in the affected areas, forcing teachers,
health workers, and other public servants to flee to safety. Even in
regions not prone to inter-group violence, public service had been
widely perceived as inadequate, and even the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) have voiced concern over poor service
delivery. As in West Papua, the civil service is seen as eating up most
of PNG’s national budget in salaries and benefits but with precious few
results to justify its existence.67 Delivering sufficient
healthcare, education and basic infrastructure will be probably the
biggest challenge for an independent West Papua given the present
realities and difficult terrain in the remote interior. Nevertheless,
the resource revenues that the territory enjoys should make it possible
to better tackle these issues, if civil service performance can be
improved.
Dysfunctional Economies
The Asian Development Bank noted in 2010 that, “PNG, Solomon Islands,
and Timor-Leste are finding it difficult to diversify and stimulate
growth beyond exploitation of nonrenewable oil, minerals, and forests.”68 As
with West Papua, these economies remain heavily reliant on resource
revenues, being hampered by low productivity in agriculture and an
almost non-existent manufacturing base. Even tourism, which could
provide a much-needed boost to the service sector of these economies, is
held back by the fragile security situation in West Papua and its
neighbours. Furthermore, the characteristics of resource dependence
create distortions that increase vulnerability to external shocks, such
as a collapse in commodities prices, and promote inequalities between
internal regions and ethnic groups.
The enclave nature of mining and fossil fuel extraction in particular
exacerbates the large imbalances in West Papua’s economy and ensures
the benefits are not distributed equitably. Indeed, much of these
windfall gains are highly concentrated in a few regions to the detriment
of the rest of the territory.69 Moreover, due to the
territory’s historically low education budget, relatively few Papuans
secure skilled jobs in major projects like BP’s LNG processing plant or
Freeport’s gold and copper mine. Thus, despite its resource wealth, West
Papua suffers from Indonesia’s highest poverty levels. Government data
from 2010 indicated that around 35% of the territory’s population still
lived below the poverty line, compared to the national average of around
13%, with income disparities also the widest among Indonesia’s six
regions. In 2002 a mere 34% had access to clean water and 28% to
adequate sanitation, whilst just 46% were on the electricity grid, the
lowest level in all of Indonesia.70 In 2005 Indonesia’s
Ministry for the Development of Disadvantaged Regions classified 19 of
20 regencies across Papua province as underdeveloped.
A large underground economy is another feature of a failing state,
and in both PNG and West Papua the growing Asian presence in resource
extraction, hotels and other commercial enterprises has resulted in
rising levels of corruption and organised crime.71
Illegal logging is particularly lucrative since New Guinea is home to
the world’s third largest tropical forest, surpassed only by the Amazon
and Congo Basins. As such, it is home to the last undisturbed
large-scale forest in the Asia-Pacific, and as commercial timber stocks
in Sumatra and Borneo are increasingly depleted the Indonesian and
Malaysian logging industry has turned its attention towards West Papua
and PNG. A senior official at Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry conceded
in 2010 that around 25% of West Papua’s forests have fallen to legal and
illegal loggers since the late 1990s, with the forested area falling
from 32 million hectares to 23 million hectares.72 In PNG it
is widely estimated that some 70-90% of all the country’s logging is
illegal, much of it due to the Malaysian firms that dominate the
country’s timber industry.
Most logging operations in West Papua, PNG and the Solomon Islands
are socially, environmentally and economically unsustainable since land
custody is central to the survival of indigenous rural communities.
Logging often damages the self-sufficiency of such communities since
their opportunities to grow food, to hunt and to catch fish are reduced.
Drinking water sources and materials to build houses are also lost or
degraded. Given that government-led development is conspicuous
by its absence in many rural areas, local communities are vulnerable to
logging company promises of roads, schools, health clinics, and
revenues. Aside from arterial roads to transport logs, most of these
promises usually go unfulfilled. Instead, spoiled land and polluted
water are the most visible legacy of logging operations across
Melanesia.
Special Autonomy has added to the regulatory confusion in West Papua
as swathes of overlapping and contradictory regulations issued at the
national level, provincial level and district level have facilitated the
increase of both legal and illegal logging. Local timber elites take
advantage of the many loopholes to secure many small-scale licenses,
ostensibly to benefit local residents but in actuality for the profit of
timber firms. These elites can include Papuan community leaders,
politicians, civil servants, military and police officers. These same
local elites are also thought to be responsible for the increase in
illegal logging in West Papua province, often in collusion with
Malaysian, Korean and Chinese logging companies now present in the
territory. China, having already reduced its own logging due to
environmental concerns, is the biggest market for Papuan timber.73 Indonesia’s
Ministry of Forestry estimated in 2004 that over seven million cubic
metres of timber were being smuggled out of West Papua annually,
equivalent to 70% of the total volume of timber leaving Indonesia
illegally each year.74 The situation in West Papua is thus
reminiscent of a pattern that has been repeated across Melanesia
whereby, “Assignment of the right to sign logging contracts to tribal
chiefs or ‘big men’ has led to a situation where rights to harvest are
granted by landowners in return for a pittance, in terms of their share
of the revenue in excess of logging costs”75 Indeed,
corruption in the logging industry has become embedded in
post-independence Melanesian politics as it provides significant
revenues for local leaders to distribute to their supporters.
Deforestation across both sides of New Guinea
|
The Indonesian security forces are also heavily involved in legal and
illegal logging in West Papua, and it is a particularly lucrative
sideline since even the lowest ranks can earn money from it. The
military and police are often employed by logging firms to deal with
local communities angered by displacement from their customary lands and
environmental damage. Wasior in West Papua province has been the scene
of particularly violent conflicts between timber companies and locals
protesting the lack of compensation, which has resulted in retaliatory
action by elite police paramilitary brigades that forced around 5,000
locals from their homes.76 Moreover, several forestry
concessions are part owned by military foundations, and leaked US
Embassy cables reveal the private concerns of American officials over
the military’s role in West Papua. An October 2007 US Embassy cable
quoting an Indonesian foreign affairs official stated that, “The
Indonesian military (TNI) has far more troops in Papua than it is
willing to admit to, chiefly to protect and facilitate TNI’s interests
in illegal logging operations.” An earlier cable from 2006 cites a PNG
government official as saying that the TNI is “involved in both illegal
logging and drug smuggling in PNG.”77 Indeed, the removal of
the Indonesian military from West Papua would constitute a major
improvement in the lives of most indigenous Papuans.
The need for foreign exchange has also ensured that logging in the
Solomon Islands has greatly exceeded sustainable levels in most years
since 1981, and began with collusion between Malaysian logging firms and
individual government ministers. At present logging composes around 70
to 80% of the country’s exports by value but recent estimates suggest
that forestry reserves will be depleted by 2014.78 The
inevitable collapse of the logging industry in the Solomon Islands could
likely result in an economic shock to the fragile state and might even
lead to another uprising, as in the late 1990s. As such, logging is a
major source of political instability in the Solomon Islands, and
similar tensions are visible in West Papua too, with many local
communities resentful of logging firms and their Indonesian settler
staff.
Addiction to foreign aid is another characteristic of a dysfunctional
economy, and many of West Papua’s neighbours exhibit symptoms. For
example, in recent years foreign aid has constituted over 60% of the
Solomon Islands’ development budget, and it was one of the world’s top
three aid dependent countries between 2005 and 2007.79 Foreign
aid to the country in 2007 made up some 47.1% of gross national income
(GNI), much higher than the low income country average of 7.7%, although
this figure was inflated by the large Australian presence attempting to
reform the country’s law and order institutions. Whilst the disparity
between the Solomons and other low income countries in aid dependency
had reduced somewhat by 2009, the latest year for which data is
available, the figures below indicate only a marginal improvement.
Likewise, PNG and Vanuatu, both classified as lower middle-income
countries by the World Bank in 2011, each receive proportionally much
more foreign aid than the average for lower middle-income economies, as
does Fiji, which was recently upgraded to upper middle-income status.
Despite its oil and gas revenues, Timor-Leste also remains heavily reliant on foreign assistance to feed its population.
Regional Aid Dependence in 200980
Aid has also been compared to the resource curse whereby large
revenue inflows encourage political rent seekers and retard development
outcomes, a fact recognised by the Asian Development Bank (ABD) in its
attempts to promote policy reform in the Pacific.81 The ABD
acknowledges its biggest challenge has been how to overcome a paucity of
political will for reform in the recipient country, the lack of which
severely limits the impact of aid. Aid also offers legitimacy to corrupt
and incompetent regimes, enabling them to cling to power even when they
have lost popular support. Employing empirical data from some 108
recipient countries over a 40 year period, another study argues that,
“since most foreign aid is not contingent on the democratic level of the
recipient countries, there is no incentive for governments to keep a
good level of checks and balances in place”.82 These findings
suggest that foreign aid weakens democratic rules and corrupts
political institutions in recipient countries. This does not bode well
for the consolidation of democratic institutions in an independent West
Papua since it is likely the nascent state would also be reliant on
various forms of development assistance, at least in the short to medium
term.
