{"id":18322,"date":"2015-02-12T14:58:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T03:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=18322"},"modified":"2015-02-13T10:22:55","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T23:22:55","slug":"pngs-prime-minister-speaks-out-on-west-papua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pngs-prime-minister-speaks-out-on-west-papua\/","title":{"rendered":"PNG\u2019s Prime Minister speaks out on West Papua"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Of the many issues raised in Prime Minister Peter O\u2019Neill\u2019s address<\/a> to last week\u2019s summit on how he intends to manage the headwinds buffeting Papua New Guinea\u2019s social and economic progress, six sentences on West Papua\u2019s plight got most of the local and all the international attention.<\/p>\n

He says it\u2019s time to speak up about daily pictures of brutality against Melanesians in West Papua, and that PNG should lead mature and engaging discussions with its friends to tackle that oppression.<\/p>\n

Independence campaigners seized on those remarks as a social media-fuelled \u2018change-of-heart<\/a>\u2019 and major policy shift. Online sceptics<\/a> and critics of the Government, on the other hand, saw a more cynical attempt to create a diversion as the 30-month grace period protecting O\u2019Neill from votes-of-no-confidence expired. Even dispassionate analysts couldn\u2019t help noting PNG produces its own stream of atrocity images\u2014particularly of violence against women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to prove populist motives and base self-interest didn\u2019t spur the comments. After all, Australia\u2019s also accused of letting domestic political imperatives sway international decisions and relationships<\/a>; and wild political dramas occurred here too (Graeme Dobell recalls Michael Somare greeting news of Gough Whitlam\u2019s dismissal with a wry \u2018we\u2019ve only just cut them loose and they\u2019ve already stuffed it up!<\/a>\u2019). PNG politics is sometimes described as a \u2018mad scramble for power<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

But even if O\u2019Neill was partly chasing short-term advantage, other factors were probably also in play. Most Melanesians are genuinely troubled by the economic marginalisation and periodic repression of indigenous West Papuans. Port Moresby\u2019s chance to wrong-foot Suva in their race for regional leadership may have provided another motive. The new United Liberation Movement for West Papua<\/a>, which combines the three main and several smaller separatist groups that had struggled against each other as much as Jakarta, applied last week<\/a> for full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). Murky business considerations, including fugitive investor Djoko Tjandra\u2019s<\/a> immigration status, and logging-spoils along the border, might be at stake too. The speech could even have been intended to remind President Jokowi, who\u2019s popular<\/a>\u00a0in West Papua but linked to President Megawati who hobbled previous Special Autonomy arrangements, that peace in West Papua is important for Indonesia, and something that PNG (which hopes to join ASEAN) might assist.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill\u2019s remarks probably continue Port Moresby\u2019s past position more than they depart from it. True, they gave a powerful neighbour an unusually-public poke in the eye. But a call to work together constructively to curb violence doesn\u2019t necessarily constitute a call for greater autonomy, let alone a cry for self-determination or independence. It\u2019s broadly consistent with O\u2019Neill\u2019s decision to lead a business delegation to Jakarta<\/a> rather than attend a June 2013 summit to consider West Papuan membership of the MSG, which disappointed some but precipitated<\/a> the formula<\/a> agreed a year later welcoming West Papua\u2019s right to apply in consultation with Jakarta.<\/p>\n

That stance recognises that West Papua\u2019s predicament is complex. While Indonesia\u2019s claim to hold more Melanesians than the five MSG countries is a stretch<\/a>, it\u2019s a multi-ethnic republic, and West Papua\u2019s been internationally recognised as part of it since before PNG\u2019s Independence. Although Jakarta drove the decentralisation spawning new administrative units, hand-outs, and absentee jobs \u2018at a viral rate<\/a>\u2019 to divide and rule<\/a>, indigenous local elites \u2018misusing their own cultural traditions to enrich themselves\u2019<\/a> are now responsible for many of West Papua\u2019s health, education and employment challenges. Those problems in-turn sustain \u2018pre-democratic\u2019 military\/business behaviours that \u2018would no longer be tolerated anywhere else in Indonesia<\/a>\u2019. As Melanesians now comprise less than half of the three million citizens of Indonesia\u2019s Papua and West Papua provinces due to transmigration, a plebiscite today would likely produce the same result<\/a> as the 1969 Act of Free Choice (or act-free-of-choice<\/a>). There are probably more economic refugees from PNG on the Indonesian side<\/a> of the border than the eight thousand 1980s political refugees from Indonesia still in PNG. PNG\u2019s border provinces increasingly trade in Bahasa<\/a> using rupiah. Nor do West Papuans want to join \u2018chaotic<\/a>\u2019 PNG.<\/p>\n

None of that\u2019s to say West Papua faces only socio-economic challenges. Indeed, Gary Hogan warns Jakarta\u2019s tendency to view West Papua\u2019s problems solely through a developmental lens<\/a> could condemn it to repeat its mistakes in East Timor. Although police and soldiers are far from the only problem, and have been victims as well as perpetrators of violence, the security apparatus has \u2018come to symbolise everything that\u2019s gone wrong<\/a>\u2019 in handling the conflict. So political dialogue\u2019s vital. And extensive public discussions<\/a> would be required to rebuild acceptance, in both West Papua and Jakarta, that an Aceh-style autonomy framework and political settlement was possible and desirable.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s awkwardly placed to encourage such dialogue, given Jakarta\u2019s deep and prolonged suspicion<\/a> about our motives in Timor, inevitable friction points<\/a>, and particular sensitivities<\/a> about West Papua. So O\u2019Neill\u2019s willingness to speak-out and assume a greater leadership role could be valuable.<\/p>\n

Karl Claxton<\/em><\/a> is an analyst at ASPI. Image courtesy of Flickr user Danny Birchall<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of the many issues raised in Prime Minister Peter O\u2019Neill\u2019s address to last week\u2019s summit on how he intends to manage the headwinds buffeting Papua New Guinea\u2019s social and economic progress, six sentences on West …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":18326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,357,1134],"class_list":["post-18322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-indonesia","tag-papua-new-guinea","tag-west-papua"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPNG\u2019s Prime Minister speaks out on West Papua | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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