Press Release – West Papua Media Alerts

Father Neles Tebay, co-ordinator of the Papuan Peace Network, has denied reports that he has agreed to support the government’s programme, UP4B in exchange for securing the government’s agreement for a dialogue with the Papuan people. Papuan Peace Network Is Not Connected With UP4B, Says Father Tebay

Father Neles Tebay, co-ordinator of the Papuan Peace Network, has denied reports that he has agreed to support the government’s programme, UP4B in exchange for securing the government’s agreement for a dialogue with the Papuan people.

UP4B, the Unit for Accelerating the Development of the Provinces of
Papua and West Papua, has recently been launched by Jakarta.

Father Tebay said that some circles were claiming that the Network had
abandoned its support for a Dialogue in favour of ‘Constructive
Communications’ which was mentioned as the way forward for Papua in a
recent speech by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

In a press release, Father Tebay said that no one in the Papuan Peace
Network was in any way involved in the UP4B, which is a programme of a
central government and it is up to the central government and the
governments of the provinces of Papua and West Papua to explain what that programme will do.

He said that his network intends to provide a bridge for all the
endeavours aimed at holding a dialogue to resolve the Papuan issue He
stressed that the emergence of the UP4B was not in any way the result of efforts by the Network. There is, he stressed, no connection with the government’s programme.He said that people in Papua were still waiting for clarifications from the government about the aims and objectives of the UP4B which is just a government programme.

He explained that in order to bring about the Jakarta-Papua dialogue,
there was the need for various forms of public political
consultations, seminars, formal and informal discussions, either
person-to-person or between groups, in order to provide the space for
the dialgue to take place.

He strongly denied that there has been any trade-off with the
Jakarta-Papua dialogue which would involve quite a difficult struggle.
He said that the Papuan Peace Network had been approached by the
government for its opinion about the UP4B and in doing so, he had
stressed the importance of holding a dialogue. The procedures and
objectives of the UP4B were entirely up to the government while his
network had no way of knowing whether any of its thoughts had been
taken on board by the government.

As for the Constructive Communications proposed by the government, he
expressed the hope that the government would provide a clear
explanation about what this was intended to do so that the Papuan
people were able to understand what it was all about.

ENDS

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