Aid agencies would undoubtedly play a role in any emerging Papuan
state and a critical issue would be land ownership. In Timor-Leste
international agencies such as AusAID (Australia’s overseas aid
programme), USAID (United States Agency for International Development)
and the World Bank have been strongly advocating land commercialisation
through robust titles and registration. Anderson (2010) notes that
AusAID has also been the most vocal agency encouraging land reform in
Melanesia where it has strongly promoted the Australian land title
model. However, he argues that in many former colonies such
commercialisation of customary lands has frequently displaced
communities from their land and damaged local food security and
distribution networks.83 The vast majority of land in
Melanesia, and to a lesser extent Timor-Leste, is still held under
customary laws, not officially registered or even written down. This is
because at independence most Melanesian constitutions enshrined
customary land holding systems and little of this land has been sold or
leased as yet. On the other hand, powerful regional actors such as
Australia and the United States argue that the commercialisation of
customary land through central registration increases agricultural
productivity and spurs economic development. Melanesian notions of
customary land have also been under siege from loggers, miners and other
investors, in addition to corrupt local and national interests. Citing
the case of post-colonial Kenya however, Anderson suggests that central
land registration may actually fuel land disputes, instead of securing
tenure as its proponents argue, since elites often claim more land that
they have rights to under customary laws.84 As in West Papua,
commercialisation can also disadvantage uneducated or powerless rural
communities since they are vulnerable to fraud and deception in which
their traditional lands can end up registered to someone else. Even in
fully transparent registration cases, secondary traditional owners such
as wives and sisters frequently do not get listed in the land register.
Proponents claim there are numerous advantages to customary land
tenure such as widespread employment, ecological management, cultural
maintenance, social cohesion and local food security.85 However,
rapid population growth in West Papua and across Melanesia means that
whilst subsistence production remains essential for rural communities,
current methods of production are not enough to satisfy contemporary
national requirements. Whilst it is possible that small farming in
Timor-Leste, West Papua and across Melanesia might be sustained it needs
better infrastructure to support local markets, to enhance rural health
and education services, and to balance the raising of export crops
alongside traditional subsistence production. However, the trend in many
parts of Indonesia since 1997 has been to pursue cash crop production
and land rationalisation, which often displaces and marginalises
small-scale agriculture.
West Papua has not been immune to these changes sweeping through
Indonesia, and almost fifty years of Indonesian rule have resulted in
parts of the territory having a very different system of land tenure
than its Melanesian counterparts. Moreover, it is highly likely that an
independent West Papua would face many of the same land title disputes
that have beset Timor-Leste since 1999 as it has transitioned from being
an Indonesian province to an independent state. A pre-existing lack of
clarity in land titles was exacerbated by Indonesian military
orchestrated violence immediately after the country’s vote for
independence, which destroyed much of the new nation’s infrastructure,
buildings, and land tenure documents. As in Timor-Leste, resolving land
conflicts bottled up by many years of Indonesian rule would also be a
major undertaking in an independent West Papua.
Breakdown of Law and Order
In the last decade Australian military and police have intervened in
the fragile states of PNG, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste to counter a
downward spiral in law and order. For instance, the Australian presence
in the Solomon Islands has resulted in the removal of around 25% of the
Solomons police force, with a large number of those charged with
criminal offences.86 The withdrawal of Indonesia’s repressive
security apparatus would invariably leave a vacuum in an independent
West Papua, and would quite likely require the dispatch of international
peacekeepers as in Timor-Leste. A homegrown security apparatus in West
Papua would be much smaller than that of Indonesia. Developing a
competent Papuan police force would be one of the first challenges to
address since the only positive legacy of the suffocating Indonesian
security presence has been to keep a lid on some of the law and order
issues that have beset neighbouring PNG. Anecdotal evidence suggests
that guns are much easier to obtain in PNG than in West Papua and the
country is increasingly lawless. This is demonstrated by the increase of
jail breakouts in recent years, and it has long been unsafe to walk the
streets of Port Moresby and other larger towns at night. Even staff at
the country’s Bomana high security prison have aided and abetted the
escape of particularly dangerous prisoners. Much of the breakdown in law
and order has been attributed to the proliferation in illicit firearms,
resulting in escalating violent crime rates, the increased deadliness
of tribal disputes, and a worsening delivery of essential services.
“Largely as a consequence of the ready availability of small arms, Papua
New Guinea is widely identified as the tinderbox of the south-west
Pacific.”87
Indeed, the situation in parts of PNG represents a warning for any independent West Papua across the 141st
meridian east. Even though the actual number of guns in PNG is less
than in other violent societies, such illicit firearms are reportedly
two to five times more likely to be used in homicide in PNG’s Southern
Highland province than similar weapons in the other high-risk countries
such as Ecuador, Jamaica, Colombia and South Africa.88 Moreover,
the social effect of firearms in PNG, the Solomon Islands, and to a
lesser extent Fiji, can be significant, with markets suffering, school
attendance dropping, and an exodus of development agencies, health
professionals, and civil servants occurring.89 Particularly
in PNG’s Southern Highland province where the colonial regime left
relatively little trace, tribal fighting has become increasingly
widespread and increasingly deadly in the last 20 years due to an easier
availability of guns, which have replaced traditional weapons such as
bows and arrows and spears. Frequent tribal feuding has inculcated a gun
culture, which further ingrains lawlessness and even glorifies criminal
behaviour in times of inter-group fighting. Even the hiring of
mercenaries has been a feature of clan conflict in this region of PNG.
Modern weapons have thus altered the nature of conflict, and rendered
unworkable the traditional mechanism of paying compensation in pigs. The
origins of violent conflict in the highland provinces are multifaceted
and include land disputes, competition for state resources, traditional
animosities and sequences of revenge and retribution that extend back
decades. Similar factors also cause armed group violence in Timor-Leste,
which periodically surfaces in both urban and rural areas. The
breakdown in law and order across PNG, especially in the populous
highland region, is also due to greater human mobility and the upheaval
caused by large-scale resource extraction. One result is that the PNG
police have disavowed their responsibility for policing tribal warfare,
which is now seen as a ‘traditional’ activity even when deaths are
involved.
Police inaction has permitted an increase in gangsterism and criminal
activity, particularly roadblocks and robbery, which have seriously
compromised the delivery of essential public services in many highland
areas of PNG. A further contributory factor to crime and gangsterism has
been the ongoing monetisation of the local economy, along with
population growth that fuels disputes by simply placing people in
greater proximity to one other. Indeed, one of the reasons for the
increase in crime and disorder across Melanesia is demographic change. A
growing population compounded by rising numbers of unemployed youth in
urban areas results in greater crime and lawlessness, which in turn
further dissuades investment and results in a vicious circle of fewer
opportunities and rising crime. Melanesia is currently experiencing both
the highest population growth rates and the fastest urbanisation rates
in the whole Pacific.90 Even though average population growth
is some 2% per annum, the urban population growth rate is 4.7% per
annum, meaning that the region’s urban population is now doubling every
17 years as their total populations double every 30 years. Over half of
Melanesia’s population is 24 or under.
In the last decade population growth in West Papua has outstripped
that of Melanesia as whole. Whilst Indonesia’s 2010 census found that
the whole country’s population had increased at an annual rate of 1.49%
since the previous census in 2000, the annual rate of increase for Papua
province was 5.48% and for West Papua province was 3.72%. This made
them the fastest and fourth fastest growing provinces of Indonesia
respectively. The combined yearly growth rate of the two provinces was
5.09% between 2000 and 2100, meaning that since 2000 the combined
population increased 64%, more than any other province in Indonesia.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the pace of growth by 2010 had
surpassed the yearly average of 5.09%, meaning that the rate of
migration into West Papua could be continually rising.91 Given
West Papua’s relatively small population in comparison with Indonesia
as a whole, even relatively low levels of migration from other regions
can deliver dramatic demographic change. Whilst most of the population
increase is due to rising levels of Indonesian migration, the latest
census also counted the territory’s fertility rate at 2.9, higher than
the national average of 2.3. Therefore, population growth, increasing
urbanisation and a looming youth bulge constitute further challenges for
policy makers in West Papua to grapple with.
State Legitimacy
Another result of increasing lawlessness and poor governance is the
loss of state authority and legitimacy throughout much of Melanesia.
