Ambon - Maluku‘s govenor has asked the central government to recognize more fully Maluku‘s position as a group of marine-rich achipelago provinces that does not boast other natural resources and is made up of much more water than land.
The region has argued that, unlike other Indonesian provinces which receive funds based on their land mass and from forestry, energy or mining resources, Maluku receives no government payments for the surrounding fishing industries or its water mass.
The initiator of the idea was Maluku Governor Karel Albert Palahalu who is currently serving as chairman of the Archipelagic Province Cooperation Forum until 2010.
He first managed in 2005 to gain support from six governors and speakers from Maluku‘s other six provincial legislative councils.
This group signed the declaration of Archipelagic Provinces in Indonesia in August 2005 in Ambon. The historic pact was known as the Ambon Declaration.
In the declaration, the seven provinces demanded the central government realize the recognition of archipelagic provinces through regulations and programs to help their development.
The central government was also urged to give special but proportional budget allocations based on the provinces‘ characteristics.
The demands were raised to help empower small islands located on the country‘s borderlines -- Maluku has 18 outermost islands and Riau Islands has 20.
The provinces also urged the central government to amend the 2004 Law on local administration by taking into account the Juanda Declaration, which internationally recognized Indonesia as an archipelago state.
"We don‘t demand special autonomy -- just special treatment for provinces surrounding by water," said Maluku‘s administration assistant secretary.
"For us, the sea is not only used as a means of transportation -- it is a public space used to host people and administration activities," Jopi Patty, told The Jakarta Post.
Patty is a member of the forum‘s technical team and said archipelago provinces with a large sea area were disadvantaged by the central government‘s policy on calculating special allocation funds based on land area and excluding the sea.
He said in Maluku alone, the sea covered 92.7 percent of its area compared to land.
We want to be treated fairly and we want the government to understand our region‘s special characteristics, Patty said.
"If the sea is not counted, we‘re at great loss."
Another member of the forum‘s technical team, Matheos George Lailossa, said their idea was based on the Juanda Declaration made on December 13, 1957. This declaration confirmed Indonesia‘s land and sea as one.
Lailossa said the government did not follow the declaration properly even though it had been since 1982 fighting for a similar agreement since an international conference in Montego Bay.
The conference declared archipelago states would use the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) to regulate borderlines.
Indonesia has ratified Unclos by turning it into the 1985 Law.
"After being ratified, Unclos has become national law," Lailossa said.
But in its development, the regulations being issued did not support Indonesia as an archipelago state.
In this case the archipelago provinces are being disadvantaged."
Marine-rich archipelago provinces are also disadvantaged in the distribution of shared revenue.
Provinces that enjoy energy, forestry and plantation resources receive a 22 percent share of the revenue.
The rest is distributed to other provinces.
But Lailossa said provinces with rich fishery resources were not getting this share of revenue on the grounds that it is too hard to determine the the origin of fish.
He said such policy was illogical and that if a fishing company catches fish in Maluku waters -- the catch should simply be from Maluku waters.
"The current policy disadvantages us.
"Moreover, sea is only seen as a bridge to connect one island to another or as a natural resource.
"But for archipelago provinces, the sea is a public space usd for all kinds of activities including transporting the sick to hospital, which can be very expensive.
"So we ask that the sea to be taken into account as part of an administrative region," Lailossa said.
He said if the central government was listening to the archipelago provinces‘ demands, they might receive some more funds.
Based on this assumption, Lailossa said Maluki might get more than Rp 1 trillion (US$111,1 million), which would be an improvement on the current Rp 200 billion allocation.
"With those sort of funds, we can do many things.
"We don‘t want to receive that much money ... and we‘ve prepared to manage it through programs under (our) archipelago province development model," Lailossa said.
Source: www.thejakartapost.com (29 Mei 2007)
