•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Jakarta.  The government must shift its policy approach on Papua away from the welfare model and toward one focused on resolving the political turmoil there, a leading security NGO said on Tuesday.

In its report “Indonesia: The Deepening Impasse,” the International Crisis Group said the current paradigm adopted by the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was thwarting efforts to develop the province.

“Any prospect of serious talks is hampered by an unwillingness of Jakarta to treat the problem as essentially a political rather than an economic one,” it said.

“To move forward, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono needs personally to take the lead in recognizing that autonomy means more than increased budgetary allocations or accelerated economic development.”

The ICG is the latest group to call for an immediate resolution to the unrest in Papua.

Last week Yudhoyono demanded an audit of Papua’s special autonomous status following mounting complaints that it had failed to make economic improvements after nine years.

“There have been so many letters sent to me, as if Jakarta were neglecting the issue, as if there were not enough funds,” Yudhoyono said after receiving reports from his ministers on recent developments

Yudhoyono said that of Indonesia’s 33 provinces, Papua received the most money from the state budget, followed by Aceh, another region with broad autonomy and a secessionist history.

Meanwhile, the ICG called for talks between Yudhoyono and Papuan leaders to discuss how political autonomy could be expanded, as well as to address the widely held grievances over discrimination, unfulfilled promises and past human rights injustices.

“The longer Jakarta refuses to discuss them, the stronger the radical voices will become,” the ICG report said.

The University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies recently published a study showing that most Papuans believed the special autonomous status granted in 2001 had failed to bring prosperity and had opened the door to corruption.

It also warned of potential bloodshed, similar to that in East Timor following the 1999 independence referendum there.

Last month thousands of Papuans held a peaceful march in the provincial capital, Jayapura, to demand a referendum of self-determination.

On Friday 50 members of the US Congress signed a petition sent to President Barack Obama, stating there were strong indications that “the Indonesian government has committed genocide against the Papuans.”

The members of Congress concluded their petition by encouraging Obama to meet with the so-called Team of 100 from Papua during his upcoming visit to Indonesia, and noted that Obama had the opportunity to bring lasting change to Indonesia.

The team is a group of Papuan tribal elders who in February 1999 met with then-President Habibie in Jakarta to call for secession from Indonesia.

That never happened, but in 2001, under the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid,

Papua was granted special autonomous status with greater power to run its own economy, in a bid by Jakarta to quiet the calls for independence.