Indeed, state weakness seems ingrained throughout the region, the deep
lying reasons for which would likely be replicated in an independent
West Papua. Lacking long traditions of centralised authority, the
institutional foundation of the modern nation-state remains a somewhat
alien imposition that rests uncomfortably on these relatively new
nations. Being among the most linguistically and socially diverse in the
world, this region represents the antithesis of the imagined community.92 Consequently,
Melanesian states have never been able to impose the centralised
authority that is at the core of the modern nation-state, with central
governments often having minimal or no presence outside their capitals.
Where the nation state is visible it is often poorly regarded,
particularly in rural areas of PNG. As with Freeport in West Papua, in
many remote areas across Melanesia the church or mining companies have
replaced the government by serving as surrogate states that provide
public services and infrastructure like health, education and roads.
Furthermore, in many towns and villages Christianity offers links to
regional and global communities that eclipse the moral authority of the
state. In West Papua’s case, the most visible state presence in many
rural areas is a military one. Viewed from this perspective, Melanesian
countries have not been experiencing state collapse but the absence of
actual state formation. Indeed, some anthropologists have even
questioned the very necessity of the state in Melanesia in light of its
poor performance and the region’s long history of largely autonomous
local communities.93
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Freeport’s Grasberg mine pit in Mimika district, Papua province
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The absence of a common national identity has been a feature of
Melanesian states since independence. State legitimacy is thus usurped
by regional identifications, usually to ethnic group, island or
province, links that are seen as more authentic and responsive. The
nation state thus remains irrelevant to most people in these numerous
micro-polities, a reality closely bound to the colonial legacy of
arbitrary boundaries and a general lack of presence outside of larger
urban centres. Perhaps the most visible evidence of state existence
throughout much of Melanesia are elections which, in parts of PNG for
example, are increasingly plagued by a regularisation of illegality
which exacts a further toll on state legitimacy. In PNG’s highland
provinces such practices include multiple and underage voting, vote
buying, manipulating electoral rolls, violence, voter intimidation, and
the stealing of ballot boxes.94
This lack of legitimacy has resulted in the violent rejection of
state authority in PNG’s Bougainville region, where a separatist
movement emerged in the 1970s but remained largely dormant until 1988
when the pro-independence Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) was
established. Violence escalated when BRA leaders proclaimed
Bougainville’s independence in 1989, and formed an interim government.
The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) was dispatched to crush the
rebellion, and plunged the vertical conflict into full-blown civil war.
In January 1991, the Solomon Islands government brokered the Honiara
Declaration but the ceasefire but did not hold and fighting soon
re-erupted. In addition to the PNGDF, this conflict involved both
pro-PNG and pro-independence Bougainvilleans, and cost an estimated
15,000 to 20,000 lives from 1988 to 1997. Despite receiving assistance
from Australia, the PNGDF proved unable to militarily defeat the BRA.
This prompted PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan in 1996 to contract
Sandline International, a private military company that also supplied
mercenaries to conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The ensuing
scandal resulted toppled the Chan government and renewed efforts towards
peaceful conflict resolution - culminating in a peace agreement and
much greater autonomy for Bougainville. Some BRA leaders have since been
involved in the post-peace process Autonomous Bougainville Government.
Bougainville island is much closer geographically, ethnically and
environmentally to the Solomon Islands than PNG, and BRA leaders
themselves argued that the island is ethnically part of the Solomons.
Bougainville and its surrounding islands were formerly known as PNG’s
North Solomons province, and Bougainville’s southernmost tip lies only
seven kilometres from the northernmost point of the Solomons, whilst
being around 500 kilometres away from New Guinea itself and almost 1000
kilometres from Port Moresby. Bougainville is also rich in copper and
gold, and in the early 1970s a large mine was opened on the island by
Bougainville Copper, a subsidiary of mining giant Rio Tinto. As one of
the biggest gold and copper mines in the world, it dominated the
island’s economy in the 1970s and 1980s, and during this period the
firm’s tax and dividend obligations contributed roughly 20% of PNG’s
total national budget. However, concerns over the mine’s financial
benefits, its environmental affects, and resulting social impact had
been voiced since the 1970s, and BRA leaders claimed that Bougainville
received scant reward from the mining operations. Indeed, whilst Port
Moresby reaped a 20% share of the profits from the mining venture,
Bougainville itself received only 0.5% - 1.25%.95 There
remain no sealed roads throughout the island. Incidentally, the BRA was
lead by Francis Ona, a former surveyor with Bougainville Copper, and the
parallels with Freeport in West Papua are stark. Papuan nationalists
have consisted called for the closure of Freeport mining operations
since they began in 1972. Whilst vertical conflict has been ongoing
between the Indonesian state and Papuan nationalists since 1963, an
independent West Papua might have to cope with horizontal conflict
between ethnic and religious groups, the likelihood of which will be
considered in the next section.
Internal Conflict
Whilst PNG and the Solomon Islands, in particular, have experienced a
breakdown in law and order in recent years, these episodes tend to be
localised and do not escalate into conditions of civil war, which is
defined as a minimum of 1,000 battle-related deaths per year. This is
largely because Pacific island countries have much smaller populations
than other low-income countries where civil war is concentrated. Indeed,
Chauvet et al (2007) found that although 27% of all countries are
islands, only 5% of all civil wars occurred in such states.96 These
statistics suggest that an independent West Papua has a relatively low
risk of experiencing civil war but the territory’s delicate demographic
balance between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian settlers is a cause
for concern given the recent history of racial and ethnic tensions
across both eastern Indonesia and Melanesia.
The fall of Suharto, and the subsequent decentralisation of local
government, was accompanied by greater competition for state resources
and frequently erupted into ethnic violence in eastern Indonesia. These
six separate communal conflicts affected the provinces of West
Kalimantan (twice), Central Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, Maluku and
North Maluku, and can be broadly categorised into violence either
between indigenous and migrant groups or between Christians and Muslims.
They accounted for around 9,000 deaths in the years 1996-2002. Van
Klinken (2007) finds that all these communal conflicts in
Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Maluku were led by politically active
individuals from the lower middle class in provincial or district
capitals, places that were heavily reliant on state funding.97
The first of these conflicts to erupt was in West Kalimantan province
in Indonesian Borneo, between indigenous Dayaks and recently arrived
settlers from Madura island off Java. It began in December 1996, and
seems particularly prescient for West Papua since the demographic makeup
of Kalimantan had been transformed by an influx of both official
transmigrants and self-funded migrants from other provinces seeking
opportunities in the island’s booming resource sector. A second round of
Madurese expulsions occurred in West Kalimantan in 1999, this time
perpetrated by the indigenous Malay community. Dayak massacres then
spread to Central Kalimantan province in early 2001, and resulted in
most Madurese being expelled from the province. As in West Papua, many
rural Dayak communities have also been displaced from their customary
lands by the Suharto regime’s granting large forest concessions to
logging firms, many of which had close links to the Suharto family, the
military or crony capitalists. As with indigenous Papuans, there is
widespread belief among Dayaks that other Indonesian ethnic groups look
down on them as ‘uncivilised’ and ‘backward’. However, the Dayak and
Malay massacres in both provinces were not directed against all migrant
groups in response to environmental destruction or demographic
marginalisation since the Madurese were the only target in all three
instances. Indeed, other migrant groups, especially the Javanese and
Banjarese, outnumbered the Madurese community in Kalimantan. Moreover,
East Kalimantan province remained peaceful despite having received more
migrants than West and Central Kalimantan, as did other religiously
diverse provinces such as North Sumatra.98
The Dayaks and Malays who perpetrated the violence in Kalimantan
apparently perceived the Madurese as being culturally arrogant, more
financially successful and the beneficiaries of police protection. It
seems that some Dayak leaders and factions mobilised cultural
stereotypes to single out a powerless minority in order to secure new
government posts created by the decentralisation and regional autonomy
process. With close parallels to West Papua under pemekaran,
Dayak groups in West and Central Kalimantan had been demanding since the
early 1990s that district heads be indigenous, and after the violence
subsided many more Dayaks were appointed to these positions. As in West
Papua, this was usually accomplished by establishing more positions by
partitioning existing districts into two or more parts. The Malays,
having dominated the provincial government of West Kalimantan until
then, felt threatened by this Dayak political resurgence and thus
repeated the same formula of targetting Madurese settlers. Likewise, in
many districts the government responded by sharing and balancing
political appointments between Dayaks and Malays.99
The other horizontal violence in eastern Indonesia during this period
largely coalesced around religious rather than purely ethnic struggles.
As in Kalimantan, the episodes of violence in Maluku and Sulawesi also
concerned communal control of local administrations whose influence was
increasing under the decentralisation and pemekaran process.
These reforms enabled local parliaments to elect district heads,
provided these district heads with enhanced financial autonomy, and
allowed resource-rich areas to retain more of the revenues accrued. As a
consequence, they also offered much greater monetary inducements for
local elites to capture key posts in local government. During
the Suharto period winning support from Jakarta-based elites had been
crucial in securing local government appointments but in the power
vacuum that followed Suharto’s resignation grassroots political
competition increased markedly. Thus there was a much greater temptation
for corrupt local elites to appeal to ethnic and religious identities.
