Transcript
Andreas Harsono: Military-related militias are starting to increase their campaign against Papua by showing that the Papuan refusing to raise Indonesian flag hoping that it will exasperate the situation on the island of Java, Indonesia's most important island. So how to solve the murder case in Nduga? I suggested that just do the professional police work. Because I know that the police have the photos of possible suspect of the killing, it is not easy to arrest them because they're in the jungle. And of course, it was a crime to kill these workers. The Papuan militant accused that these workers are military men. Even if the accusation is correct, that some of the workers were Indonesian soldiers in civilian clothing, it is not justified to attack them and to kill them, of course. So what the police should do is just professional policing work. It might not be fast enough, but let's wait. A state like Indonesia will be there for many, many decades, if not centuries, we will still have the time to wait for the suspect to surrender.
Mackenzie Smith: So you're saying you're seeing a rise in militia violence against Papuans. Is there a growing anti Papuan sentiment in Indonesia right now?
AH: There is a growing of sentiment against Papuans in Java, Indonesia's most important Island. But at the same time, there is also a growing sympathy to the Papuan, also in Java. So these are two competing narrative. The other side say that well, we did wrong in Papua, we did wrong since the 1960s. And we did wrong by robbing them of their lands, their forests, their culture and many Indonesia admitted that now, Indonesian settlers is the majority in Papua, indigenous Papuans are less than 50 percent of the total population there. So these two growing narrative are there in Java.
MS: I mean, just looking at the history of Indonesia's relationship with mass killings and ethnic violence, do you think an inability to reconcile that is also playing into its relationship with Papua and West Papua?
AH: Mass violence is unfortunately a part of Indonesian modern history. It happened in 1998, where after the fall of President Suharto, about 90,000 people were killed. It happened in 1965, after the fall of President Sukarno, where at least 1,500 thousand were killed, and I'm afraid without solving the underlying issue in Indonesia, which is discrimination, racism, sectarianism, I'm afraid we are going to see another mass violence in Indonesia and Papa will always be a part of it.
*Andreas Harsono was speaking in Auckland while touring his latest book, Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia.
