REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAYAPURA -- Cendrawasih Regional Military Command XVII Chief Major General Jhosua Pandit Sembiring appealed to all sides in Jayapura to exercise restraint and allow security agencies to restore peace and tranquil in the Papua provincial capital.

"I, along with the chief of the Papua Provincial Police, have gathered religious figures and association leaders. We had engaged in communication. We (urged all sides) to exercise restraint, so nobody will take undue advantage of the conflict," he said.

"As we all see, the economy was hampered as an upshot of the incidents in the past few days and so were public activities and schooling," he remarked during an interactive dialog with the state broadcast station RRI along with Chief of the Papuan Provincial Police Inspector General Rudolf Albert Rodja and Policy Analyst of the Police Education Institute Inspector General Paulus Waterpauw on Sunday.

A string of demonstrations took an anarchic turn in the provinces of Papua and West Papua during the past week, resulting in several buildings incurring damage and being scorched. The local economy also bore the brunt of these rallies.

However, the security situation has returned to normal, and the local residents have gone back to their day-to-day activities owing to the all-out efforts of the Indonesian military and police in cooperation with all elements of the community, he remarked.

"We are optimistic of such a situation always being maintained. Let us exercise restraint and build Papua to create an advanced community," he noted.

Widespread demonstrations were held in several parts of Papua and West Papua in the past week to express ire against alleged racist slurs targeting Papuan students in Surabaya, East Java, on Aug 16. Thousands of people took to the streets in the West Papua provincial capital of Manokwari and the Papua provincial capital of Jayapura to protest against the alleged racist slurs. The rallies took a violent turn, with some demonstrators vandalizing and setting ablaze several government buildings.

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