Degenerative Politics: Indonesia Needs To Address Root Cause

1) Degenerative Politics: Indonesia Needs To First Address The Root Cause Of The Crisis
2)Indonesia reduces areas designated as "food estate" in Papua
3) Soldier detained for murdering wife

-------------

New Straits times

1) DEGENERATIVE POLITICS: Indonesia needs to first address the root cause of the crisis
TODAY'S critical situation in Papua is attributed to accumulative public policies that have been imposed on this richly endowed island for almost five decades. Acknowledging the root causes and implementing the right solutions are two daunting challenges.
The Indonesian jurisdiction of the island of Papua, which consists of Papua and West Papua provinces, is one of Indonesia's largest islands and one of the world's richest reserves for copper, uranium, gold and silver. But they are still the two provinces whose Human Development Index (HDI) is among the lowest in Indonesia -- at least, looking at the socioeconomic quality of life there. According to the Central Statistics Agency, the two provinces combined contribute 2.1 per cent of Indonesia's gross regional domestic product for oil and gas, and 2.2 per cent for the non-oil and gas sector.
The stepping down of Suharto and the new democratic era since 1998 has not solved degenerative politics in Papua. Until today, the Indonesian government is still struggling against serious insurgency movements that aim to separate Papua.
Papua is an obvious case where degenerative public policy is prevalent in a corrupt society exacerbated by weak law enforcement, weak democracy where transparency is hardly ever found, and conditions in which powerful parts of society disproportionately supersede other parties in many respects.
Degenerative politics have placed political elites, business communities and the central government as the powerful stakeholders (powerful and positively constructed). Papua's local indigenous people, however, have become dependents (positively constructed as "good" people but relatively needy or helpless, who have little or no political power).
Papua's local insurgents are deemed deviants and groups of reformers who aim to reform Papua economically, politically and socially are considered the contenders.
Looking ahead, Indonesia obviously needs strong and strategic leadership that knows how to implement at least five main objectives through a strategically overarching model of engagement.
FIRST, Indonesia needs a strategic leader who can acknowledge the bias and weaknesses within the government, including those of previous governments;
SECOND, the president, as commander-in-chief and a strategic leader, needs to be open-minded and accommodative towards diverse perspectives held by various stakeholders;
THIRD, the president, along with other policy stakeholders, needs to approach and solve problems in Papua from an overarching perspective using historical and innovative approaches coupled with the courage to take risks;
FOURTH, the endgame state of solving the issues in Papua must bring degenerative politics to an end; and,
FIFTH, the government needs to formulate and exercise an overarching, entire-governmental campaign to deal both with the provinces' root issue -- degenerative politics -- and current symptoms.
At an operational level, the government needs to engage in five interconnected measures.
THE FIRST is psychological engagement to truly win the hearts and minds of the people in Papua;
THE SECOND is law enforcement to deal with any abuse of power, including the allegation of mismanaged funding allocations from 2002 to 2010 as reported by the Supreme Audit Agency;
THE THIRD is public diplomacy to win support from domestic and international stakeholders, accompanied by a set of real actions in order to gain credibility and trust;
THE FOURTH measure is counter-insurgency (COIN) engagement in order to neutralise separatist movements. COIN must be a combination of offensive, defensive and stability operations. The government also needs to trace and halt any financial support for Papua's separatist movements; and,
THE FIFTH measure is the acceleration of economic development that is truly based on a well-designed platform of public policy so that the government can ensure that degenerative public policies are not implemented in the future; and development in its widest sense -- economic, social and political -- takes place in Papua.
Having succeeded in this strategic and overarching engagement, the government will be well in advance of the separatist movements, whose main components consist of mass bases, united fronts, political warfare, armed wings and international support.
The endgame state of any engagement in Papua must be strategic and overarching in order to create a lasting peace and sustainable development.
The critical success factor to achieve this goal is to think and act strategically: Indonesians must be honest with ourselves, understand our past mistakes, clearly acknowledge the real problems, address the underlying causes -- not merely act as a fire extinguisher to treat the perennial symptoms -- and dare to take risks and adopt innovative ways to solve the chronic problems. It's time for Indonesians to think clearly and act for Papua. If we fail to save Papua, the country's national security will be in peril. Jakarta Post

----------------------

2)
Indonesia reduces areas designated as "food estate" in Papua

English.news.cn 2012-07-12 13:36:06
JAKARTA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian government's long- discussed plan to launch a massive food estate in Merauke, Papua in a bid to boost the nation's food production is facing uncertainty amid land acquisition problems, local media reported on Thursday.

The Agriculture Ministry's research and development agency chief, Haryono, said on Wednesday the total land for the food estate in the area had been reduced from 1 million hectares to 200, 000 hectares due to land issues.

"We were planning to have at least 1 million hectares of land [for the project], but then the land problems, such as trying to acquire customary land, occurred; hence the current figure," he said on the sidelines of an international seminar on rice production.

The security situation in some parts of Papua province in recent months has been chaotic with a number of shooting incidents claiming dozens of civilian lives. In response to these events, the agency was planning to conduct new research into the feasibility of building a food estate in the area.

He added, however, that the government was still hoping the Merauke project, known as the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), could still be implemented by 2015 as planned by Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa last year.

Haryono said that, based on the assumption that one hectare of land in the Merauke food estate could produce five tons of rice per harvest then overall, the project would yield at least 500,000 tons of rice if there were two harvest periods annually, even if the available land only amounted to 50,000 hectares.

Indonesia is currently the world's third-largest rice consumer. The country has intermittently imported rice to meet the national demand. In 2008 and 2009, Indonesia was self-sufficient but the year after that, it started to import again, the Jakarta Post reported.

The nation's annual rice consumption tops 139 kilograms per capita. Last year, at least 125 trillion rupiah (about 13.25 billion US dollars) had been spent on imports according to statistics by the Indonesian Farmers' Association (HKTI). Data by the Central Statistics Agency in 2011 showed the country imported 1.87 million tons of rice.

MIFEE, which is planned to start operations in 2014, is part of the government's master plan to help achieve national food sufficiency, eliminating the need to rely on imports.

The Agriculture Ministry's latest data shows that companies involved in the MIFEE project -- including PT. Rajawali Corp., PT. CGAD, PT. Central Cipta Murdaya, PT. Hardaya Sawit Papua and PT. Hardaya Sugar Papua -- have made a total combined estimated investment of 57 billion rupiah (about 6 million U.S. dollars).

Editor: Mo Hong'e

-----------
3) Soldier detained for murdering wife
The Jakarta Post | Thu, 07/12/2012 7:03 AM | Archipelago
Military Police Command (Pomdam) XVII/Cenderawasih arrested Muhammad Mahdi for murdering his wife, Eva Cristianty, 23, who was found dead on the streets between the Jayapura mayor’s office and the Regional Military Command (Kodam) building on Monday morning.

“He has been taken to Pomdam XVII/Cenderawasih to be brought to justice after confessing to killing his wife,” said Jayapura Police chief, Adj. Sr. Comr. Alfred Papare, on Wednesday without providing details on the motive for the murder.

Eva, a mother of a two-year-old child, sustained injuries to her neck, left temple and wrists. Alfred said that the place where the body was found was not the scene of the crime, adding that the victim was murdered in another location before being taken to the street.
Sent from my iPad

ENDS

© Scoop Media