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| A Papuan with a face painting of the banned Papuan independence flag Morning Star. Image: The Road |
The 4300-km Trans-Papua Highway costing some US$1.4 billion was supposed to bring “wealth, development and prosperity” to the isolated regions of West Papua.
At least, that’s how the planners and politicians envisaged the highway far away in their Jakarta offices.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is so enthusiastic about the project as a cornerstone for his infrastructure strategies that he had publicity photographs taken of him on his Kawasaki trail motorbike on the highway.
But that isn’t how West Papuans see “The Road”.