This resulted in sustained violence in Maluku and Sulawesi where
previously harmonious communities of Christians and Muslims fought each
other for control of state resources. Between 1999 and 2002 the
conflicts in Maluku and North Maluku displaced more than 700,000 people,
whilst in Central Sulawesi province as many as 143,000 residents were
displaced from their homes.100
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Protestant Church in Sorong, West Papua province
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The mobilising of religious identities during this period of
political opening and uncertainty could have potentially serious
ramifications for any independent West Papua. As in other Melanesian
societies, most indigenous Papuans are Christian since European and
American missionaries made significant headway during the Dutch colonial
period. Missionary activity intensified after World War II as part of
the Dutch strategy to strengthen their administrative control and to
ward off Indonesian irredentist claims. In response to the territory’s
subsequent annexation by Muslim-majority Indonesia, Christianity has
become increasingly intertwined with Papuan nationalism.101 Continuing
Muslim migration from elsewhere in Indonesia threatens to enflame
tensions between Papuans and migrants, which have periodically erupted
into violence.
In fact, both Christianity and Islam play increasingly significant roles in contemporary West Papua, especially in urban areas, where
religious leaders are influential opinion formers. Particularly in the
coastal towns and cities, religious institutions are playing an
increasingly key role in dispensing a range of vital services to their
members, such as healthcare and education. As in Timor-Leste, churches
have become central to Papuan civil society, and since 1998 have been
increasingly involved in publicising human rights abuses perpetrated by
Indonesian security forces. As a result, Christian organisations are
suspected of actively supporting West Papuan independence and are
subject to surveillance by Indonesian intelligence agencies. Political
censorship of Christian publications cataloging human rights abuses in
West Papua also fuels religious polarisation and Papuan anxieties of
Islamisation. Likewise, Muslims worry that a West Papua with greater
self-determination would threaten Muslim communities, and they can point
to March 2007 when Manokwari’s local government attempted to pass laws
to strengthen Christian values among its residents. Whilst it was not
implemented, due to fierce resistance from Muslim and some Christian
community leaders, it did reveal latent religious tensions between Christian Papuans and Muslim settlers from Indonesia.
The rising tensions between Muslims and Christians in certain parts
of the territory are largely due to the arrival of more fundamentalist
brands of both religions and the increase in Indonesian settlers since
1998.102 The spread of mobile phone video technology has also
played a role in disseminating atrocities carried out by both Muslims
and Christians in Sulawesi and Maluku, and further afield in Iraq and
Afghanistan.103 Christians in Papua see a creeping rise in
Muslim intolerance across Indonesia, manifested in numerous attacks on
churches elsewhere in the archipelago, whilst Muslims are sensitive to
their minority status in some areas. One of the causes of communal
violence in Sulawesi, the source of many spontaneous migrants to West
Papua, was increasing Muslim assertiveness in the late Suharto period
against Christians who had previously constituted the majority in many
districts of Central Sulawesi province. Greater Muslim in-migration to
Central Sulawesi altered the demographic makeup of the province and
ensured Christians became a minority in Poso district, one of the
province’s main population centres. As members of the national majority
religion and now a majority in Poso itself, it appears that Muslim
elites felt, “entitled to dwell anywhere in the district and control its
political and business fortunes”.104 For Aragon (2007) the
conflicts in Central Sulawesi and elsewhere in eastern Indonesia during
this period were caused by a nexus of “bureaucratic corruption, ethnic
inequities, migration patterns, land alienation, changes in global
markets for cash crops, religious proselytising, and partisan media
narratives”.105 This process might be repeated in West Papua
given that the creation of new administrative divisions under
decentralisation has already increased the risk of divisive communal
mobilisation.
Whilst attacks on migrants by Papuans have sporadically occurred they
have never been on the scale and frequency as in Kalimantan, Maluku or
Sulawesi. Nevertheless, for an independent West Papua the Solomon
Islands ‘tensions’ might also be prescient, where in late 1998 militants
from the main island of Guadalcanal violently targeted migrant
settlers, most of them arrivals from more densely populated Malaita
island. Eventually around 35,000 migrants were expelled from their homes
around the capital Honiara, as competition between indigenous Guales
and Malaitan settlers over land and employment opportunities around the
capital spilled over into violence. Whilst undoubtedly some of the
violence was fuelled by criminality and individual greed, the social,
cultural and economic affects of internal migration and the disruption
triggered by resource development schemes on Guadalcanal were also
factors.106 Analysts also consider the narrative of relative
deprivation another key explanatory factor since the Guale militant
leaders all hailed from the underdeveloped Weather Coast, where strong
feelings of inequality and injustice regarding the benefits accruing
from resource extraction on Guadalcanal persist.107 The
echoes of similar tensions and jealousies resulting from uneven
development can be heard throughout Melanesia, most audibly in the PNG
highlands, and have been a key factor in both the Bougainville conflict
and in Papuan resistance to the Freeport mine.
Another demographic factor that is commonly thought to increase
conflict risk is a comparatively large youth population, otherwise known
as a youth bulge, the exact definition of which varies between
different researchers. This theory posits that territories with rapidly
expanding populations and relatively large numbers of young adults
(15-29 years of age) frequently have to deal with high youth
unemployment where young men are more easily recruited by rebel,
criminal or terrorist organisations. Developing countries lacking strong
political institutions are considered the most likely to suffer youth
bulge-related violence and social unrest. Indeed, in civil conflicts
between 1970 and 1999, around 80% occurred in places where 60% of the
population or more were under the age of thirty, and most countries with
youth bulges continue to experience higher than average levels of
unrest and violence.
Other historical upheavals associated with youth bulges include the
eighteenth-century French revolution, where rapid population growth
resulted in food shortages, inflation and social unrest. The rise of
Hitler and Mussolini coincided with youth bulges, as did the Russian
Revolutions of 1917. Iran was also experiencing a youth bulge
prior to its 1979 revolution, when mass demonstrations by young people
helped overthrow the monarchy. The uprisings of the 1970s and 1980s that
occurred across Latin America have also been attributed to large
numbers of disaffected, unemployed youth in the region, particularly
since guerilla activities tapered off as the proportion of young people
decreased. More recently, the civil wars in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and
Congo have corresponded to periods of youth bulge in each country.
Nevertheless, researchers continue to debate whether it is the youth
bulge itself that determines levels of conflict risk or whether the
other pressures that these territories face are more likely causes of
violent conflict. Whilst many analysts agree that a youth bulge by
itself does not trigger violence, countries and territories with large
youth populations are usually subject to other pressures that increase
conflict risk. For example, Urdal & Hoelscher (2009) cite a lack of
democracy, stagnant economic growth and low secondary education
attainment in males aged 20-24 as having more explanatory power than
merely the existence of a youth bulge.108 It appears that a
large young population is one more factor that exacerbates conflict risk
in developing countries where migration patterns, poor governance, slow
economic growth, a high share of resource exports in GDP, and low
education levels also contribute to the outbreak of vertical or
horizontal violence.
Along with the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific is one
of the three regions in the world considered most susceptible to youth
bulge-related instability. This threat is exacerbated by the rapid
urbanisation that the region is undergoing. As in the Solomon Islands,
urban migration can inflame communal tensions because cities across the
developing world generally lack the infrastructure, resources, or
employment opportunities to cope with an inpouring of rural workers.
Statistics published during the renewed outbreaks of violence in 2007
indicated that Timor-Leste’s total population was increasing some 3.7%
per annum, with those aged 15-39 likewise growing some 3.74% each year
between 2005 and 2010.109 Meanwhile, more than half of
Melanesia’s population is aged 24 or under. Likewise, in Papua province
some 1.53 million of its 2.83 million population were in the same age
group in 2010, whilst in West Papua province the same cohort totalled
almost 381,000 from a population of almost 744,000.110 The
fertility rate across the territory was calculated at 2.9, higher than
the Indonesian national average of 2.3, suggesting that West Papua might
also face a heightened risk of internal conflict from a youth bulge in
conjunction with other risk factors already present across the
territory.
Conclusion and Discussion
State failure imposes significant costs globally, and this paper has
outlined some of the pressing governance and development issues being
faced by West Papua and its neighbours PNG, Timor-Leste and the Solomon
Islands, all three of whom have been labelled as failing states in the
past decade. These issues include chronic political instability; rampant
corruption; dysfunctional economies; collapse of government services;
breakdown of law and order; internal conflicts; and loss of state
authority and legitimacy. Whilst some of these problems can be partly
attributed to the colonial legacy, the political establishment and the
civil service have also woefully underperformed since independence,
despite the fact that military takeovers have only been confined to
Fiji. Since it is already exhibiting many similar symptoms of state
failure as its neighbours, an independent West Papua might become even
more vulnerable, especially since numerous communal conflicts erupted
across eastern Indonesia during the post-Suharto transition. Empirical
research also indicates that failing states in the Pacific seem to
suffer greater loss of GDP than failing states elsewhere. However, just
as the level of violence and human rights abuse in Timor-Leste has
diminished with the departure of the Indonesian security apparatus, it
would be expected that most indigenous Papuans would benefit from a
similar removal.
