Page 259 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

then set up a movement in 1965 and is known as the Free Papua Movement (OPM). This
movement continues to see cessetion from Indonesia as its main goal.
In 1969, a referendum was held and West New Guinea became part of the Republic
of Indonesia. With the inclusion of Papua into the Republic of Indonesia since 1970, the
Indonesian government began a development program in Papua. In 1971, a census of the
entire population of Papua was taken. The result showed that the population of Papua as
a whole (natives and immigrants) was 923,000 people (Koentjaraningrat, 1994: 98). The
population was boosted with the influx of migrants, jobseekers and construction workers.
From 1972 to 1973, the government began implementing its transmigration program
to Papua. 80 families (367 people) of migrants were placed in Girimulyo Nabire district.
Furthermore, from 1974 to 1975, 200 families (713 people) were resettled in different
locations in Nabire. Until 1999, for Nabire district alone, the government had resettled
6,178 families or 22,713 people (Parera, 2014: 6-7). Development was carried out using
a model of the Five-Year Development. The first five years of development up to sixth
focused more on the Development in the field of economics and other fields, one of which
was the development of agriculture.
The transmigration program was conducted support agricultural development and the
population of Java, Bali and East Nusa Tenggara was sent to various regions in the program
including Maluku and Papua. The purpose of sending these homesteaders to Maluku and
to Papua in particular, was the transfer of knowledge in the field of agriculture, especially
paddy rice farming. However, it appears that the transmigration program, was carried out
without proper planning and preparation. It can be seen from many landholdings abandoned
by the homesteaders and some had sold the land to employees. These conditions are
commonly found in all parts of Papua. Perhaps this was due to the lack of understanding of
the prospective migrants about the local culture of people in the areas where they were to be
resettled. In addition, there was still a lack of information about the geography, the natural
conditions of the environment of transmigration destination, so most of the migrants stayed
for only about 3 to 6 months. After there was no assistance from their government, they
sold the land and returned to their home areas. Migrants who survived and stayed did not
establish good communication with the locals. This was going on since the early resettlement
of transmigration until the 1980s. At this time the main focus of transmigration program is
rice paddy farming, which did not suit the culture of the Papuans, making it very difficult
for them to accept, but there was also suspicion among the Papuans themselves about the
presence of migrants, so local inhabitants kept away from the migrants.

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