Government Prepares Special Inpres for Papua Development

Presidential Instruction for Papua

Jakarta: The government is currently preparing special rules for the development of Papua. The regulation is in the form of a Presidential Instruction (Inpres).

“The government has prepared an Inpres,” said MPR Chairman Bambang Soesatyo after meeting with the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD and Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian at Nusantara III Building, Parliament Complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Friday, September 11, 2020.

The Deputy Chairperson (Waketum) of the Golkar Party said that the government had several bases in making the Presidential Instruction. One of them is integrating development in Papua and West Papua.

“Not individually like now, ministry A built this, ministry B built this,” he said.

He hopes that this effort will have a good impact on development in Papua. So, the community feels the development efforts made by President Joko Widodo.

“Development is clearer and more visible, and the Papuan people can experience its development,” he said.

Source of Presidential Instruction for Papua news: Medcom

Notes

A former Dutch colony, West Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after an undisputed vote of about 1,025 representative tribal leaders. The result of the plebiscite was overseen and endorsed by the United Nations.

Since the democratization in 1998, especially since 2007, democracy by mean of elections has been introduced to increase political participation in the two provinces. The fact that the leaders of Papua and West Papua provinces are democratically elected by the people has strengthened the legality of the region as a province of Indonesia.

During the Abdurrahman Wahid administration in 2000, aside from changing the province name from “Irian Jaya” to “Papua”, Papua gained a “Special Autonomy” status, a political compromise between Papuans and the central government.

The political will of politicians in Jakarta to proceed with the implementation of the Special Autonomy was formalized in 2001 with the special autonomy law.