Opinion and Editorial
February 25, 2007
When Indonesia faces disasters which it cannot physically or financially deal with, such as the tsunami that ravaged Aceh, it looks to the international community for support, and that support is willingly given.
In the case of Australia, we send our most able disaster experts and medical teams to assist Indonesia immediately and unquestioningly. Tragically the lives of nine young Australian air force medical personnel were lost in the Nias rescue effort.
Now Papua is in need. Due to the current military operation underway in Puncak Jaya, thousands have been forced to flee their villages, to seek refuge away from their food gardens and now face critical shortages. A human, man-made tragedy rather than a natural disaster, despite Puncak Jaya being a relatively short distance from the world's most lucrative gold and copper mine, the U.S.-owned PT Freeport, and at the same time as flood-borne disease spreads in the republic's own heartland.
Yet in Papua, the international community is quarantined, prevented from providing humanitarian assistance and emergency food and medical supplies. Why is this so? How many will die because of Jakarta's intransigence?
According to the WHO's latest report on Indonesia, released recently, Papua now has a 2 percent HIV prevalence in the general community, a rate 20 times higher than the rest of Indonesia. Since the early 1990s, warnings of an impending AIDS pandemic in the indigenous population were ignored. Some believe it was deliberate policy to assist in Papua's depopulation.
While this claim is officially denied, illegal brothels, many linked to the security forces, continue to operate without clinical oversight and employ HIV-infected migrant prostitutes.
The arrival of bird flu in Papua last year was, though predicted, not prevented. There remain no effective quarantine measures at ports where the majority of migrants, livestock and produce enter Papua from other islands, mainly Java and Sulawesi.
Now the international community is again asking why Indonesia does not put the well-being of the indigenous Papuan population first, but is repeatedly told that Papua's problems are an "internal affair" which only Jakarta can solve in a "peaceful and just manner".
The usual rerun of Jakarta's defensive stance, that international attention focused on Papua's troubles is a conspiracy which threatens Indonesian sovereignty, is boring, outdated and irrelevant in the face of these crises. To continue to restrict access to this troubled place denies the reality of the magnitude of the problems facing the Papuan people.
JOHN WING
Australia
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