New statistics on the ethnic composition of Indonesia's Papua region indicate that the indigenous West Papuans are not yet the minority there.
This is despite research following the 2010 national census which
extrapolated that Papuans made up around 48 percent of the entire
population as the growth of the non-Papuan population soared.
The Indonesian Statistics Office has recently produced an ethnic
breakdown of the 40 regencies which make up the provinces of Papua and
West Papua, based on the 2010 census.
The stats show that of Papua region's total population of 3.6 million, around 66 percent is made up of Papuans.
But the percentage of Papuans as a proportion of the population has
fallen catastrophically in some regions, particularly around urban
centres.
The convenor of the West Papua project at the Department of Peace and
Conflict Studies at Sydney University, Jim Elmslie, said this pattern
hadn't really happened in the Highlands where Papuans still make up the
vast majority.
"Even though there's huge developments all across the country that
will threaten them, and bring in more settlers and bring in development.
And all of those things are drivers of conflict, both between the state
- in the form of the police and the military - and Papuan nationalists;
and also within areas where there are populations (of Papuans and
non-Papuans) who are in effect competing for land."
Dr Elmslie said it could be considered a positive for the indigenous
Melanesians of this vast region that in the Highlands especially, they
are "not on the verge of disappearing under the weight of inward
migration".
"Some people seem to feel that the general conflict in West Papua
would disappear over time as the Papuan population became a minority.
Well that's obviously not going to happen. That is happening in the
lowlands, but it's not going to happen anytime soon in the Highlands."
The regencies where the non-Papuan population is concentrated tend to
be the centres of power and the richest areas where access to health
and education services is best.
Furthermore, the population growth rate of non-Papuans in Papua
region is significantly higher than that of Papuans, and based on this
trend, the minoritisation of the Papuan population will continue.
Dr Elmslie's new paper
confirms that the proportion of Papuan people as a percentage of the
entire population continues to decline, which his previous research
since 2006 already found.
