LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN PAPUA -- A TALE OF TWO TOWNS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 000948

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, EAP/ANP, DRL, DRL/AWH
NSC FOR E.PHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2018
TAGS: PGOV PINS KDEM ID
SUBJECT: LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN PAPUA -- A TALE OF TWO TOWNS

JAKARTA 00000948 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Pol/Ext Daniel Turnbull for reasons 1.4 (b+d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Two Papuan towns--coastal Nabire and
highland Wamena--present vastly different pictures of local
governance and development. Nabire's relatively effective
local government has made progress on development priorities,
although tensions between migrants and ethnic Papuans lurk
beneath the surface. Local government failures in Wamena
have left the town facing severe governance and development
challenges. Papuans in both towns remain impatient over the
slow implementation of the province's Special Autonomy Law.
As Papua gears up for local elections this year, these issues
will likely come increasingly to the fore. END SUMMARY.

NABIRE: RELATIVE SUCCESS, UNDERLYING TENSION


2. (C) Poloff visited Nabire, located on the coast of the
Cendrawasih Bay in central Papua on May 5. (Note: Nabire is
the capital of the homonymous district that is home to
approximately 160,000 people.) Bupati (Regent) Anselmus
Petrus Youw, Vice Bupati Tonny Karubaba and other local
officials briefed poloff on local political and development
issues. (Bio note: Youw, who appears to be approximately 60
years old, is a 3rd degree black belt in karate.)


3. (C) District officials said the region was still
recovering from the November 2004 earthquake that left 80
percent of the town's buildings damaged or destroyed. Most
public buildings have been rebuilt, including a hospital,
schools and the local government offices. Rebuilding of
private structures is also proceeding apace.


4. (C) Officials are now turning their attention to
longer-term economic priorities. Vice Bupati Karubaba told
poloff that the local government had commissioned a mineral
survey that found potentially exploitable reserves of gold,
copper and nickel. (Note: The Nabire market contained
numerous dealers buying and selling gold, most of it panned
in local rivers. Officials had no information about the
volume of gold trade in the town.) Karubaba complained,
however, that lack of roads into the interior hampered
efforts to develop the region's mineral resources. The
town's remote location also made it difficult to attract the
investment necessary to develop a mining industry.


5. (C) Local officials told poloff their key development
priorities matched those that Governor Suebu had set for all
of Papua Province: education, health and infrastructure.
They complained, however, that the provincial government was
slow to provide them with the money to implement these plans.
They also said the central government still had not
promulgated all the regulations called for under Papua's
Special Autonomy Law, further hindering their ability to move
forward with development.


6. (C) Provincial government officials have their own
criticism of the Nabire administration. In a subsequent
Jayapura meeting, Suebu advisors told poloff that the
Governor believed Nabire officials placed too great a
priority on development in the district capital. They had
resisted the Governor's village-based development plan, which
gave priority to rural areas. As a result, relations between
Jayapura and Nabire were frosty at best, Suebu's advisors
said.


7. (C) Local military (TNI) officials told poloff that the
military's primary focus was to prepare to respond to natural
disasters. Battalion commander LtCol Hidayat S. gave poloff
a detailed briefing on the TNI response to the 2004
earthquake and preparations for possible future disasters.
He said, however, that the local battalion lacked the
training and equipment necessary to cope effectively with a
major disaster.


JAKARTA 00000948 002.2 OF 003



8. (C) Despite the relative success of Nabire's
reconstruction and development, not everyone is happy. In a
meeting with poloff, civil society and religious groups
outlined their grievances. Chief among these is the claim
that ethnic Papuans are now a minority in the district.
(Note: There are no reliable figures detailing the ethnic
composition of Nabire. However, anecdotal evidence suggests
this claim could be true.) Officials from the human rights
group Elsham-Papua told poloff that migrants--mostly from
Sulawesi and the Malukus--benefited from the district's
development while ethnic Papuans were being left behind. The
government, they charged, ensured that migrants had
preferential access to education, jobs and other economic
opportunities.


