Popular Participation since the Special Autonomy Law for the Province of Papua came into effect
Conference “Autonomy for Papua – Opportunity or Illusion?”, 04-05.06.2003
by Simon Patrice Morin
Simon Patrice Morin
Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul
Since the Law on Special Autonomy for the Province of Papua, Law No. 21/2001 came into effect on January 1, 2002, its acceptance by both the Papuan people and Indonesian Government officials as a solution to the long-standing conflict between Jakarta and Papua has been far from convincing. It is never an easy task to gain support for a new idea. To obtain popular support and hence participation in the implementation of such a law, one needs to first understand various psychological, political, cultural and economic factors that lie behind the perception of various community groups within the Papuan society.
To date no comprehensive survey has been conducted to determine the perceptions of the Papuan people with regard to the new Special Autonomy legislation. In the following, I would like to present some of the opinions I have encountered during my own observations within the first year of the implementation of the Law.
The people and their leaders
The ‘ordinary people’
The perception of the Special Autonomy Law by the ‘ordinary Papuan people’ is that it is yet another trick on the part of those in Jakarta, aimed at neutralising the strong ongoing demand for an independent Papua that has been voiced loudly since President Suharto stepped down on May 21, 1998, and Indonesia entered a new, more democratic era. Based on their past experience, they have concluded that ‘independence’ is the only way to end four decades of sufferings caused by human rights violations, injustice and disrespect for their cultural identity and traditional rights. They believe that only through independence can they preserve their long-term existence.It must be noted that, for ordinary people, knowing the ins and outs of the laws that affect their lives as citizens is somewhat of a luxury and certainly not a priority. Disappointingly, thus far there has not been any serious effort on the part of the local Government to socialise the Special Autonomy Law and its implications among people at the grass-root level.
The good news is that, although they distrust the intentions of the Central Government, since the Special Autonomy Law came into effect on January 1, 2002, many Papuans have adopted a ‘wait-and-see’-attitude. As some of them wisely told me: “Look, if this Special Autonomy is a blessing from God, surely He will send His holy spirit to guide its implementation.”
Community leaders, intellectuals and the political elite
Community leaders, intellectuals and representatives of the political elite, who were from the beginning involved in the drafting of the Special Autonomy Law, believe that the Special Autonomy status granted by the Law represents a third or a ‘middle’ way to end the four decade long conflict between Papua and Jakarta. They have accepted the Law as a common platform from which to deal with Papuan matters in a democratic way, while admitting that this Law is not a panacea.This group represents the people who have acted in good faith and who have continuously sought peaceful ways to protect both their people and the integrity of the Republic of Indonesia from potentially destructive powers caused by mutual distrust. They have supported the Law based on the conviction that it represents the best way to solve the existing conflict and to create harmony between Papuan interests and the interests of the Indonesian State.
The non-indigenous Papuan community
This group consists of migrants from other provinces who have come to Papua of their own accord or through the state-sponsored transmigration programmes. These people have received the new Law with mixed feelings: On the one hand, they can see the benefit of the Law for avoiding potential conflicts triggered by social jealousy of the sort seen in West Kalimantan between the indigenous Dayak tribes and Maduranese migrants from Java. On the other hand, they seem to misunderstand the affirmative action measures for indigenous Papuans included in the Law and are suspicious that these could potentially create a discriminative environment.As far as I have observed, so far no special programme has been conducted by the Government aimed at socialising the Special Autonomy Law among this group in order to avoid misunderstandings that could potentially be tapped by disruptive elements in order to create new conflicts within the Papuan society.
Government apparatus
Regional Governments
Representatives of Regency and City Governments perceive the Special Autonomy Law to be nothing more than a new national policy to develop the province. My personal discussion with many local bureaucrats about the Special Autonomy Law revealed that not many actually understand the Law. Some have the partial understanding that the Provincial Government of Papua is to be granted more authority and more money in order to promote greater prosperity among the Papuan people. This limited understanding is the reality we are facing at the beginning of the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law.As is widely known, during the New Order Era, the entire Government administration system was centralised and regional Government institutions at all administrative levels were only operators of decisions and instructions made at the national level.
But in the new era, the era reformasi, since the introduction and implementation of Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Government and Law No. 25/1999 on Fiscal Balancing between the Central Government and the Regions, the Government administration system has been transformed from a centralised to a decentralised system. One major impact brought about by the implementation of these laws is the change of roles and responsibilities of the Regents (Bupati) and Mayors (Walikota) as the heads of Government of the regencies and cities. This shift in authority in itself has brought about extreme pressure on the Regents and Mayors as well as on the Regency and City Parliaments. On the one hand, the whole nation is demanding a more open and democratic Government at all levels, but on the other hand, we face the reality that for more than three decades the human resources involved in regional Government institutions have been trained as operators, not as decision makers or problem solvers.
