West Papuan participation in economic development still low

Transcript

A journalist from Indonesia's Papua region says West Papuans participate only to a limited extent in economic development of the region.

Victor Mambor, editor of the Tabloid Jubi newspaper, is currently visiting New Zealand to discuss media freedom challenges in West Papua.

He says the media landscape in the region, like in many sectors, is often not representative of the aspirations of West Papuans.

He spoke to Johnny Blades who began by asking who controlled media outlets in West Papua and Papua provinces:

VICTOR MAMBOR: In the provinces many of the local media outlets they're owned by non-Papuans. Like, for example, Javanese and Sumatran. They own the media and they operate the media in West Papua. Bot provinces, Papua and West Papua.

JOHNNY BLADES: On the ground for West Papuans is there more participation in economic development these days than, say, 10 years ago?

VM: Many Papuans are participating at an economic level but I think it's not at a high level, more at a grass root level.

JB: You've got a Papuan governor in both provinces though.

VM: Yeah, but when we talk about economic development it's not running by Papuan people. It's run by migrants. But, for example, many of the companies in West Papua and many of the big and medium companies are owned by migrants. And, no Papuans have big companies.

JB: The Solomon Islands foreign minister recently told me he noticed the West Papuans are running their own affairs - they're doing well, he said. Do you think that's right?

VM: It's not fair if the foreign minister says that because they were only four hours in West Papua and they only went to the bank of Papua. A lot of West Papuan, Papuan people working there. But when you come to the owner of the bank, there's no Papuan there. It's a political thing. Indonesian government bring over the MSG foreign ministers,  and see Papuan people working there and think they're involved in economic development but it's not true like that.