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| Morning Star Flag; the symbol of Papua Independence |
By Leonard Sebastian and Emirza Adi Syailendra
The Indonesian president is rolling out new initiatives, hoping for a breakthrough in a troubled region.
Separatist resistance persists in Indonesia’s West Papua region, as attempts to internationalize the dispute by the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka – OPM) make it necessary for Jakarta to devise new policy options to address the decades-old conflict.
OPM has been waging a low-level guerrilla war in West Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya, since 1969, the year of the controversial Act of Free Choice – a referendum process that ostensibly resulted in a unanimous decision by Papuan representatives to accept Indonesian sovereignty, but which has been dismissed by analysts as fraudulent.
Police reports indicate that between 2009 and 2014, there were 166 cases of violence involving the OPM. There were at least 14 attacks on the security apparatus in the region between 2014 and 2015. These actions indicate that despite the efforts of a newly democratic Indonesia (since 1998) to proactively address these challenges by reforming its counterinsurgency approach and providing more welfare for the population, grievances fed by protracted human rights abuses and economic exploitation linger.
Read the full story at The Diplomat