Jakarta Globe, Banjir Ambarita, December 19, 2013
West Papuan students shout slogans during a rally in Surabaya on Dec. 2, 2013, demanding the independence of West Papua province from Indonesia. (EPA Photo/Fully Handoko) |
Jayapura.
The head of Papua’s Puncak Jaya district claimed on Thursday that the majority
of the members of the local Free Papua Movement (OPM) faction — known as the
National Liberation Army and led by Goliath Tabuni — have decided to leave the
group and return to their villages.
“According
to the confessions of underlings of Goliath Tabuni, they’ve grown very tired of
living in the jungle for years,” district head Henock Ibo told local
journalists in the Wamena district center on Wednesday. “They’ve gotten very,
very tired.”
The OPM is
an an outlawed militant separatist organization.
Henock said
that as many as 100 of Goliath’s men had participated in a Dec. 11 Christmas
celebration in Puncak Jaya, along with local officials and residents. He said
his administration had invited Goliath to join in the event, which also marked
the district head’s one-year anniversary in office, but the separatist leader
refused to show up.
Henock said
that those 100 men had returned to their villages and were learning to live
like the other villagers.
He said his
administration would train them to become members of the local public order
agency (Satpol PP) and would build 100 homes for them.
“The Papua
governor is also helping to build habitable houses for them,” Henock said,
according to local media site bintangpapua.com.
Ferry
Marisan, director of Papua-based rights group Elsham, expressed doubts over
Henock’s claim.
No media
reports have quoted any of the supposed former OPM member, Ferry said.
“That’s a
one-party claim by the district head,” he told the Jakarta Globe. “We cannot be
sure of that yet.”
With 100
member gone, Henock said, Goliath’s OPM group would consists of only 15
members.
“I think
the [security] situation will improve now,” he said
The Papua
Legislative Council in Jayapura said they welcomed the news and praised
officials in Puncak Jaya for their work.
“We need to
appreciate the Puncak Jaya district head for continually establishing
communications with [the OPM members], so that they have now chosen to return
among the people,” council deputy speaker Yunus Wonda said on Thursday.
He said the
government needed to continue to direct attention toward the former OPM members
so that they would not return to the separatist group.
Yunus urged
Indonesian security personnel to make efforts to understand local culture and
the character of the Papuan people in dealing with separatist movements.
“We wish
for synergy to be built and, more importantly, [there should be] no suspicion
of one another,” Yunus said. “Don’t focus on power. If there’s a problem,
settle it well by building communications.”
The OPM,
which fights for the independence of Papua and West Papua from Indonesia, is
divided into factions, including one led by Goliath, which Indonesian security
personnel have accused of being responsible for a string of attacks against
police and soldiers over the past few years.
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