Indeed, a decade ago it appeared that West Papua might follow
Timor-Leste, formerly another territory in eastern Indonesia whose
annexation was highly controversial, in finally achieving statehood. The
Papuan Spring of 1999-2000 was significant because it demonstrated that
a genuine pan-Papuan identity had apparently been formed in response to
the harshness of Indonesian rule. Whilst the Dutch cultivated a Papuan
elite and helped construct a pan-Papuan identity separate to that of
Indonesia, Papuan nationalism has since been consolidated among
historically disparate ethnic groups to an extent not apparent in
neighbouring PNG. Thus, almost fifty years of Indonesian control has
ensured that West Papua is quite a different society from PNG, which is
still riven with tribal conflict and discord. Centrifugal weakness in
Jakarta in 1998-2001 presented an opportunity for a widely
representative group of Papuan political leaders to push for the
territory’s independence under the banner of pan-Papuan nationalism.
However, Indonesia’s subsequent co-opting of indigenous leaders through
the decentralisation and regional autonomy process has seemingly
heightened intra-Papuan ethnic rivalries indicating that, “regional and
tribal interests remain politically salient”.111 Further
consolidation of a cohesive pan-Papuan identity would be vital for any
nascent West Papuan state to avoid the some of the nation-building
issues that have beset its neighbours, in particular PNG, Timor-Leste
and the Solomon Islands.
Whilst Indonesia has strengthened its grip on the territory since
2000, South Sudan’s recent referendum on independence will give some
succor to those who have campaigned for a similar outcome in West Papua,
particularly since the two cases have numerous historical parallels.
Enmity between the north and south of Sudan goes back hundreds of years
to the exploitation of African slaves from the south by northern Arab
slave traders. Likewise, Arab and Malay traders took slaves from coastal
West Papua from around the 15th century until the Dutch arrival in the
mid-19th century, and Biak became an island staging post for the eastern
slave trade, similar to Zanzibar during the same period.112 Colonial
policy also cemented regional cleavages in both Sudan and West New
Guinea. In 1924 the British essentially divided Sudan into two separate
territories, along rather arbitrary lines of latitude, accompanied by
laws that limited people movement between the two zones. The north
comprised a largely Muslim Arab population, whilst the south largely
consisted of a predominantly animist African population where Islam was
making significant inroads. This division restricted Arab and Islamic
influence from the north, and under British tutelage European and
American missionary activities expanded. Likewise, in West Papua the
spread of Islam was limited to a few coastal settlements, notably
Fak-Fak, which had contact with the Maluku archipelago. The subsequent
Dutch colonial presence effectively quarantined New Guinea from further
Muslim influence as Christian missions expanded throughout the
territory, among which American evangelists became the most prominent.
The decolonisation of both South Sudan and West Papua also offers
numerous parallels, since southern aspirations went unheard during the
process that led to Sudan’s independence in 1956, and were largely
marginalised by subsequent governments. Likewise, no Papuan
representatives were consulted during the negotiations that sealed the
New York Agreement of August 1962 and the territory’s transfer to
Indonesia. By the early 1960s there were very few Papuans who advocated
union with Indonesia given that any prospect of a federal state had
vanished in 1950. Meanwhile, Sudanese independence in 1956 was ruined by
a brutal civil war between north and south, which lasted from 1955 to
1972, triggered by the Arab-led government reneging on promises to
create a federal system. The 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement finally granted
the south considerable autonomy and a relative peace lasted until 1983
when Khartoum imposed new Islamic laws on all of Sudan, including the
south. The second civil war officially ended with the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement of 2005 and specified that a referendum be later held to
determine whether South Sudan should separate from Sudan. Almost 99% of
votes cast were in favour.
The internationally brokered Sudan peace process was the first time
other African states, long fearful of similar secession movements within
their own borders, countenanced the partition of colonial successor
states on the continent.113 Thus, the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement can be seen as a long-overdue effort to repair one of the most
troublesome postcolonial borders, and the ramifications might extend
far beyond Africa. Numerous other states in Asia and the Pacific are
also colonial creations whose borders often cut arbitrarily across
tribes, ethnicities, religions and traditional alliances. As a result,
across Africa and the Asia-Pacific long-standing enemies have sometimes
been forced into the same nation states, whilst official boundaries have
also divided clans and families across different countries where they
speak different colonial languages. In the case of New Guinea the
invisible border between PNG and Indonesia is not recognised by many of
the indigenous people living there who cross it regularly as part of
their subsistence farming lifestyles.
If the partition of Sudan brings lasting peace to one of the world’s
most fractious conflict zones, it is a solution that the international
community could conceivably apply in other disputed conflict zones.
However, plebiscites and acts of self-determination can also foment new
problems as they did in the former Yugoslavia during the early 1990s
when independence declarations by some of its constituent parts lead to
civil wars as Serbian minorities within these new states fought to
re-establish Serbian sovereignty. Since the Papuan Spring of 1999-2000
the numbers of Indonesian settlers in West Papua have grown so fast that
indigenous Papuans recently became a minority in their homeland. Given
this population balance, any referendum would have to be handled very
delicately. If allowed to vote, it is highly likely that Indonesian
migrants would scupper any chance of independence by voting for
continuing union with Indonesia. During Timor-Leste’s referendum in
1999, Indonesian migrants were excluded from the voter registration
process at a time when they constituted around 10% of the territory’s
population. Even if it were possible to screen out more than 50% of the
population, a vote for Papuan independence would likely provoke a
violent retaliation from pro-Indonesian societal forces. Moreover,
Indonesian migrants in West Papua now constitute the backbone of the
local economy and any moves towards independence would therefore involve
some capital flight from the territory. Given West Papua’s history of
human rights abuses and militia organising, it would be surprising if
the military remained neutral, especially since many veterans of the
destruction of East Timor have since done tours in West Papua. Given the
costs and risks associated with independence it is perhaps worth
exploring other options for the territory, at least in the short to
medium-term.
Even if West Papua were not to realise its independence anytime soon,
Aspinall (2006) argues that a well run, democratic Indonesian state
might still be able to accommodate Papuan aspirations within a properly
implemented local autonomy package.114 This ignores the fact
that such an Indonesian state has yet to emerge, and progress towards
such an outcome appears stalled. Nonetheless, many Papuans initially
welcomed Special Autonomy enthusiastically, although these hopes have
been largely dashed and human rights abuses remain common. Despite a
decrease in state coercion in most of Indonesia since the fall of the
authoritarian Suharto regime in 1998, many Papuan cultural symbols
remain banned, Papuan civil society remains under tight surveillance and
around 100 Papuan political prisoners languish in jail. Even though
West Papua now receives much bigger revenues than under Suharto,
Indonesia has missed an opportunity to build trust among the indigenous
population with its half-hearted approach to implementing other aspects
of Special Autonomy.
To win greater support among Papuans the Indonesian state should
sincerely respond to some of their grievances. In 2009 the Indonesian
Institute of Sciences (LIPI) unveiled the ‘Papua Road Map’, which aims
to address Papuan grievances while keeping the territory inside
Indonesia.115 The proposal blends four approaches, namely
recognition, development, dialogue and reconciliation. The first
recognises Papuans as traditional ‘owners’ of the land, a long held
grievance but one in which other countries such as Australia, Canada and
New Zealand could offer a model. Papuan cultural symbols and traditions
must also be properly recognised, as part of Indonesia’s rich
multiculturalism. The development aspect should involve some form of
affirmative action and education to stimulate a Papuan business class.
