ASIA/INDONESIA - The population of Indonesian Papua opposes the new "Transmigrasi"

Jayapura (Agenzia Fides) - The indigenous population of West Papua rejects the plan of the new Indonesian government to resume the program of internal migration of people from Indonesian islands (mainly Java) to Papua. The planned resettlement program (“Transmigrasi”) aims to encourage internal migration of people from densely populated regions to less densely populated regions of Indonesia. The program was conceived and initiated by the Dutch colonial government, but was taken up and continued again in the last century by the Indonesian government of Sukarno and then from the mid-1980s by the dictator Suharto, only to be suspended in early 2000.
The Indonesian government of newly elected President Prabowo Subianto has now announced that it wants to "revitalize" ten areas in Papua with a new population "to strengthen unity and provide social support to the local population." "We want Papua to be fully unified as part of Indonesia in terms of welfare, national unity and beyond," said Minister of Transmigration Muhammad Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara.
The announcement, meanwhile, sparked concern and protests from Papua's indigenous inhabitants, who fear social and economic problems. West Papua, the western part of the large island of New Guinea, is Indonesian territory and a resource-rich region, but has long been a source of conflict: the indigenous population has denounced abuses and human rights violations by the military for decades. Indigenous groups and student associations in West Papua recall the negative impact of the program under dictator Suharto's "New Order" in the 1960s: to make room for "settlers," indigenous land was confiscated, forests were cut down, and cultural traditions were destroyed (so much so that several indigenous groups now speak the Javanese dialect better than their mother tongue). The government's announcement has also raised doubts among local Christian communities, who have called on the government to focus on the needs of the people rather than on a new "colonization." The Papuan Council of Churches, an ecumenical body that includes leaders of the various Christian denominations, has stressed that the people of Papua are "in dire need of services" and that they "can do without further 'transmigration.'" "Papuans need education, health care, social welfare and development," the Council stressed. Local religious leaders pointed out that the program perpetuates inequalities rather than promotes prosperity. The phenomenon exacerbates social problems, such as tensions arising from cultural and linguistic differences between the various groups: native Papuans suffer from marginalization and exclusion, and feel resentment towards "foreigners," who are Indonesian citizens from other islands, as well as a "distance" from the central government in Jakarta. According to official statistics, between 1964 and 1999, 78,000 families moved to and settled in the Papua region thanks to the incentives offered by the government: the program was suspended to respect the principle of administrative autonomy of the various regions of the vast Indonesian archipelago. According to the Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics, about 6.2 million people now live in the Indonesian region of West Papua. Persistent tensions that have never abated in Indonesian Papua have created an underlying state of crisis due to conflicts between the Indonesian army and armed separatist groups such as the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) or the Free Papua Movement (which emerged in the early 1960s): today there are still about 80,000 internally displaced Papuans in the conflict areas. The fighting groups claim injustices against the local population. (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 6/11/2024)

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indigenous

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migrants

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