Accommodating Indonesia by Sacrificing West Papua: Australia and the West’s Regional Realpolitiks

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International Relations, Politics, Regional History

From the first, inchoate Papuan calls for independence (Merkeda) and separation from Indonesia, the West has conveniently chosen to ignore the justness of the West Papuans’ right to self-determination and a post-colonial future. There has been a mixture of motives for these omissions – revolving largely around an insurance policy of political self-interest and opportunities for economic self-gain. Over the past half century Australia, the US and the UN have at different times ably served the Indonesian cause in Western New Guinea (WNG).

imageThe US manipulated the 1962 negotiations between the Netherlands and Indonesia (the New York Agreement) and undercut the Dutch position essentially for ideological self-interest. After overtures and military hardware from the USSR to Sukarno were warmly received in Jakarta, the need to keep Indonesia in the anti-communist camp became critical to Washington’s thinking of the day. The support for Indonesia’s designs on West Irian later lucratively opened the door for US mining companies (I have already outlined how Freeport Copper and Gold, in conjunction with the Suharto regime, richly profited from the mineral-saturated province).

At the time of the so-called “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, Ortiz Sanz, the UN’s official observer at the plebiscite, allowed Indonesia free rein to determine how the poll would be conducted. Jakarta chose a form of consultation with community elders known as Musyawarah, rather than the “one man, one vote” principle. The Musyawarah system (allowing less than 0.2 per cent of the population to vote) flagrantly breached the 1962 New York Agreement. Jakarta then employed its military muscle on the ground to intimidate (and in some cases bribe) a select sample of Papuan voters into allowing integration of the WNG territory into Indonesia. The UN effectively sold the Papuan majority “down the river” by rubber-stamping the manifestly fraudulent result. As John Saltford noted, “U Thant and the UN Secretariat allowed the UN to involve itself in a dishonest process which deliberately denied the Papuans political and human rights”.

In the lead-up to the West Irian vote Washington again endorsed the Indonesian position as the correct one. US national security adviser Henry Kissinger echoing the earlier, dismissive tone uttered by President Kennedy on Papuan self-determination, advised Nixon that “independence was meaningless to the Stone Age cultures of New Guinea”. Interestingly Kissinger later became a member of the board of Freeport and a key lobbyist of the Indonesian government on behalf of the New Orleans-based multinational!

Australia right through the fifties to the early sixties backed the Dutch plan to facilitate self-determination for WNG, slowing bring the colony to a state of readiness for self-determination, and presumably self-rule. Australia was far more conservative about how long this would take for both parts of New Guinea to achieve. The Netherlands however went ahead, from the 1950s on it started building indigenous political structures, trade unions, etc, with a view to possible self-rule for WNG sometime around 1970.

imageCanberra’s support for this option was more about blocking Indonesia’s designs on the territory than about advancing the interests of the Papuans. Australia’s strategic focus in the (still) Eurocentric fifties was on the avoidance of having an Asian power (especially one with a leader showing leftist tendencies) sharing a land border with any territory administered by it. At this time Australia was responsible for the Territory of Papua New Guinea in the eastern half of the island (later granted independence in 1975), and there had even been some discussion of a pan-Papuan Melanesian Union – although it is debatable how seriously this was ever mooted [R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’; JR Verrier, ‘Origin of the Border Problem’].

The US’s involvement in Indo-China in the cause of anti-communism steered the Liberal government in Canberra in a different direction. To counter Soviet influence on Indonesia the Kennedy and Johnson administrations put their support first behind the Sukarno regime, and after it fell, the Suharto regime as “a bulwark against the spread of communism” in south-east Asia. Australia, in what was increasingly becoming its default position, followed the US line … accommodating Indonesia’s wishes on West Irian would uphold the status quo and maintain the regional balance.

Aust & Indonesia discuss mutual interests
Aust & Indonesia discuss mutual interests
In addition to being a supporting pillar in Washington’s Cold War ‘army’, Canberra had its own, more immediate, regional geo-strategic considerations concerning WNG. In 1962 the Menzies government changed tact on the issue. This happened because external affairs minister Garfield Barwick persuaded the cabinet to switch sides. Australia’s immediate defence concerns were still focused on the dangers inherent in “an arc of instability” existing to the north, but Barwick argued, that the creation of an independent micro-state (that would probably not be viable) within the orbit of a large, emerging Asian powerhouse with an axe to grind, was the worst result for Australia [R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’].

