Jokowi Tries Harder With Restive Papua After Spending Billions
- Indonesia spent $11 billion on Papua, West Papua provinces
- Region struggles with separatist protests, wealth inequality
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s government spent $11 billion over seven years in two of the poorest but resource-rich provinces in the country to win over the locals. Now he is trying even harder in an often-restive region that has been marred by separatist protests.
Jokowi, as the president is known, toured the easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua this past week. He helped to seed a cornfield and gave the jacket off his back to a local in what appears to be a soft-power exercise after his government spent billions from 2014 until now to build a new sports stadium, a 3,462-kilometer toll road, a hospital, five seaports and six new airports.