Indigenous Peoples Affirm Papua’s Development Since Joining the Republic of Indonesia
The indigenous people in Papua emphasized that the beginning of the rapid acceleration of development in various sectors in Bumi Cenderawasih was when they joined the fold of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
Of course, this is also related to the mandate of the State Constitution which states that there will be protection for all Indonesian bloodshed, and the state has an obligation to improve the welfare of all its people. So when Papua decided to join together within the framework of the MKRI in 1963, significant development immediately occurred even to this day there.
All eyes can see firsthand how rapid development and progress is taking place in Papua, and as a comparison, they can also see the condition of Bumi Cenderawasih before and after joining the Republic of Indonesia. Therefore, it makes local indigenous communities fully support the government.
Papuan traditional community leader, Yanto Eluay stated that May 1, 1963 was the beginning of the development of Bumi Cenderawasih. In fact, he really admitted that after the joining of West Irian or Papua at that time, all development from Sorong to Merauke immediately occurred.
Because of all this very significant development, even now the easternmost province in the country has experienced progress in all its fields, so the Papuan people should not be easily divided just because of various interests, especially because of incitement and propaganda issues and provocations from other parties. irresponsible like the Free Papua Organization (OPM) which really doesn’t like it if Bumi Cenderawasih is able to move forward with this nation.
In fact, if you look at the condition or position and status of Papua itself internationally, the world through the United Nations (UN) has finally acknowledged that Bumi Cenderawasih is indeed an integrated regional unit with the Republic of Indonesia.
Therefore, all elements of society should participate and play an active role in continuing to maintain good security and order conditions in order to continue optimizing development even better in the future.
All efforts or programs to accelerate development that the Government of the Republic of Indonesia (RI) has carried out so far are also important to obtain full support from all elements of the indigenous Papuan community (OAP) so as to further minimize the possibility of irresponsible parties providing obstacles to these efforts.
If, for example, one community and another is still mired in compartmentalization and unable to establish an era of unity and oneness, then clearly this will greatly hamper efforts to accelerate welfare development so that equality in all fields and all regions in the country will also be hampered.
If this continues to happen, then in other words, Papua will certainly continue to lag behind and be inversely proportional to other regions in Indonesia. Therefore, the government’s efforts and programs to accelerate the development of Bumi Cenderawasih must receive the full support of all OAP elements.
Now, with the existence of Special Autonomy (Otsus) and the realization of regional expansion through the New Autonomous Region (DOB) in Papua, it is clear that it is able to further support all local communities to experience development in various sectors, including the government, private and education sectors.
All elements of the nation in Papua, whether they are in the mountains, valleys or coasts, should continue to join hands in carrying out development on their land so that the OAP community can achieve better prosperity.
As one clear example that Papua is indeed an integral and inseparable part of the Republic of Indonesia, namely the government’s seriousness in intensifying its development acceleration program.
This happened when the President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo (Jokowi) held a limited meeting and involved many parties such as various ministries and institutions who were required to determine the formula including the budget to support Papua’s development.
The Minister of National Development Planning (PPN) or Head of the National Planning Agency (Bappenas), Suharso Monoarfa, said that the government will take various welfare approaches in Bumi Cenderawasih, where all of the development acceleration programs will be implemented as soon as possible this year.
For this welfare approach, the main thing is that the government focuses on improving facilities or sectors that are fundamentally very important in the development of human resources (HR), such as in the fields of education, health, security and so on.
In this case, it is important to maintain security and order in society in order to continue to support or support the development program, and at least not hinder it.
Responding to this, the Chairman of the Malamoi Community Organization, Silam Kalami appealed to the entire local community to maintain security and order conditions as a form of shared responsibility.
The Papuan indigenous people have also acknowledged that the development, progress and development in the Land of Cenderawasih has indeed been very significant. This started in 1963, when the region officially joined the fold of the Republic of Indonesia.