The Menzies government rationalised that letting Jakarta have the former Dutch New Guinea colony would satisfy the Indonesians’ territorial ambitions*. And already there were signs in Canberra’s thinking that the integration of Dutch New Guinea into Indonesia was a done deal waiting to happen. As Barwick’s successor as EA minister Paul Hasluck revealing put it in 1965, the process of self-determination need not amount to a plebiscite but can merely be “an act of ascertainment” [cited in W Henderson, West New Guinea: The dispute and its settlement].

The Government of Australia raised no objections to Indonesia’s reliance on a grotesque, wilfully skewed plebiscite in 1969 to meet its desired ends. In fact the new Liberal-Country Party external affairs minister Gordon Freeth endorsed Jakarta’s symbolic consultative process. Without blinking the Gorton government in Canberra subsequently and routinely endorsed the Indonesian takeover of the territory.

The laissez-faire Australian policy towards Indonesia’s oppressive neo-colonial treatment of its Papuan province and people continues to the present. In fact recent Australian governments have been frantically trying to curry favour with Indonesia, making pronouncements on the West Papua issue that at times sound uncomfortably close to appeasement. In late 2013 the then Australian PM, Tony Abbott, obsequiously reassured the Indonesian president at the time (Yudhoyono) that his government would do everything in its power to stop protestors using Australia to criticise Indonesian treatment of Papuans in the province (“as a platform for grandstanding against Indonesia” as he phrased it) [S Rollo, ‘Ending our pragmatic complicity in West Papua’].

For Indonesia’s part it too has a new president, ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, who has expressed a greater interest in the troubled province than his predecessors, and has made some limited concessions. In 2015 he released five Papuan political detainees and lifted restrictions on foreign correspondents within the provinces** (although this has been put in doubt by later contradictory statements).

It is too early to say if Jokowi’s ascension will signify real improvements in the Papuan community’s situation. Both Wahid and Habibie in the Papuan Spring interlude committed themselves to reforms but these did not really materialise. Even with genuine goodwill and intent on the part of the president, it has been shown in Indonesia that the political and military elites can block the way to meaningful changes occurring.

The Indonesia/West Papua conflict has reached a kind of impasse. Indonesia believes that Western New Guinea belongs to it. It sees itself as the rightful heir and successor to the Dutch East Indies empire. It is in possession of that last piece of the East Indies jigsaw and it has the title deeds (albeit tainted) to it in the shape of the 1969 UN-sanctioned plebiscite! Jakarta fought hard diplomatically and by other means in the 1950s and 60s to get West Papua and it is not prepared to relinquish this prize, as far as it is concerned it is non-negotiable! External criticism and talk of “human rights” in West Papua is sternly viewed as interference with Indonesia’s internal affairs.

Melanesian world
Melanesian world
The Papuans, through different lens, see it otherwise. They view the Indonesian identity as an external impost on their Melanesianness, they see themselves as ethnically and culturally distinct from the many other parts of the archipelago. The separatist rebels know that they can never defeat the Indonesian Army militarily, but so barbaric and oppressive is the war Indonesia is waging against militia and civilians alike, that OPM and other pro-independence elements would never give up the struggle whilst they still have any means to resist. The Papuans also have right on their side, they know that the 1969 vote that was supposed to demonstrate the population’s will was an undemocratic, tokenistic process with a transparently contrived result.

Whilst Indonesia persists with its discriminatory practices, behaving as an occupational power with its terror and torture tactics against the Papuans, it can never hope to win the hearts and minds of the population. The great majority of Papuans, from their everyday experiences with Indonesian authority, live with the realisation that, without any say in the matter, they have gone from one form of colonialism (Dutch) to another, more oppressive, colonialism (Indonesian).

imageLike other intractable conflicts around the world it cries out for mediation by a third-party. Comparisons are often made with the Timor/Indonesia conflict which dragged on for decades and at times seemed a pretty hopeless cause for the East Timorese before they finally achieved their freedom. One vital difference between the two though is that the UN supported Timorese independence, but with West Papua the UN has has never given diplomatic recognition to the Papuans’ cause***.

