The Jakarta Globe, December 21, 2013.
Jayapura. The Papuan government has prepared Rp 380 billion ($31 million) to build houses and train and educate hundreds of members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) who opt to reconcile with the government and put down their arms.
“The Papuan government welcomes the return of opposition groups to [become] part of our society,” Papua Governor Lukas Enembe said on Saturday. “This is the result of steps which have been taken by both the district [Puncak Jaya] government and the provincial government.”
Lukas said that the government has prepared the reconciliation fund for OPM members who are willing to come down from the mountain.
“The funds will be disbursed through housing and training programs,” he said.
He added that if other regions in Papua could influence OPM members to reconcile with the local government, the provincial administration would also disburse money to those districts.
Some former OPM members have already decided to rejoin society, the governor said, because there have been productive communication between rebels and the province’s government.
“They are aware that their struggle is fruitless,” he said, adding that he expected all people to welcome them back as Indonesian citizens.
He said that hundreds of Goliat Tabuni’s OPM faction who had climbed down the mountain would return to school, with some others returning to work as civil servants and at the Public Order Agency.
“They want to be empowered members of this country,” Lukas said. “They’re our brothers, so we should treat them well and accept them.”
Indonesian armed forces have fought a low-scale insurgency in Papua since the province was annexed into the nation in a 1969 vote widely seen as a sham by international monitors.
(Another case of tasteless window-dressing? Not even to speak about a glorious opportunity to let those $$ millions which have so suddenly "appeared" as out of the morning mists, disappear into the dompets of a privileged few! siK's opinion
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za 21 dec 2013 - 20:28