Jayapura, 7/5 (Jubi) – The Papuan Legislative Council (DPR Papua) asked Switzerland to become a mediator in a dialogue between Papua and Jakarta.
The chairman of the Commission A on Political, Law and Human Rights Affairs at DPR Papua, Ruben Magay, said he discussed Special Autonomy and dialogue between Papua and Jakarta during talks with Switzerland Deputy Ambassador Daniel Derzic.
“We asked Switzerland to help. If Papua is regarded as part of the Republic of Indonesia, the people’s rights should be respected. The central government should treat the Papuans as people who have political, economic and democratic rights instead of seeing it through the political lense only,” Ruben said on Wednesday (7/5).
In addition, he said the Papua Parliament also talked about administrative divisions.
“The divisions have become a problem in Papua. The central government always allows regions to be divided administratively. Newly created administrative regions became magnets for immigrants who in turn marginalize the native people,” he said.
Meanwhile the chaiman of the Golkar fraction, Ignasius W Mimin said the Swiss government should pay attention to what have been occurred in Papua includin human rights violations. “About the Special Autonomy, the DPR Papua members agreed to consider it as a failure. We hope the Special Autonomy Plus that is currently being initiated by the provincial government can answer the people’s needs. But we want human rights violations to be addressed. Of course we will still continue to struggle for a dialogue between Papua and the government of Indonesia,” Mimin said. (Jubi/Arjuna/rom)