Jakarta refuses to even contemplate granting the West Papuans sovereignty. On a pragmatic level, unlike Timor, they’ve got too much invested in the provinces. Moreover the government has a profound belief in its right to the western Papuan land, based on the ideological underpinning that it sees itself as the natural and therefore rightful heir to the Dutch East Indies – which the western portion of New Guinea was part of (another key difference to Timor-Leste which was a Portuguese colony before the Indonesian invasion).

Indonesia is doing all it can to isolate the Papuan independence movement in the region, applying pressure to dissuade other nearby Pacific states from accepting West Papua into the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). However, someone needs to encourage Jakarta to enter into a dialogue on autonomy for Papua with OPM/pro-independence representatives and to convince it that it is in its interest to do so – otherwise the situation will just perpetuate as a stalemate with further bad PR for Jakarta and a very costly exercise of never-ending military occupation draining the Indonesian coffers … and the issue will continue to cast a shadow over the Indonesian Republic’s human rights credentials.

Australia is the obvious candidate as mediator, but this prospect is problematic on several levels. Australia is hamstrung by the 2006 Lombok Treaty which commits it to support Indonesia’s hold on West Papua, and relations with Indonesia are as sensitive as they probably have ever been. But more germane, both the current Australian government – and the opposition – lack the will to intervene on behalf of the Papuans. A long-delayed justice and a fair deal for the Melanesian population of Papua is just not on Canberra’s radar, rather its priorities lie more in shoring up its bilateral relationship with Indonesia to safeguard its trade and security interests and in heading off the possibility of new influxes of asylum seekers coming to Australian shores.

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* in fact soon after Indonesia had secured its temporary mandate over WNG in 1962 it provoked a confrontation (Konfrontasi) over Borneo with the newly formed Federation of Malaysia, a conflict leading to military involvement from Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

** characteristic of a regime trying to keep its unsavoury authoritarian practices under wraps Indonesia has consistently maintained a media blackout for decades, restricting information on Western New Guinea reaching the outside world (intended to keep the rest of Indonesia in the dark as much as the wider world).

*** in a previous post on West Papua I outlined the negative role played by the UN in hampering the indigenous New Guineans’ free expression of their wishes in the 1969 Referendum on the territory’s future.

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References:
R Chauvel, ‘Fifty years on, Australia’s Papua policy is still failing’, Inside Story, 27 Sept 2012
R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’, Agenda, 11(1), 2004
G Harvey, ‘The Human Tragedy of West Papua’, The Diplomat, www.diplomat.com
S Rollo, ‘Ending our pragmatic complicity in West Papua’, The Drum, ABC-TV, 28 Oct 2013, www.abc.net.au
J Saltford, ‘Act of Free Choice’, Independent Parliamentarians for West Papua, www.ipwp.org
JR Verrier ‘Origin of the Border Problem … to 1969’ in RJ May (Ed.), Between two nations: the Indonesian-PNG border and West Papuan nationalism.
‘Is West Papua another Timor?’, Parliament of Australia (Current Issues Brief 1 2000-01), Dr JR Verrier, 27 Jul 2000

Melanesia’s Militarised Zone … Risking Conflict across the 141st Meridian

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International Relations, Politics, Regional History

Since at least the mid to late 1970s West Irian (AKA West Papua) has been a militarised zone. The Indonesian Army (known as ABRI to 1999, TNI after 1999) has been stationed in the province in increasing numbers to protect extremely valuable US mining interests from sabotage (especially the Grasberg gold and copper mines), and to quell indigenous opposition to Jakarta’s Inkorporasi of West Irian. In the mid 1980s investigative journalist Robin Osborne exposed a “secret war” in Western New Guinea conducted by ABRI since around 1962/63 against a small and poorly armed Papuan militia (known as OPM – Free West Papua Movement) trying to resist the Indonesian takeover [R Osborne, Indonesia’s Secret War … Irian Jaya, (1985)].