9. (C) Civil society and NGO activists also repeated the
common Papuan refrain that the central government was not
committed to implementing Special Autonomy. They remain
deeply suspicious of the police and military and are
increasingly alienated from the central government and from
non-Papuan Indonesians.


10. (C) Nabire will hold its first direct election of local
officials in October 2008. No one has yet declared himself
as a candidate; Youw and Karubaba told poloff they did not
plan to run. (Note: both were appointed to their positions
and have served since 2000.) Several observers told poloff
they expected tesosbeteen ethnic Papuans and migrants to
rise in advanc of the vote. However, none predicted any
signiicant violence.

WAMENA: BIG CHALLENGES, GOVERNMNT FALLING SHORT


11. (C) A May 6 visit to Wamen provided a much less positive
picture of local overnment and development. Wamena is the
capitalof Jayawijaya, a sprawling district of 200,000
rsidents--the vast majority ethnic Papuans--in the entral
Papua highlands. The area faces enormousdevelopment
challenges. Most district residentslive in remote villages
and practice subsistence griculture with little more than
stone-age technlogy. Poverty is endemic.


12. (C) Located deepin a valley, Wamana has noo access by
road to theoutside world. Everything that cannot be
producd locally must be shipped by air. As a result, pries
for basic commodities are at least 20-30 percnt higher than
in Jakarta. Communication with otlying villages is
diffiicult, and most villages an only be reached by walking
through dense junge paths.


13. (C) Wamena's local government has efectively broken
down. The bupati has been in jil on corruption charges
since 2006. According o local residents, the vicce bupati is
almost neve present in the town. He, too, is under
investigation for l(ged corrrupiion. According to Barnabas
Daryono, a well-connc"ted local priest, many district
government offiiials rarely report for work. (Note: Poloff
was unable to meet any local government officials. No oe
answered the phone at any of the government ofiices we
attempted to contact.)


14. (C) This failure of local governance is hurting Wamena's
already vulnerable population. Government-run schools and
clinics are chronically short of supplies and trained
personnel. The few things that are moving ahead--such as the
construction of a new bridge just outside of town--are the
result of direct intervention by the provincial government.


15. (C) In contrast with the civilian elements of the local
government, the police and military do appear to be
functioning normally. (Note: Septel will report more fully
on security force activity and human rights.) During
poloff's visit, the security forces maintained a very low-key
presence, contrary to what NGOs sometimes allege is a massive

JAKARTA 00000948 003.2 OF 003


and overt security presence in the highlands.


16. (C) Wamena residents will vote for local officials in
August 2008. No candidates have come forward, although
several officials currently working in the Provincial
Government in Jayapura are expected to join the race. Given
the record of the local government so far, Wamena residents
do not expect very much improvement in their lives after the
election.


17. (C) Jayapura-based officials worry that the elections
will trigger unrest. Berty Fernandez, an advisor to Governor
Suebu, told poloff he expects candidates to appeal to
supporters' tribal and clan loyalties. This, Fernandez
fears, could lead to the kind of tribal violence that
sometimes flares in the Papuan highlands.

COMPLEX TENSIONS


18. (C) Based on our soundings, Nabire is likely
representative of many similarly sized coastal Papuan towns.
Wamena, too, may be a representative example, albeit an
extreme one, of governance in the Papua highlands. Both
towns display problems found elsewhere across the province.
A range of tensions--between Papuans and migrants and between
Papuan groups--continues to simmer even in relatively
successful Nabire. Like Papuans throughout the province,
those in Nabire and Wamena are impatient with the slow
implementation of Special Autonomy and feel they have yet to
see significant improvements in their daily lives.


19. (C) Outside observers most commonly see Papua's problems
in terms of a simple conflict between Papuans and the central
government. The situation in Nabire and Wamena reveals a
more complex situation. Tensions also exist between the
provincial and district governments, between different Papuan
groups and between Papuans and migrants. All of these hamper
the ability of both provincial and district governments to
deliver benefits to the people.
HUME