Survey compares West Papuan concerns to Indonesian concerns about West Papua

January 30, 2018

This article was originally published by the International Coalition for Papua (ICP).  

The ‘Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) in cooperation with ‘Change.org’ has conducted an internet survey among 27.298 Indonesian citizens about their perceptions regarding West Papua. The majority of participants consisted of Non-Papuans (98%), most of them living outside of West Papua. The survey was conducted for three weeks in November 2017 and covered multiple demographic entities, varying in terms of education, gender and age. The collected data reveals the existence of significant differences in perception regarding the current situation of West Papua between Non-Papuans and indigenous Papuans.

 

While almost 70% of the indigenous Papuans considered the current condition of West Papua as ‘worrying’ or ‘very worrying’, 54% of Non-Papuans living in the Papua assessed the situation as ‘good’ or ‘very good’ (see graphic on the left). LIPI researcher Cahyo Pamungkas stated in a press conference on 14 December 2017, that the difference in perception clearly shows that the heavy security force presence in West Papua results in safe conditions for Indonesian migrants in contrast to the indigenous population, who fear to become victims of human rights violations.

Cahyo Pamungkas’ interpretation is backed up by another finding. In response to the question which are the most sever issues in West Papua, the top three answers among Non-Papuans were ‘low education’ (14 %), ‘alcohol and drug abuse’ (12 %) and ‘infrastructure and transportation issues’ (12.%). Contrary, the top three answers among indigenous Papuans were ‘human rights violations’ (14%), ‘low education’ (10%) and ‘corruption’ (8%).

The LIPI Survey in Bahasa Indonesia can be Downloaded here