goodmorningpapua.com – The role of Indigenous Peoples is greatly needed to support the acceleration of welfare development in Papua.
This was stated by a member of the Special Autonomy Faction of the West Papuan People’s Representative Council (DPR), Mudasir Bogra during a virtual discussion with RRI, Tuesday (18/10/2022). The event was also attended by Anthon Rumbruren, the Representative of Leaders from Monokwari West Papua, and also Helena T. Tuririday as a Lecturer at the University of Papua.
“Because the state has given full authority for special autonomy (Otsus) to Papua, let’s make Papua the frame of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI),” he said.
On that occasion, Mudasir Bogra also revealed his plan for the second phase of the revision of the Special Autonomy Law, his party will submit a proposal so that indigenous peoples are included in the second phase of the Special Autonomy Law.
“So far, there are no special specifications related to indigenous peoples, so they assume that indigenous peoples have never been involved,” he said.
For him, the central and regional governments can also involve the community in development, starting from planning, implementation, to evaluation.
“Indigenous people will participate in developing and advancing their homeland for the nation and state,” he said.
Meanwhile, Academician from the University of Papua (Unipa), Helena said that all land, water and natural resources are owned by the state, but the state must not forget the sovereignty of indigenous peoples.
“Before this country was built, our ancestors had built it first, this can be seen in its development until it is developing today. We are the generation that was born from the education of our ancestors as a result of cultural values before there was a state,” she said.
Helena added that regarding the stigma of indigenous peoples hindering development, according to her, this is not true.
So Helena invokes all parties to be involved in the development. “Let’s together hold a traditional mat to hear the aspirations of the indigenous people, make a decision together, they will certainly participate in developing the land of Papua,” she explained.
Meanwhile, Representative of the Monokwari Traditional Leader, Anthon Rumbruren, hopes that there will be togetherness in building cultural values not only from the grassroots, but from clean government.
“Don’t forget that, a clean government will also accelerate the development of the welfare of the Papuan people,” he said.
Anthon also hopes for the involvement of the Ministry of Communication and Information (Kemkominfo) and RRI to contribute to disseminating information on the development and progress of Special Autonomy in Papua.
“So that the public also knows how far the development and progress of Otsus in Papua is, because so far the people of Papau have been asking what the development of Otsus is in Papua,” he concluded.