Jakarta -

Yesterday, Thursday, the Indonesian parliament, in agreement with the Indonesian government, passed 3 laws to divide the easternmost region of Papua, making it 4 regions: Papua, South, Central, and Mountain Papua, after it was the largest of the country's regions, with an area of ​​319 One thousand square kilometers, equivalent to 17% of the area of ​​the Indonesian archipelago, while it is expected that a neighboring region, West Papua, will be divided during the next two years as a second stage, to become 3 other regions: West Papua, North and Southwest.

These two regions - Papua and West Papua - together constitute about a fifth of the area of ​​Indonesia, specifically 22% of it, and they are the eastern gateway to Indonesia towards the Pacific Ocean and neighboring Papua New Guinea. - For about 20 years, but it has been in the framework of deliberations and discussions for two decades between supporters and opponents.

Map of Indonesia showing the province of Papua (the island)

The Indonesian Parliament, as well as Interior Minister Tito Karnavian, believes that the division of a region witnessing an armed conflict with a separatist trend, aims to achieve more justice in development and economic prosperity, and raise the level of public services for citizens, with the allocation of 80% of the new jobs in the administrations that will form the Papal indigenous population, not for immigrants from other regions.

The Minister of the Interior does not rule out that this law will be rejected or there will be a stampede and societal conflict over it, whether between groups supporting and rejecting it on the one hand, or between separatists, the army and the police on the other, calling on the leaders to exercise restraint.

Demonstrators demand that the province of Papua be given the right to self-determination, to choose to stay or secede from Indonesia (Reuters)

The rejection and threat of the separatist movement

It is noteworthy that Papua has been witnessing an armed conflict since 1965, when the activities of the Papua Independent Organization were launched, whose militants are spread in some mountainous areas and forests in the far east of the country, and they have multiple leaders distributed among small armed groups, and they have political and media wings inside and outside the country.

Outside the country, papal activists in support of secession from Indonesia are seeking to gain more support from Western parliamentarians and politicians who together formed what is known as the Union of Parliamentarians for West Papua, headed by British MP Alex Sobel, similar to the previous international movement at the end of the 1990s that sought to separate Timor Al Sharqiah for Indonesia in 1999 and succeeded in that, and their last meeting was about two weeks ago in the corridors of the British Parliament, and there is an effort to establish another forum on behalf of the International Bar Association for West Papua.

The separatists strongly reject the decision to divide the region. Rather, its militants have threatened to strain the security situation if the region is divided, which they consider another attempt by Jakarta politicians to gain more control over the region and its wealth, threatening the Jakarta government with more attacks in the areas that will be re-divided, targeting anyone who takes over the region. New positions in the regions and subsequent new provinces and cities.


In their letters, they even threatened to kill everyone who came from other Indonesian islands to work in the new administrations.

The military leadership of the Independent Papua Organization addressed the Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his deputy, Ma'ruf Amin, a few days ago, demanding to stop the adoption of laws to divide the territory of Papua, and to implement the renewal of its own rule, declaring that they are demanding the right to self-determination.

In the face of such threats, the Indonesian police sent about 300 of its fighting force, in anticipation of the presence of a trend that rejects the government's decisions in some areas of Papua province, and also arrived in Papua province a day before the law was passed, about 400 additional soldiers from the Indonesian army's ground forces.

During the past weeks and months, Papua has witnessed a series of demonstrations and protests rejecting the partition laws and the renewal of the autonomy law for the region, in addition to bloody incidents targeting the security forces, the army and citizens at the hands of the separatist movement.

According to a police report in Papua, the past year witnessed an escalation in armed violence incidents, from 46 incidents of armed violence or confrontations in which 9 people were killed in the territory in 2020, to 92 incidents of armed violence by separatist militants in 2021, during which 34 people from the army were killed. And the police and civilians, as well as 33 wounded, in addition to the killing of 12 people from the separatist group, according to the Indonesian police in Papua province.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on a visit to West Papua (Reuters)

Papuan People's Assembly rejected

Among those who reject the laws relating to the division of Papua is the so-called Papua People’s Assembly, which represents local community, tribal, political and religious leaders, representing hundreds of local tribes. Papua itself, whose approval, they say, comes without the approval of the Papuan assembly, as in the case of previous laws of the tense territory.

Timothy Merib, President of the Papua People's Assembly, indicates that a senior official in the Indonesian Coordinating Minister's Office for Political, Security and Legal Affairs told him that the division of the territory aims to restrict the areas of movement of the armed separatist movement in it, and that this will also allow the construction of more police and army stations in the provinces and municipalities under Managing the regions in its new form.

However, this statement was not confirmed by other official sources.

Prior to that, the Papua People’s Assembly had objected to the Special Self-Government Law that was approved in July last year, 20 years after approving its first version, and the law also finds rejection by about 10 local community organizations, in exchange for the support of other groups of papal supporters of the decisions The government, where they announced in vigils and meetings their support for the new division of the region, while some disagreed about the cities that will become the capitals of the three new regions.

Protests and riots in West Papua to demand the right to self-determination for the region (Reuters)

Poorest Regions and Advancement

Activists raise questions about the possibility of dividing the region into smaller regions in achieving what this political administrative project aims at in terms of raising the standard of living, security, stability and welfare of citizens, in a region with the highest poverty rates in Indonesia, despite the fact that it has a lot of wealth, including oil, gas and gold. Copper, coal, nickel, agricultural potential, marine and forest wealth.

According to the Indonesian Department of Statistics - in the latest figures published about two weeks ago - the poverty rate at the national level is 9.71%, but it rises in Papua to 27.38% and in West Papua to 21.82%, followed by East Nusa Tenggara, located in the southeast of the country, not far away. For Papua, with a rate of 20.44%, while the other regions witness poverty rates below 20%, and in general, the poorest 10 regions in the country are located in the north and east of the map of the islands of Indonesia, with the exception of Aceh in the far west of the country.

Therefore, the division of Papua territory evokes broad aspirations among the Papal community about the future impact of this on their actual lives in terms of human development, educational, health and administrative levels, and security and political stability in the face of a separatist movement whose attacks are increasing since 2019.