imageOPM has been active if sporadic since the 1960s against the occupying Indonesian forces, its hostile actions however limited to guerrilla style attacks on army and police posts (on occasions including assaults on the Freeport mine) and kidnappings of security personnel and transmigrants. The sheer persistence of the low-level insurgency and the resistance of Papuans generally to Indonesian rule has ensured a continuing heavy army and police presence in the province. Up to the time of Suharto’s fall from power, West Irian was declared a militarised zone (DOM – Daerah Operasi Militir) by Jakarta. The ongoing OPM resistance and other provocations such as the raising of the banned West Papuan “Morning Star” flag have met with disproportionate retribution from the security forces.

Amnesty International and other humanitarian NGOs have drawn attention to systematic human rights violations perpetrated by the security forces against Papuan civilians and militia alike, including the widespread use of terror, torture and brutalisation, and rape [‘Indonesia 2015/16 – Annual Report’, AI, www.amnesty.org/en/countries/asia-and-the-pacific/Indonesia]. Richard Chauvel has characterised its prevalence as “a deeply ingrained institutional cult of violence in the way members of the security forces interact with Papuans” [R Chauvel, Policy Failure & Political Impasse’ in P King et al (Eds), Comprehending West Papua].

Military actions by ABRI in 1977-78 (code name “Operasi Kikis”) launched aerial bombardments of villages in the Central and Eastern Highlands (using US and Australian helicopters and aircraft to strafe villages) resulting in an estimated 11,000 casualties among tribesmen and villagers [‘Neglected Genocide: Human Rights Abuses against Papuans’, www.tapol.org].

imageThe security forces, whilst intended to pacify opposition in implementation of government policy, have at times appeared to get right out of hand, provoking riots (eg, Wamena 2000 and Timika 2003) and massacres of civilians (Biak 1998). Kopassus, the Indonesian military special forces unit, has been responsible for assassinating OPM and other Melanesian independence leaders.

Aside from its repressive role against indigenous Papuans, the occupying military has pursued other ‘maverick’ activities in the name of its self-interest. An US Embassy cable in 2007 quoted an Indonesian foreign affairs official as saying that TNI was operating in the province “as a virtual autonomous government entity” and also admitting that troop numbers in Papua were understated, and that they were there to protect the military’s illegal logging interests and other corrupt practices such as controlling prostitution, trafficking in stolen goods and endangered species [Chauvel].

After the fall of Suharto in 1998 Indonesian policy in West Irian entered a new period known as the Papuan Spring … under the new president (Habibie) tight military controls were relaxed right across the Indonesian archipelago and a spirit of democratic reforms (Reformasi) was entered into. This led to greater autonomy for the troubled province of Aceh and eventually to full independence for Timor-Leste. In Papua the outcome was a heightening of nationalistic feeling among the indigenous population (described as “Pan-Papuan nationalism”), but unfortunately there was only a brief interlude before there was a backlash from the Indonesian elites in 2000 and the authoritarian approach was restored. Army reform was supposed to be part of the new deal but successive governments have stalled on the process and ultimately not delivered on the promises [AMT Supriatma, ‘How Security Reforms work in the Conflict Region’, Indonesia, #95 (Apr 2013].

A disturbing consequence of the army’s reprisals against the OPM rebels has led to Papuan fighters fleeing over the border into Papuan New Guinea with ABRI forces regularly crossing the 141st meridian in hot pursuit. The larger scale military operations of the military have resulted in West Papuan villagers also fleeing east into PNG for their safety, eg, in 1983-84 11 to 12 thousand refugees crossed into PNG causing a refugee problem for the country (a logistics problem as well as a political one as PNG was ill-equipped to handle the influx in the hastily set up camps).

