Jayapura – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's visit to Jayapura, West Papua, on July 23 in the context of the commemoration of Indonesian National Children's Day at the Istora Papua Bangkit sports complex was a form of distain and insult when as many as 62,000 Papuans are still displaced.
Most of them are mothers and children in eight conflict areas, Intan Jaya, Maybrat, the Star Mountains, Nduga, Puncak, Yahukimo, Puncak Jaya and Paniai.
This was conveyed in a statement by United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) President Executive Menase Tabuni not long ago.
Tabuni emphasised that, "President Jokowi has been in power for 10 years, he has conducted safari visits and development tours more than 15 times in the land of Papua. The visits by Jokowi have been carried out over the bloody debris, bones and suffering of the Papuan people".
"During this time, he has repeatedly visited West Papua, but there has never been any impact or benefit for indigenous Papuans. He does not have a road map to resolve the root problem of the political conflict and human rights [abuses] in West Papua, while at the same time the Indonesian government is busy dealing with conflicts and problems in other countries, such as Palestine, Myanmar and others", said Tabuni.
Tabuni said that the infrastructure development, the roads and the bridges built by the Indonesian president are actually an effort to accelerate the migration of the Indonesian population into Papua.
These roads and bridges are also a strategy to smooth the process of developing civil infrastructure and specifically to facilitate access for the Indonesian Military (TNI) and Indonesian Police (Polri) to conduct military operations in conflict areas.
Tabuni said that President Widodo needs to know that the land of Papua has the third largest tropical forests in the world, after the Amazon forests in Brazil and the Congo Basin in Central African. And since he came to power the forests in Papuan are threatened with ecocide.
"Of the 34 million hectares of forests in West Papua, 13 million hectares are controlled by investors in the interests of the oligarchy through a handful of Indonesian political elites in Jakarta", he said.
A similar view was conveyed by ULMWP Vice President Executive Octovianus Mote, who said that over the 10 years that Widodo has been in office space for free expression has been gagged.
"Under President Jokowi's leadership, there has also been a curbing of space for freedom in the land of Papua. Around 7,000 Papuans have been arrested and imprisoned for carrying out actions to support the ULMWP membership, especially during the 2015-2018 period, as well as carrying out acts of resistance against racism in 2019 and various other aftershocks".
"Many civilians who are of a productive age are tortured and shot dead by TNI and Polri forces in the land of Papua. President Jokowi's promise in 2015 in Jayapura to open access for [foreign] journalists to visit Papua and his promise in February 2018 in Jakarta of a UN Human Rights Council visit to Papua have not been realised", said Mote.
Therefore the ULMWP emphasised that after 61 years of the Indonesian occupation of the land of Papua, the future of the Papuan nation is threatened by destruction through genocide, ethnocide and ecocide.
"Therefore we call on the Papuan people and the Papuan political elite who work in the Indonesian colonial system not to sell their self-esteem and the hak kesulungan [hereditary rights afforded to first born child] of the Papuan nation to foreign nations. We call on the Papua people not to sell the lands, forests and hak kesulungan of the Papuan nation to anyone", he asserted.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "ULMWP Menyatakan Kunjungan Presiden Jokowi Ke Papua di Atas Darah dan Air Mata".]