Programmes that attempt to close the gap between migrant and indigenous
Papuans in health and life expectancy are also vital. Both sides must
also sincerely pursue dialogue, preferably with an international
mediator. Although Jakarta has long been wary of internationalising the
Papua issue, a precedent does exist in the Aceh peace process, which
involved two separate international mediators and culminated in a
successful conclusion. As in Aceh, reconciliation is likely to be the
biggest challenge in any efforts to peacefully consolidate West Papua
within Indonesia although the Aceh peace deal has many lessons that can
be applied to West Papua.116
A symbolic first step towards reconciliation in West Papua would be
to grant amnesties to political prisoners, particularly to those who
were demanding welfare improvements rather than independence. Many
Papuans have served prison terms for peacefully protesting corruption in
West Papua, which has increased as decentralisation and Special
Autonomy have resulted in much larger state revenues. Another essential
move would be to properly apply the rule of law, particularly with
respect to the military who continue to enjoy virtual impunity in the
territory. Any officials proven to have been complicit in human rights
abuses would at least need to be removed from their posts, and
preferably jailed. The Aceh peace agreement also mandated the creation
of a truth and reconciliation commission that intended to acknowledge
victims and their suffering. Whilst such a move would undoubtedly
promote reconciliation with Indonesia among Papuans, backsliding has
prevented its proper implementation in Aceh. A gradual military
withdrawal would also dramatically improve human rights in the
territory, and would be crucial in repairing Indonesian rule. Indeed,
the 2005 Helsinki Peace Agreement offers a useful template for conflict
resolution as it specified the removal of non-organic military and
police forces from Aceh.117 However, peace in Aceh was forged
in the crucible of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster under much
international scrutiny. The foreign aid and assistance that flowed into
the province gave the military a clear financial incentive to back the
process, having undermined previous efforts at a negotiated solution.118
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Rally calling for the release of political prisoners, Manokwari, June 2011. Photo by West Papua Media
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Reconciliation is the most challenging aspect of the Road Map since
the largely unreformed military is the most powerful state actor in West
Papua and it would view any drawdown as an extreme loss of face.
Whether the result of independence or genuine autonomy within Indonesia,
a structured military withdrawal is central to improving the lives of
ordinary Papuans. Large swathes of the territory remain under de facto
military control, which retains an official presence throughout
Indonesia through its territorial system that effectively operates a
parallel administration alongside the civilian bureaucracy. In West
Papua, far from central control in Jakarta, this system feeds abuse,
exploitation and environmental catastrophe for the indigenous
population, and makes a mockery of the territory’s Special Autonomy.
Whilst military reform has enjoyed some gains since Suharto’s fall, the
territorial system still exists as does the military’s corrupt business
apparatus whereby the Indonesian security forces are deeply involved in
resource exploitation across Indonesia. In West Papua’s case this takes
the form of direct ownership of logging concessions and other business
activities or through lucrative protection services provided to
extraction companies such as Freeport and BP. President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, himself a former general, has shown little appetite for
susbstantive military reform since ascending to office.
Despite the apparent success of the Aceh peace process, few
Indonesian officials seem willing to address the points raised in the
proposed Papua Road Map, especially since the independence remains weak
and unable to command much international support. However, recent events
in South Sudan might force their hand. As throughout Africa, the
Indonesian state has displayed a remarkable commitment to maintain its
inherited colonial borders, however illogical or artificial those
boundaries may appear in West Papua’s case. Unlike Jakarta’s claim to
Timor-Leste, which never had a solid basis in international law, its
case in West Papua had appeared much stronger. Since Timor-Leste’s
departure, the borders of Indonesia have exactly mirrored those of the
Netherlands East Indies, to which Indonesia sees itself as the
legitimate successor. The principle of uti possidetis juris,
whereby independent successor states replicate the borders of the
colonial territories that they replaced, has been well grounded in
international relations and diplomacy since decolonisation began after
World War II. Therefore, the Indonesian establishment sees little basis
for any discussion of West Papua’s status. Furthermore, if Jakarta were
to countenance independence for West Papua it fears that other provinces
might also agitate for separation, potentially heralding the break up
of the Unitary Republic. South Sudan thus sets a worrying precedent
since a threat to one colonial boundary can be construed as a threat to
colonial boundaries the world over.
West Papua is also much more important to the Indonesian state, and
large multinational interests, than Timor-Leste ever was. The Freeport
copper and gold mine is Indonesia’s largest single revenue earner and a
showpiece of the country’s vaunted resource wealth. The OPM and other
Papuan nationalists have consistently demanded its closure. The Tangguh
project is now Indonesia’s second largest LNG processing plant, fixing
the puncture created by soaring domestic demand and declining output at
other major LNG plants. International capital is also increasingly
involved in palm oil investments throughout the territory, the status of
which would be uncertain in an independent West Papua. In addition to
their financial importance, these projects are symbolic of Indonesia’s
importance to the wider world and loudly demonstrate the efficacy of
foreign investment in a country that has seen a precipitous decline in
it since the mid-1990s. Moreover, many active and retired military
officers, senior state bureaucrats and other government officials hold
lucrative logging concessions or other business interests in the
territory, in a pattern reminiscent of Indonesian rule in Timor-Leste.119 In
tandem with the substantial tax and royalties accrued by the state,
these interests constitute a powerful motivation for Indonesia to keep
West Papua in the fold, by force if necessary.
The OPM has been unable to muster the kind of sustained armed
resistance that characterised the conflicts in South Sudan, East Timor
and Kosovo, whilst West Papua’s independence movement has also lacked a
charismatic leader around whom local and international support can
coalesce. This is in marked contrast to Timor-Leste, for whose
independence struggle Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José
Ramos-Horta won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize. Ramos-Horta is the country’s
current president, whilst current prime minister Xanana Gusmão is
another charismatic personality who commanded the Fretilin armed
resistance. In West Papua’s case the independence movement has long been
fractious, riven with ethnic divisions and lacking similar strong
leadership. This has particularly been the case with the OPM, which has
conducted the most persistent resistance to Indonesian rule. In
addition, the OPM has been unable to muster the kind of sustained armed
resistance that characterised the conflicts in South Sudan, East Timor
and Kosovo. Such a situation is a concern considering that Indonesia’s
democratic transition has been plagued by violence between competing
ethnic groups, often between indigenous groups and migrants from
elsewhere in Indonesia. Whilst vertical conflict, that is between the
state and separatists, has been occuring since 1963, West Papua has not
yet witnessed large-scale horizontal conflict between migrants and
indigenous groups. However, the religious divide between the mostly
Muslim migrants and mostly Christian indigenous Papuans has increasingly
threatened to spill over into violence since new hardline versions of
both religions began arriving and proselytising in West Papua after
1998. Christian Papuans are especially concerned that Jakarta appears to
be leaning towards a less tolerant vision of Islamic orthodoxy, a trend
that has negatively impacted Christians elsewhere in Indonesia. Whereas
many Muslim migrants firmly support of central rule from Jakarta, many
indigenous Papuans believe that Special Autonomy is just window dressing
and has not been implemented properly.
Therefore, it seems that the chief hope for independence, or even a
more meaningful form of self-governance, is international pressure. For
an independence or secession movement to succeed it is crucial for it to
gain traction within influential foreign states that support the cause
on moral or other grounds. South Sudan was able to secure independence
largely due to pressure from the African Union, the European Union and
the United States. Timor-Leste’s annexation by Indonesia in 1975 was
never recognised by the United Nations. However, there is no question of
ASEAN pressuring Indonesia, whilst the attitude of the major powers
towards West Papua remains essentially the same as it was in the 1960s.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Indonesia is still seen as too large,
too powerful and too important to antagonise. In a communiqué back to
London in 1968, the British Embassy in Washington considered it
unimaginable, “the US, Japanese, Dutch or Australian government putting
at risk their economic and political relations with Indonesia on a
matter of principle involving a relatively small number of primitive
peoples”.120 The donor community has since had many
opportunities to press Jakarta on West Papua, particularly during the
Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, but has taken no meaningful
action. Moreover, the Indonesian military response to Timor-Leste’s
independence vote demonstrated that a large multinational military
intervention would likely be needed in West Papua too, and the squalid
role played by the United States and the United Nations in the
Indonesian takeover constitutes another major obstacle to international
support.
Nonetheless, causes for optimism do exist. For Matsuno (2011) the
cases of South Sudan, Kosovo and Timor-Leste “suggest that state and
morality are seen more related to each other than before, and this
explains the fact that what’s happening within the borders of a
sovereign state is increasingly under international scrutiny”.121 As
such, they also indicate that a normative shift in international
thinking on rights issues has taken place since Rwanda in 1994, as
evidenced by the emergence of the responsibility to protect (RtP)
doctrine and a greater willingness to intervene in humanitarian crises.
However, the international community has proven unable to apply RtP to
economically or politically powerful states, such as Russia and China,
highlighting the limits of the doctrine and raising doubts over its
implementation against Indonesian misrule in West Papua. Indonesia in
1999 was reeling from the effects of the Asian economic crisis and a
difficult transition from authoritarianism, whereas now it appears a
much more stable inclusive state that was even elected to chair the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in 2005. The
continuing plight of Papuans in their homeland underlines concerns that
the RtP doctrine is only applied sporadically and selectively to the
highest profile cases in weak states. For instance, both of Sudan’s
civil wars combined cost 2.4 million lives and displaced another four
million people in one of the worst conflicts since World War II, whilst
an estimated 300,000 Timorese died due to Indonesian misrule
(1975-1999), from a population of around 850,000. The 1991 Santa Cruz
massacre in Dili was filmed and photographed by foreign journalists,
reminding the world of the largely forgotten East Timor conflict.