The 141st meridian
The 141st meridian
Despite a 1986 border treaty between the two countries incidents continued to strain diplomatic relations – Indonesia was accused of violating PNG air space and thus its sovereignty (an accusation it initially denied but later admitted), and Jakarta in turn was enraged by OPM rebels using the cover of PNG territory to launch the raids across the border into West Irian [‘Indonesia to apologise for PNG border incursions: report’, ABC News 21 Jul 2008, www.mobile.abc.net.au; ‘Border incursions a sign that West Papua also a PNG issue’, RNZ, 3 Mar 2014, www.radionz.co.nz]

The position of the PNG government vis-à-vis the border tensions with Indonesia is a very difficult balancing act – it has to safeguard its own sovereignty (and to be seen doing it), but it also has to tread carefully to avoid offending its powerful and volatile, much larger neighbour. At the same time the porousness of the long (760 km) border has maintained “grass-roots” contacts between Papuans on each side (eg, tribal ties unite Papuans across the border). Another common concern for both is the damage illegal logging is doing to the of New Guinea as a whole. Many Papuans living east of the PNG border regions are aware of the atrocities and denials of freedoms suffered by their brethren on the Indonesian side. All who reside on both sides of the New Guinea border are aware of the anomalies of the situation, one people, one island, yet politically divided. [‘Line between PNG and Indonesia increasingly blurred’, RNZ, 21 Dec 2015, www.radionz.co.nz]

In the 15 or so years since the Papuan Spring dissipated, Indonesian security forces have behaved with immunity in the Papuan provinces, terrorising village communities at will whilst hunting down rebels and independence activists. They have continued to engage in human rights abuses unabated, especially the extensive use of torture and rape of civilians.

An element of racism resides in the Indonesian forces’ violent treatment of Papuans. This is often overt, eg, the tendency of Indonesian troops to have their photo taken with rebels or tribesmen that they have just killed on patrol – in the fashion of “big game” hunters proudly posing with their wild animal trophy! References to Papuans as ‘monkeys’, ‘primitives’ and ‘cannibals’ are rife amongst the security forces and non-Papuan Indonesians generally [M Bachelard, ‘Papuans face ignorance, corruption and racism from Jakarta’, The Interpreter, (26 Jun 2015), www.lowyinterpreter.org].

Densus 88 "Ghost Owls"
Densus 88 “Ghost Owls”
In recent years there have disturbing allegations that Indonesia’s counter-terrorism unit, Densus 88 (Detachment 88) is operating within West Papua. This special branch of the national security forces, funded, trained and equipped by the Australian government, is suspected of carrying out a targeted assassination of a pro-independence Papuan leader in Jayapura in 2012 [‘Is Australia funding Indonesian Death Squads? Densus 88 in West Papua’, http://arsip.tabloidjubi.com/].

East Timor Vs West Papua? Sitting on the Sharp End of Neo-colonialism in a Unitary State

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International Relations, Politics, Regional History

Around 1978/79 I used to catch the 343 bus to work in the southern suburbs of Sydney. At that time I was working for a company that had the double distinction of (then) being both the world’s 9th biggest multinational corporation and the world’s 1st biggest industrial environmental vandal. On this particular day I was sitting on the bus thoughtfully reading a book by Australian journalist Jill Jolliff on Timor-Leste called East Timor: nationalism and colonialism. In the course of the bus journey I became aware of an Asian (Chinese-looking) guy next to me trying his hardest to read, over my shoulder as it were, the book I was engrossed in.

Suddenly, uninvited, he said to me, “why are you reading a book on East Timor mate?” Having invited himself into my personal space, he went on to voice his (popularly held view) that East Timor didn’t matter, it was too small, unimportant, no one cared about it. I asked him if he was Indonesian, to which he, shaking his head, quickly demurred. “No one cares”, he repeated and looked away.

imageAt that period it did look to all the world that the cause of Timor-Leste was a lost one. Realpolitik prevailed. Australia (at government level at least) had happily washed its hands of this troublesome issue, with Whitlam giving Suharto the green light for a takeover in their hushed up Yogyakarta meeting in 1974, and his successor Fraser, rubber-stamping it with his Government’s formal recognition in 1976 of Jakarta’s Act of Incorporation of East Timor.

No one, or so it seemed, cared about the micro “half-island”. The neighbours in the region, the great nations of the world, all denied the Timorese the right to self-determination. In circa 1980 the chances of Timor-Leste ever gaining independence appeared to be zero! And yet that is exactly what was achieved by the Timorese in 2002 when East Timor attained nationhood whilst still sharing an island border with Indonesian Timor-Barat (West Timor).

imageAs amazing, even miraculous, as this transformation was, advocates of a similar sovereignty for West Papua, a territory with much more economic viability and substance than Timor-Leste could ever have, cannot be as sanguine about its chances of achieving sovereignty and separation from the Republic of Indonesia.