That is why, although the Province of Papua has a Special Autonomy Law, we still hear stories about Regents who regularly leave their offices for Jakarta or who go abroad for unclear reasons, leaving their people facing a rusty bureaucratic apparatus without any clear answers or solutions for their problems.
Given these realities, many changes must be made at the regional Government level in order to make the institutions work more responsively, to cope with their changing societies and especially to support the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law.
The Provincial Government
Although the Law mandated greater responsibility to the Province to implement the Law and to draft implementing legislation called Perdasus and Perdasi 1 , their result in the first year was zero. There are two reasons for this: Firstly, the Provincial Government understands nothing about drafting legislation; secondly, as a Government apparatus they only accept Special Autonomy as yet another Central Government policy to develop the province and hence to neutralise independence aspirations of the Papuan people. For them Special Autonomy means more funds and more development projects distributed to Papua.The Central Government
Although the Law was a product of the Indonesian Parliament and the Central Government, some of the high ranking Government officials still regard the Special Autonomy Law with some suspicion, as an instrument with separatist nuances. The Central Government is thus slow in complying with its responsibilities under the Law. So for instance the proposal by the Provincial Government for issuing a regulation regarding the establishment of the Papua People’s Council (MRP), which had been submitted to the Central Government already in July 2002, has not yet been realised. These high-ranking Government officials then advised the President to issue the contradictory instruction, Presidential Instruction No. 1/2003, for the implementation of Law 45/1999 on the Establishment of the Province of Central Irian Jaya, the Province of West Irian Jaya etc., a law which had earlier been rejected by the people of Papua.What Papuans are really expecting from Jakarta is a strong commitment to support and supervise the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law as a sign of mutual trust and mutual understanding. Special Autonomy should also be seen as a design for reconciliation. Through Special Autonomy Jakarta has given more than it was forced to give, whilst Papua has taken less than it was able to take. That is as it should be between Jakarta and Papua. Ambiguity and suspicion on the part of the Central Government towards the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law would only generate more distrust and eventually the failure of the implementation of the Law.
Legislative bodies
The Provincial Parliament
Most of the members of the Provincial Parliament have not been aware of the importance of their role in supporting the implementation of the Law. During the first year of the implementation of the Law, no implementing regulations have been issued by the Provincial DPRD as was mandated by the Law itself. MPs gave more attention to the allocation of the Special Autonomy funds in the Provincial budget than to making the Law work for the people.Regency and City Parliaments
Most members of the Regency and City Parliaments do not have any idea about the Law. They perceive it as a provincial matter and do nothing except expecting a bigger portion of the Special Autonomy funds to support their budget at the regency and city level.Based on the perceptions mentioned above, I would like to sum up the situation with a Russian analogy: The implementation of the Special Autonomy Law in its first year was like a cart pulled by a fish, a bird and a horse. The bird tries to fly the cart into the sky, the fish tries to swim with it to the bottom of the sea, and the horse tries to pull it across the road.
Conclusion and recommendations
From what has been described above, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- Popular support for the Special Autonomy Law and participation in its implementation are still characterised by a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude. This ‘wait-and-see’ attitude could transform into a distrust of the relationship with Jakarta, if Jakarta retains its suspicion and distrust of the Papuan people at all levels including the suspicion of Papuan Special Autonomy as ‘separatist’ tool. The Central Government should view the Special
- Autonomy Law as a breakthrough in the process of solving the long standing conflict between Papua and Jakarta.
- More socialisation of the Law on various levels is needed in order for the different groups of people to understand the Special Autonomy Law.
- Capacity building is needed for local Government bureaucrats and legislators as the prime officials in charge of implementing the Law.
- Provincial legislators need to speed up the issuing of implementing regulations for the Special Autonomy Law.
- The local government with the supervision of the Central Government should design public service standards, especially in health care and education, as a controlling tool for the proper implementation of the Law. With these standards for public services people would be empowered to voice their complaints if Government officials failed to do their jobs as public servants.
- The Central Government and the national Parliament should back up the implementation of the Law with expertise needed in the form of ad-hoc-committees to supervise local Governments and Parliaments to enable them to perform their job successfully and properly for the sake of the people.
- The international community should support and encourage the Central Government to implement the Special Autonomy Law.
1 Perdasus is the Indonesian acronym for Special Regional Regulation, which is stipulated in the Law to be a Regional Regulation of the Province of Papua in the framework of implementation of certain articles of the Special Autonomy Law. Perdasi is the acronym for Regional Regulation of the Province, which is stipulated in the Law to be a Regional Regulation of the Province of Papua in the framework of implementation of the authority as regulated in statutory regulations.
