Frontier Town

Jayapura Is No Longer A

irian jaya Jayapura, capital of Irian Jaya, today offers all the amenities of a large Indonesian town, with some important bonuses thrown in. Dr R. S. ROOSMAN, senior lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the University of Papua New Guinea, reports on a recent visit.

I recently went back to Irian Jaya to gather the latest data on this Indonesian prov ince for the 1978 edition of the Pacific Islands Year Book.

When I spoke about my proposed visit to the Indone sian ambassador in Port Moresby, Major-General Roedjito, he was sympathetic to the idea and provided me with a letter to the Governor of Irian Jaya. In a bureaucratic country like In donesia an introductory letter with the “Garuda” stamp, In donesia’s State seal, is an effective passport to the com plex world of Indonesia’s officialdom.

I made my visit at an in teresting time; several in cidents had recently occurred at the Irian Jaya-PNG border; as a result of troubles in Irian Jaya’s highlands, numerous West Irianese had attempted to cross the border. Also, not long before, a “secret” meet ing had taken place between PNG’s defence commander Brigadier-General Ted Diro and West Irianese rebel leader Seth Rumkorem in Moem barracks in Wewak.

Ted Diro was reprimanded by the PNG Cabinet. This led to a chain of controversial reac tions from various Papua New Guinean politicians.

It was said in PNG that the meeting had been secret, but there had, in fact, been no secrecy about the meeting.

The Indonesian embassy had been officially notified of it by the PNG Government.

Rumkorem had reportedly been told at the meeting “to stay away from Papua New Guinea so as not to jeopardise the friendly relations between the two countries”.

Coinciding with the large scale border trespassing was the sighting of “Indonesian warships” from the border village of Wutung. “Navy boats on regular patrol duty,” said Mr Siregar, the Indone sian Embassy’s information

officer. Near-panicked people in PNG could easily interpret such news as “Indonesia is on the verge of invasion”. This is largely due to an Indonesia phobia dating back to the 60s, when President Sukarno’s agitations against the Dutch mounted into his takeover of West Irian and its incor poration into the Indonesian republic. Border incidents have remained sensitive issues in Papua New Guinea ever since that time.

As I landed in Irian Jaya at Sentani airport, I found peo ple in festive mood. The next day was the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan. The Idulfitri festivities celebrating the end of Ramadhan were about to commence. In In donesia, where about 80% of the population adheres to Islam, a public holiday is declared on the first of the month of Shawal, which follows Ramadhan. In Irian Jaya’s administrative centre, Jayapura, the public servants hail from all over Indonesia.

Alienation could easily occur among them due to their dif ferent cultural, religious and political backgrounds.

This is one of the reasons why certain religious tradi tions, such as Idulfitri, have become institutionalised as national holidays. It was noteworthy, for instance, to see how on the first of Shawal several hundred white collar workers in Jayapura, many of whom are Christians, congre gated in the new provincial government building, and joined their Moslem col leagues in celebrating Idulfitri with congratulatory speeches, sharing a festive meal and listening to re citations of Koran verses and Moslem tambourine music.

All this demonstrates “the spirit of tolerance in line with Panchasila, Indonesia’s State philosophy which is based on the Five Principles of belief in God, humanity, national uni

ty, democracy and social justice”.

People in Irian Jaya are concerned about what is pre sently happening in the Jayawijaya and Paniai high lands. Fighting broke out early this year, which possibly could set back the Repelita II ( 1 974-79) development programme for five years. The Repelita I (1969-74) was full of experiences from which to draw lessons.

Acub Zainal, Irian Jaya’s governor from 1973 until mid-1975, put the emphasis on urban development in coastal towns such as Jayapura, Biak, Sorong and Merauke. Impressive govern ment buildings were erected as showpieces while the rural areas, where most people live, were rather neglected.

The Koteka operation to re place the penis gourds (koteka) of the highlanders with the wearing of shorts had failed, and was ultimately abandoned. Then the Task Force moved into the high lands to teach the villagers how to cultivate new vegeta bles in order to improve their daily diet, mainly of tubers, and furthermore to stimulate a desire to earn money. But food habits proved too strong.

In Wamena, Irianese village women sold “Euro pean” vegetables, such as car rots, tomatoes, cabbages and potatoes which they them selves never ate. Flying out these vegetables to Jayapura proved too costly an op eration, so they piled up at Wamena market with no prospect of being sold except to the small community of In donesian public servants in Wamena.

Primary schools were open ed in the highlands, and parents were encouraged to send their children to school.

However, upon graduating, the students could find no jobs.

The Irianese student or trainee has to compete with the numerous migrants who are coming from technically more advanced provinces of Indonesia, and it seems quite inconsistent that, on the one

hand, the government tries to develop skills among the local Irianese, but on the other hand does nothing to limit the influx of these migrants, many of whom are skilled in pre cisely the techniques that are being taught in Irian Jaya.

The position is aggravated by the tendency of Indonesian bosses and managers, in ad ministration, private business, and domestic services, to give responsible positions to mem bers of their own clans. Even labourers are being recruited and imported from areas as far away as Manado (North ern Celebes), Ujung Pandang (formerly Macassar in the Southern Celebes), Buton Is land, Ternate and the Moluc cas.

Highlanders are not ac cepted as army recruits since they have the tradition of chipping off their ears or finger joints when their rela tives die, thus rendering them unfit for military service.

There were also cases of high landers being made to work without being paid.

These and other reasons have created an atmosphere of discontent which had been brewing for several years. Re cently it erupted into violent opposition with highland war riors, armed with axes, spears, bows and arrows, attacking the army and police.

In one sector Acub Zainal had more success. His ideal of making Irian Jaya a national sports champion was realised when the Irian Jaya Persipura soccer team came second in the 1975 All-Indonesia na tional soccer championship, being defeated only by the Jakarta team.

Acub Zainal’s latest showpiece is the newly finish ed 6-billion rupiah (SUSIS million) three-storey prov incial government building at the waterfront, the construc tion of which drained the provincial treasury into a deficit. This prompted Jakar ta to replace Acub with the present Governor Sutran.

Sutran, a veteran army of ficer with long experience in Irian Jaya, has, in contrast to his predecessor, directed him