Likewise, the Aceh peace deal was forged under unprecedented
international scrutiny in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami. The
independence movement in West Papua has not had any comparable events
that have captured the world’s attention, despite the fact that
Indonesian misrule has resulted in around 100,000 Papuan deaths since
1963. An estimated 30,000 of these died prior to the territory’s formal
incorporation into Indonesia in 1969, and whilst unlawful killings still
occur in West Papua they are on smaller scale since the fall of Suharto
in 1998.122 Nevertheless, various analysts have described
the effects of continuing military operations and Papuan demographic
drowning as genocide, and other rights abuses remain common.123 If
charges of Indonesian genocide against Papuans become more accepted
then Indonesia will likely face greater outside pressure over West
Papua.
Indeed, Matsuno has identified another factor that is becoming
increasingly relevant to questions of secession in West Papua and
elsewhere, namely a failure in governing a disputed territory. This
moral dimension behind self-determination, what the author terms a
“shift in construction of sovereign responsibility” apparently worked in
favour of Timor-Leste. Thus, Matsuno argues that, “the world now tends
to see the issue of self-determination not in terms of its original
legality alone but more in terms of contemporary situations of
functioning morality within the state borders”.124 He draws
parallels between the present reality in West Papua and Timor-Leste in
the late 1980s, in which, “There were serious human rights abuses, the
area was closed to foreign media, (an) influx of migrants was
marginalising locals and causing simmering resentment, local leaders
began to think that the government policies had failed, and there was an
emerging young generation of locals who were educated under the
Indonesian system as Indonesian children (who) nonetheless refused to
identify themselves as Indonesians”.125 On the other hand,
however, it should be recognised that Timorese independence was not
wholly due to international pressure but more of a miscalculation by
Habibie that his interests would be better served by granting a
referendum, which the maverick politician fully expected Indonesia to
win.
Despite the problems that an independent West Papua would inevitably
face, South Sudan is in a much more precarious situation as most of its
villages have no electricity or running water, and few sealed roads
exist anywhere in the country. Moreover, West Papua’s neighbours PNG,
the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu have so far remained intact,
despite the difficulties in governing ethnically diverse and
geographically scattered populations. One of the arguments advanced by
Jakarta and its supporters against Timor-Leste’s independence was that
Indonesia’s then 27th province was economically unviable and
incapable of governing itself. Whilst independent Timor-Leste has
suffered setbacks and remains fragile, the situation has improved
markedly since the Indonesian military left. A similar outcome in West
Papua, whether the result of independence or within a properly
implemented autonomy package, would be a major breakthrough for ordinary
Papuans given that Timor-Leste’s indigenous population are now doing
much better than their Papuan counterparts.
For more background to West Papua’s troubled modern history see David Adam Stott, Indonesian Colonisation, Resource Plunder and West Papuan Grievances.
David Adam Stott is an associate professor at the University of
Kitakyushu, Japan and an Asia-Pacific Journal associate. His work
centers on the political economy of conflict and development in
Southeast Asia, Japan’s relations with the region, and natural resource
issues in the Asia-Pacific.
Recommended citation: David Adam Stott, 'Would An Independent West Papua Be A Failing State?,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 37 No 1, September 12, 2011.
Notes
1 Chris Ballard, 1999. ‘Blanks in the writing: possible histories for West New Guinea’, Journal of Pacific History, 34:2, p. 149.
2 Russia and China being the major exceptions.
Nonetheless, some 76 UN member states recognise Kosovo’s independence
and it has become a full member of the IMF and the World Bank.
3 Marcus Mietzner, 2009. Military Politics, Islam, and the State in Indonesia: From Turbulent Transition to Democratic Consolidation, KITLV Press, Leiden.
4 The Special Autonomy Law, implemented in January 2002,
specifies that the Papuan provincial authority can keep 70% of its oil
and gas royalties, and 80% of mining, forestry and fisheries royalties.
However, much of this windfall has been squandered on expanding the
civil service. The only other province to be granted exceptional
autonomy terms has been Aceh.
5 Richard Chauvel, 2011.‘Filep Karma and the fight for Papua’s future’, Inside Story, April 6.
6 I am grateful to Geoffrey Gunn for bringing this point to my attention.
7 See, for example: John Roskam, 2006. ‘Free West Papua not viable,’ Australian Financial Review, April 21.
8 Duane Ruth-Hefferbower, 2002. ‘Indonesia: out of one, many?’, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, 26:2, p. 228.
9 Ben Reilly, 2001. Democracy in divided societies: electoral engineering for conflict management, Cambridge University Press, p.188.
10 Stuart Upton, 2009a. Impact of Migration on the People of Papua, Indonesia,
PhD thesis, p.456. Whilst genetically mixed Melanesian populations also
exist in parts of eastern Indonesia, especially in West Timor and
Maluku, their links to other Melanesian populations in the Pacific are
somewhat tenuous and they are sometimes described as ‘Indo-Melanesian’.
11 C.L.M. Penders, 2002. The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945-1962,
Crawford House, Adelaide, p.89. Christians from these areas generally
had a much closer association with the colonial administration than
other ethnic groups in the Netherlands East Indies.
12 Rodd McGibbon, 2004. Plural Society in Peril: Migration, Economic Change, and the Papua Conflict, East-West Center, Washington.
13 Penders 2002, p.135.
14 Robin Osborne, 1985. Indonesia’s Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, p.37.
15 Thomas Leinbach et al., 1992. ‘Employment Behavior and the Family in Indonesia Transmigration,’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82:1.
16 Stuart Upton, 2009b. ‘A disaster, but not genocide’, Inside Indonesia 97.
17 Figures from Jim Elmslie,
‘Demographic transition in West Papua and claims of genocide,’ 2008.
Elmslie uses the national data for 1971 and 1990 and the provincial
authority data for 2005. He extrapolates the breakdown between
indigenous and non-indigenous for 1971 and 1990 on the basis of language
use.
18 Upton 2009a, p.298. In this case migrant means born
outside of that regency, the vast majority of whom were born outside of
West Papua since indigenous migration around the territory is relatively
insignificant.
19 Upton, 2009b.
20 Lisa Chauvet, Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, 2007. ‘Paradise Lost The Costs of State Failure in the Pacific’, UNU-WIDER Research Paper 16.
21 Washington-based think tank Fund for Peace and bimonthly magazine Foreign Policy have collaborated to produce these rankings since 2005.
22 There was insufficient data available to perform reasonable analysis on Vanuatu.
23 Chauvet et al, 2007.
24 Chauvet et al, 2007.
25 Garth Luke, no date. ‘Australian Aid: A Mixed Bag’, Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).
26 This anthropologist was referring to the situation in
the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea but it appears
equally true for most of Melanesia. See Jeffrey Clark, ‘Imagining the
state, or tribalism and the arts of memory in the highlands of Papua New
Guinea’, in Nicholas Thomas and Ton Otto (eds.), 1997. Narratives of Nation in the South Pacific. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam pp. 65-90.
27 The ‘big man’ syndrome does not apply to Timor-Leste as much as PNG or the Solomons.
28 Peter Savage, 1978. ‘The Nationalist Struggle in West Irian: The Divisions Within the Liberation’, Journal of Sociology, 14:2.
29 See, for example: Richard Robison, 2006. ‘Corruption, collusion and nepotism after Suharto: Indonesia’s past or future?’, IIAS Newsletter 40.
30 See Transparency.org.
A ranking of 178 is most corrupt. Transparency International defines
corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”.
31 Since the 2006 military coup Fiji has not been listed
among the 178 countries. However, Juris Gulbis, director of the
organisation’s Fiji office says that the public perception of corruption
has improved since the military takeover. Link.
32 Jaap Timmer, 2007. ‘Erring Decentralisation and Elite
Politics in Papua’ in Henk Schulte Nordholt and Gerry van Klinken
(eds.), Renegotiating Boundaries : Local politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia, KITLV Press, Leiden, pp. 459-482.
33 Savage 1978, p.143.
34 The World Bank. 2009. Investing in the Future of Papua and West Papua: Infrastructure for Sustainable Development. The World Bank, Jakarta.
35 J. Budi Hernawan, 2011. Managing Papuan Expectations. After Handing Back Special Autonomy.
Centre for International Governance and Justice, Regulatory
Institutions Network, Australian National University, Issues Paper 16.
36 Timmer, 2007.
37 ibid.
38 ibid.
39 ibid.
41 Richard Chauvel, 2005. Constructing Papuan Nationalism: History, Ethnicity and Adaption, East-West Center, Washington p.77.