When the Dutch former colonial masters of West New Guinea tried to counter Indonesia’s takeover of West Irian in 1962, President Kennedy, in seeking to curry favour with the Indonesians as part of the US’s anti-communist Cold War strategy, notoriously dismissed the Papuans’ right to self-determination with the words, (they are) “living, as it were, in the Stone Age” … a self-damning perspective of the indigenous Irianese as being too ‘primitive’ to matter to anyone [D Rutherford in M Slama & J Munro (Eds), From ‘Stone Age’ to ‘Real Time’, (2015)]

Even Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor’s former president and the man who led the decades-long diplomatic fight to turn international opinion in favour of an independent Timor-Leste, has not given his support to the notion of independence for West Papua [‘East Timor’s former president Jose Ramos Horta says West Papua “Part of Indonesia” ‘, (23-07-15), www.mobile.abc.net.au].

Morning Star Morning Star

The justness of the West Papua’s case for self-determination, a genuine self-determination, not the travesty of one that took place in 1969 (the so-called “Act of Free Will”), has never seemed to grab people, especially in Australia the third party with the greatest self-interest in the large island immediately to its north, in the same way as East Timor did. Its lack of ‘sexiness’ has seen the issue limp along under the radar, never really exciting the passion of progressive elements in Australia, New Zealand, or elsewhere in the West. Of course the media has played a key part in this, not getting the message out of Papua, in large part not being allowed to get the message out – such has been the persistently tight control of Indonesia over press freedoms in the province [‘Press Freedom in Papua?’ (R Tapsell), New Mandala, 11-05-15, www.asiapacific.anu.edu.au].

Notwithstanding the overwhelmingly slim prospects of a sovereign West Papua happening in the foreseeable future, and the sense of fatalism this engenders, it would be instructive to look in some detail at how developments during the period of Indonesian rule over the province reached such a grim outcome.

Whither West Papua? A One Way Trip on the Integration Highway

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International Relations, Politics, Regional History
Western New Guinea

The western half of the island of New Guinea has been known since its discovery by Europe by different names, varying according to just who is doing the delineating. To the Dutch colonialists it was, unsurprisingly, Dutch New Guinea, to the Indonesians it was initially Irian Barat and then later after a dubious plebiscite endorsed Indonesia’s takeover of the territory, Irian Jaya (Victorious Irian), and more recently, Central Irian Jaya, West Irian Jaya and Irian Jaya when Indonesia divided it into three provinces (only to subsequently revert to the present arrangement of two after Papuan opposition). To the indigenous pro-independence movement and most outside observers it is West Papua.

The struggle of the indigenous population of West Papua to determine its own destiny long precedes the period of subjugation at the hands of their current overlords, Indonesia. From the Sixteenth Century on, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Germans, the Dutch and the British, have all staked claims on various parts of the island of New Guinea. Spanish mariner Alvara de Saveedra on visiting the territory in the 1520s named it Isla Del Oro (Island of Gold), which turned out in light of the later discovery of its vast mineral wealth, to have been very prescient [Bilveer Singh, Papua: Geopolitics and the Quest for Nationhood].

Emblem of United States of Indonesia 1949-50

When the emergent Indonesian nation won independence from the Dutch colonists in 1949, the Netherlands refused to cede Dutch New Guinea to the newly-created Republic of the United States of Indonesia. The Indonesian Government argued at the time and have done so ever since in the international forum that, as the successor state to the Dutch colonial territory, it should by right have possession over the entire area of the former Dutch East Indies which included the western part of New Guinea. The Dutch Government’s rebuff of Indonesia’s claim to Western New Guinea was predicated on the fact that its inhabitants were ethnically different to the rest of the East Indies populace [ibid.]. This was Amsterdam’s stated view anyway, on this basis it proposed to guide Western Papua to self-determination at a time to be deemed appropriate.

