RSSA Catholic priest, Protestant pastor and four social leaders from a district in Papua came to Jakarta recently to protest the results of a civil service recruitment test held in their province.
The delegation, representing the Caring for People of Keerom forum, met with government officials on Jan. 14 and 15 to express concern that the results of the Dec. 19 test could spark unrest among people in Keroom.
Father John Djonga of St. Mikail Church in Waris, a Keroom subdistrict, told UCA News 60 of the 90 people who took the test were from the district, but none of the 19 Muslims, two Catholics, and two Protestants who passed are native people.
The results of the test, conducted by the Papua provincial office of the Religious Affairs Ministry, were released in late December.
The priest acknowledged that the central government regards civil service recruitment as part of national policy. However, he pointed out that Law No. 21/2001 guarantees special autonomy and privileges for Papua.
Article 62(2) of the law states that native Papuans are entitled to opportunities and priorities in employment in all fields of work within Papua province based on their education and skills.
“So the central government must be committed to implementing the law,” Father Djonga said.
“The Religious Affairs Ministry should have recruited people from the six religions recognized by the central government,” said the priest, who heads Jayapura diocese´s Keerom deanery, or grouping of parishes. “We want the results of the recruitment test to be revoked.”
He added that since so many people from the district took the test, half of the successful applicants “must be people of Keerom.”
The six government-recognized religions are Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam and Protestantism.
Catholics and Protestants form a majority in Keerom, which lies along the border with Papua New Guinea.
“The reason we come here is because we consider the policy taken by the ministry´s committee that managed the civil-service recruitment test to be extremely unfair, which might spark conflicts in society,” the priest said.
The delegation met with the Secretary General Bahrul Hayat of the Religious Affairs Ministry on Jan. 14 in his office in Central Jakarta. The next day it met with Ali Hadiyanto, head of the ministry´s Personnel Affairs Bureau, and Stef Agus, director general of the ministry´s Directorate General for Catholic Community Guidance.
The delegates wanted to meet Religious Affairs Minister Muhammad Maftuh Basyuni, but were unable to do so. “We feel disappointed,” admitted Djonga, saying they had come “from a remote area” to find some officials did not appear to “want to understand the needs and situation of local people.”
In addition to giving Hayat, Hadiyanto and Agus a statement rejecting the test results, they also gave the officials booklets with information on the district´s political situation, the province´s special autonomous status and the civil-service recruitment test.
The delegation had written in the booklets that the test results triggered a strong protest from native people, because most of those who passed had become Papua residents after moving there from other provinces.
It argued that the testing system “does not accommodate native Papuans in the context of empowerment based on the special autonomy law” and “does not portray the history of the growth of religious believers in Papua and, particularly, in Keerom.”
They suggested the Religious Affairs Ministry temporarily stop processing the test results and review the system itself.
END
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