Solidaritas Ebamukai returns Veronica Koman scholarship funds to Kemenko Polhukam. Page all

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – The Ebamukai Solidarity Team for Veronica Koman entrusted the return of the human rights activist scholarship to the Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs.

One of the team members, Markus Haluk, said his party was simultaneously returning the Red and White Flag, a special autonomy status symbolized by a copy of the Special Autonomy Law for the province of Papua.

The team also symbolically returned the special autonomy fund in the form of 1 million rupee change.

“We finally delivered the return of the scholarship, the flag, the special autonomy status and the special autonomy funds to the Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal and Security Affairs to be entrusted to Dr. Pak Mahfud,” said Markus, who is also the Executive Director of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) through a statement. written, Thursday (9/17/2020).

“Because I had been asking about the Veronica Koman scholarship since last year,” Markus said.

Also read: The Solidarity team wants to return the money from LPDP, Koman: My conference is funded by the people of Papua

Initially, the team visited the Office of the Education Fund Management Agency (LPDP) of the Ministry of Finance to return the Veronica Koman scholarship funds.

It is known that the LPDP collected the scholarship money because Veronica was found to be in breach of the obligation to return and work in Indonesia.

Veronica received the scholarship fund to pursue a master’s degree at the Australian National University in 2016.

Markus admitted that his party had submitted a short hearing request with the LPDP on Monday (9/14/2020). However, the team has yet to receive a response from the LPDP regarding the request.

Visiting the LPDP office on Wednesday (9/16/2020) yesterday, he said the office was closed.

Also read: Solidaritas Papua returns the money from the Veronica Koman scholarship to LPDP

For this reason, the team represented by former political prisoners Ambrosius Mulait and Dano Tabuni, accompanied by human rights lawyer Michael Himan, went to the office of the Ministry of Finance.

However, upon reaching the office of the Ministry of Finance, the team also encountered problems.

“The duty officers refused to facilitate the task, claiming that all the Ministry of Finance staff had returned home,” Markus said.

Therefore, the team eventually handed over the return of the scholarship to Kemenko Polhukam’s office.

In that way, according to Markus, the Veronica Koman Scholarship funds have been paid in full.

The team raised funds for scholarships that were billed at Rs 773.87 million. The funds are said to come from voluntary donations from the people of Papua and from international solidarity partners.

Also Read: Amnesty: Request for Refund for Veronica Koman Scholarship Form Bullying

Markus said raising is done online, by setting up a post, or uploading along the way.

“This fundraising effort was forcibly disbanded twice by the police, namely in Nabire and Jayapura,” he said.

Separately, according to a member of the team, Ambrosius Mulait, the fundraising and repayment took place because the people of Papua felt that Veronica Koman had been instrumental in defending the cases that occurred in Papua.

Earlier, in Veronica’s explanation, she claimed to have returned to Indonesia in September 2018 after completing the master program.

In Indonesia, Veronica is back in the field of defending human rights. For example, join the Papua Association of Human Rights Defenders (PAHAM Papua) based in Jayapura.

Then, providing free or pro-bono legal assistance in three cases involving Papuan activists in Timika.

Also read: When asked to return the LPDP scholarship, Veronica Koman: This is a financial fine to pressure me

Then Veronica flew to Australia on a three-month visa. She came to attend the graduation that took place in July 2019.

After that, he stumbled upon a legal case until he was on the list of people being hunted by the police.

Veronica is known to have been named a suspect by the East Java Regional Police on accusations of spreading false or misleading and provocative news related to the riots in Papua and West Papua on September 4, 2019.

Veronica feels that the scholarship billing is a form of financial punishment.

“The Indonesian government is implementing economic sanctions as the latest effort to pressure me to stop defending Papua’s human rights,” Veronica Koman said in a written statement on Thursday (8/13/2020).

Also Read: Crammed On Veronica Koman LPDP Scholarship, What Are The Recipient’s Obligations And Don’ts

Bantahan LPDP

The LPDP has denied Veronica’s statement that she had returned to Indonesia in September 2018.

The LPDP stated that Veronica returned to Indonesia in 2018 not as a former student, but as a fellow or awardee.

“VKL graduated in July 2019 and only reported graduation from LPDP monitoring and evaluation system application on September 23, 2019, but did not fully surrender,” LPDP wrote.

The LPDP then issued a Decree of the President’s Director on the penalties for reimbursing the LPDP Scholarship Fund of IDR 773.87 million on October 24, 2019.

A few months later, the Letter from the first collection was sent to Veronica. According to the LPDP, Veronica applied for the 12-Installment Scholarship Reimbursement Method on February 15, 2020.

In April 2020, it was recorded that Veronica made the first installment payment, with a nominal value of IDR 64.5 million.

However, as of July 15, 2020, Veronica has not yet continued to pay her scholarship reimbursement fees.