42 Timmer, 2007.
43 The Jakarta Post, SBY to discuss formation of new Central Papua province, August 7, 2011.
44 In justifying the division proponents cite the case of
PNG, almost similar in size to West Papua, which consists of 20
provinces and a population of 5.2 million people.
45 For more details see International Crisis Group (ICG), 2007. ‘Indonesian Papua: A Local Perspective on the Conflict’, Asia Briefing 66.
46 Chauvel and Bhakti, 2004, p.40.
47 Timmer, 2007, p.461.
48 Alexandre Marc, 2010. Delivering Services in Multicultural Societies, The World Bank, Washington.
49 Stuart Upton, 2006. ‘A cultural carnival? Observing social change in Papua’, Inside Indonesia 86
50 World Bank, 2005. Papua Public Expenditure Analysis.
51 VIVAnews, Ten Regencies Score Poor Governance Index,
June 7, 2011. This survey is based on nine indicators: regional
infrastructure; business expansion programs; interactions access to land
between the government and business; transaction fees; business
licensing; security and business conflict resolution efforts; the
capacity and integrity of the head of the region; and local regulations.
52 World Bank, 2006. Indonesia Poverty Analysis Program.
53 ibid.
54 ibid.
55 ibid.
56 Upton, 2009a.
57 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2004. Indonesia Human Development Report 2004.
58 Elisabeth Oktofani, 2010. ‘Magelang Scores High, Papua Low In Health Survey’, The Jakarta Globe
December 1.
59 World Bank, 2006.
62 UNDP, 2004.
63 ibid.
64 ibid.
65 ibid.
67 Hela Hengene Payani, 2000. ‘Selected Problems in the Papua New Guinean Public Service’, Asian Journal of Public Administration, 22:2.
68 ibid, p.22.
69 Budy Resosudarmo, Lydia Napitupulu and Chris Manning,
2009. ‘Papua II: Challenges for Public Administration and Economic
Policy Under Special Autonomy’ in Budy Resosudarmo and Frank Jotzo (eds.) Working with Nature against Poverty, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore, pp. 59-73.
70 UNDP 2004.
71 Ron Crocombe, 2007. Asia in the Pacific: Replacing the West. IPS Publications, Suva pp. 64, 134
72 EIA and Telapak, 2010. Rogue Traders: The Murky Business of Merbau Timber Smuggling in Indonesia.
73 EIA and Telapak, 2005
74 South China Morning Post, 2004. Indonesia: Illegal Loggers Turn to Papua, November 14.
75 Ron Duncan and Ila Temu, 1997. ‘Trade, investment and sustainable development of
natural resources in the Pacific: the case of fish and timber’, in Enhancing cooperation in trade and investment between Pacific Island Countries and economies of East and South-East Asia, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, United Nations, Volume 1, p.176.
76 Chris Ballard, 2002. ‘The Denial of Traditional Land Rights in West Papua’, Cultural Survival Quarterly 26:3, pp. 39-43.
77 ibid.
78 Matthew Allen, and Sinclair Dinnen, 2010. ‘The North down under: antinomies of conflict and intervention in Solomon Islands’, Conflict, Security & Development, 10:3, p. 305.
80 The World Bank, World Development Indicators 2011. Net ODA received per capita is represented in current US$.
82 Simeon Djankov, Jose G. Montalvo and Marta Reynal-Querol, 2008. ‘The Curse of Aid’, Journal of Economic Growth 13:3, pp.169–94.
83 Tim Anderson, 2010. ‘Land reform’ in Timor Leste? Why
the Constitution is worth defending’, in Michael Leach, Nuno Canas
Mendes, Antero B. da Silva, Alarico da Costa Ximenes and Bob Boughton
(Eds) Hatene kona ba/ Compreender/ Understanding/ Mengerti Timor-Leste, Swinburne Press, Melbourne, pp. 213-218.
84 ibid.
85 ibid.
86 Sinclair Dinnen, Abby McLeod and Gordon Peake, 2006.
‘Police-building in Weak States: Australian Approaches in Papua New
Guinea and Solomon Islands’. Civil Wars 8:2, pp. 87-108.
87 Philip Alpers, 2008. ‘Papua New Guinea: Small Numbers, Big Fuss, Real Results’. Contemporary Security Policy 29:1, p. 151.
88 ibid, p. 153.
89 ibid, p. 154.
91 Jim Elmslie, 2010. ‘West Papuan Demographic Transition and the 2010 Indonesian Census:
“Slow Motion Genocide” or not?’
92 Benedict Anderson, 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London and New York.
93 Nicholas Thomas and Ton Otto (eds), 1997. Narratives of Nation in the South Pacific. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam.
94 John Vail, 2007. ‘Community-Based Development in Tari - Present and Prospects’ in Nicole Haley & R.J May (eds.), Conflict and Resource Development in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, Australian National University, Canberra, p. 108.
95 Rory Ewin, 1999 . The Bougainville Conflict, Lecture to the Australian Defence Force Academy.
96 Chauvet et al, 2007.
97 Gerry van Klinken, 2007. Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia: Small Town Wars. Routledge, London.
98 ibid.
99 ibid.
101 Ironically, the arrival of Christian missionaries from
1855 onwards also advanced the use of Malay as a lingua franca since
they could not initially speak the local languages. Until then Malay had
only been spoken in New Guinea by Muslim traders, bird hunters and
officials from neighbouring Tidore.
102 ICG, 2008 ‘Indonesia: Communal Tensions in Papua’ Asia Report 154, June 16, pp. 7-9.
103 ibid, p. 9.
104 Lorraine Aragon, 2007. ‘Elite Competition in Central Sulawesi’ in Henk Schulte Nordholt and Gerry van Klinken (eds.), Renegotiating Boundaries: Local politics in Post-Suharto Indonesia, KITLV Press, Leiden, p.50.
105 ibid, p.50
106 Allen and Dinnen 2010, p.309. External pressures on
local patronage networks, such as sagging demand for Solomons log
exports during the late 1990s Asian economic crisis, might also have
played a role in raising tensions in the Solomons during this period.
107 Matthew Allen and Sinclair Dinnen, 2010. ‘The North Down Under: Antinomies of Conflict and Intervention in Solomon Islands.’ Conflict, Security and Development 10:3, pp. 308-309.
108 Henrik Urdal and Kristian Hoelscher, 2009. ‘Urban
Youth Bulges and Social Disorder: An Empirical Study of Asian and
Sub-Saharan African Cities’, Policy Research Working Paper, Washington, DC
109 International Organization for Migration, 2008.
‘Situation Report on International Migration in East and South-East
Asia’, Bangkok.
http://www.unicef.org/eapro/IOM_Situation_Report_-_Final.pdf
111 Chauvel, 2005 p. xi.
112 See, for example: J. Sollewijn Gelpke, 1994. ‘The
report of Miguel Roxo de Brito of his voyage in 1581-1582 to the Raja
Ampat, the MacCluer Gulf and Seram’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 150:1, pp. 123-145.
113 Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 but was previously a separate state before it was federated.
114 Edward Aspinall, 2006. ‘Selective Outrage and Unacknowledged Fantasies: Re-thinking Papua, Indonesia and Australia’, Policy and Society 25:4.
115 The Papua Road Map can be downloaded from here.
116 For instance, even though the existing Special
Autonomy Law theoretically allows Papuan political parties, national
legislation requires political parties in Indonesia to maintain offices
in at least half of the country’s 33 provinces. However, the Helsinki
Peace Agreement has effectively granted a dispensation to Aceh since it
provides for local parties in Aceh province. This is another precedent
that could potentially be applied to West Papua.
117 Organic police and military are those recruited,
trained and are under the jurisdiction of the local administration.
Non-organic police and military are those imposed by the national
military and police command. Withdrawing non-organic forces would also
mean withdrawing the structures of the force as well as the personnel.
Thus, it was stipulated that Aceh would have its own police and
military, and that it would be run its own internal security affairs
without oversight from Jakarta or elsewhere in Indonesia.
118 Mietzner, 2009, pp. 301-302.
119 ICG, 2002. ‘Indonesia: Resources and Conflict in Papua’, Asia Report 39, September 13, p. 2.
120 John Saltford, 2000. UNTEA and UNRWI: United Nations Involvement in West New Guinea During the 1960's, PhD Dissertation, University of Hull.
121 Akihisa Matsuno, 2011. ‘West Papua and the changing nature of self-determination’, presented at CPACS Conference: Comprehending West Papua, Sydney University, February 23-24.
122 Eliezer Bonay, Papua's first governor, estimated in
1981 that some 30,000 Papuans died at the hands of the Indonesian
military between 1963 and 1969.
123 See, for example, Tracey Banivanua-Mar, 2008. '“A
thousand miles of cannibal lands”: imagining away genocide in the
re-colonization of West Papua', Journal of Genocide Research, 10: 4, pp. 583-602.
124 Matsuno, 2011.
125 ibid.
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