Jakarta’s new man in Wellington opens up on Papua
The military said over the past 24 hours it had taken several buildings that had been defended by snipers
Jakarta: Even before he took up the position, an interview with the Indonesian Ambassador was inevitable.
Tantowi Yahya declared last December that it was his mission to educate New Zealanders about Indonesia’s Papua region, or West Papua. A couple of months into his posting as Indonesia’s man in Wellington, there has been a spike in local activity around West Papua. The exiled West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda came to town to lobby support for West Papuan self-determination.
As a result, 11 New Zealand MPs from four political parties signed an international declaration calling for an internationally supervised self-determination vote in Papua.
It coincided with another protest to the Indonesian embassy where demonstrators gathered to call for West Papuan freedom.
A parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Trade Select Committee has also been considering a petition urging New Zealand’s government to address reported ongoing human rights abuses by security forces in West Papua.
“We understand the perception that hangs around in connection with Papua,” the Ambassador
said.
“For that reason our Police and military have been doing their job very carefully. So they have been informed and very well trained not to do anything that can abuse human rights... But then the news that spreads to the world is the other way around.”
Mr Tantowi explained, he is on board with the President’s opening up of Papua. Development in Papua, he said, was “running in high speed”, a mark of President Jokowi’s commitment to empowering grassroots communities and building infrastructure.