But as Professor Peter King described the Indonesian mindset on the issue, “(their) agreement to the temporary ‘loss’ of the territory was never anything more than an expedient” [‘Indonesia and Ethno-nationalist “Separatism” since Independence: East Timor, Aceh and Papua’, University of Sydney, Papuan Paper # 6 (Nov. 2013), www.sydney.edu.au/]. Indonesia responded diplomatically by raising the issue at the UN General Assembly four times between 1954 and 1957, but failed to obtain a two-thirds majority. After the last failure Indonesia’s president, Sukarno, changed tack. Taking a more proactive approach, Sukarno seized Dutch enterprises in Indonesia and expelled 46,000 Dutch nationals from the country [PH Kratoska, Southeast Asia, Colonial History: Independence through Revolutionary War].

Through the 1950s tensions between the Dutch and the Indonesians over West Papua were high and intensified after 1957. At the time of the Indonesian Republic’s foundation western powers had indicated that they supported the Dutch plan to bring West New Guinea to self-determination, but by the early sixties the intensification of the Cold War had prompted the United States to reassess it’s priorities. The US’s focus had turned to Asia and the perceived influence of Red China on Indo-China and Southeast Asia in general. It was eager to ensure that geostrategically-important Indonesia did not become lost to communism. Sukarno’s lean to the left, bringing the burgeoning PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) into the political framework, was a particular concern for Washington at this time [95/03/06: Foreign Relations Series, US Department of State, 1961-63, Vol XXIII, Southeast Asia (March 6, 1995). www.dosfan.lib.uic.edu].

The late 1950s saw the Netherlands step up Dutch New Guinea’s preparedness for autonomy, laying the groundwork for an autonomous Papuan entity: new infrastructure was built, education was expanded, political parties and labour unions were created [‘Neglected Genocide: Human Rights Abuses against Papuans in Central Highlands, 1977-78’, (AHRC/HRPP), www.tapol.org/sites/default/files/sitesy/default/files/pdfs/NeglectedGenocideAHRC.pdf].

Indonesian stamp: Battle of Arafura Sea AKA Battle of Vlakke Hoek

Following the appointment of the indigenous representative New Guinea Council in April 1961 to produce a manifesto outlining the Papuans’ feelings on the issue of self-determination, an official raising of the Morning Star flag took place on 1 December 1961 in Hollandia, now Jayapura (Victory City), celebrated as West Papua’s Independence Day (these hopes for independence were however to be dashed on the rocks of political pragmatism within a year). All of these unwelcome developments prompted Jakarta to issue threats to invade the Western New Guinea territory by force. A naval military clash in early 1962 (Battle of Arafura Sea) saw the conflict reach a dangerous flashpoint. An Indonesian attempt to infiltrate West Papua by landing troops in the territory to incite rebellion against Dutch rule was repulsed by Dutch air and naval forces with losses incurred by the Indonesian side [‘Battle of Arafura Sea’ (Wikipedia entry), www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arafura_Sea].

Kennedy–Sukarno talks 1962

The expediency of American foreign policy and the manoeuvrability of its stand on self-determination was exposed bare through statements by US President Kennedy. Freshly into the White House in 1961 Kennedy espoused the principle of self-determination, powerfully so in light of the Berlin Wall crisis, advocating the right of West Berliners to choose freedom in the face of threats from the Soviets and the Eastern Bloc. Simultaneously, demonstrating the ascendancy of realpolitik, Kennedy did a complete volte-face on West New Guinea. The US President summarily dismissed the Papuans’ right to choose their own future, intoning the disdain of the ‘superior’ white man: “The West Berliners are highly civilized and highly cultured, whereas those (only seven hundred thousand) inhabitants of West New Guinea are living, as it were, in the Stone Age” [cited in David Webster, ‘Self-Determination Abandoned: The Road to the New York Agreement on West New Guinea (Papua), 1960–62], Indonesia, No. 95 (April 2013)]. The Americans, in the end, reasoned that giving West New Guinea to Indonesia was the price it was happy to pay to keep the Republic out of the Soviet and/or Chinese camps.

In this polarised climate Western opinion had well and truly shifted on the issue from supporting the Dutch position to the Indonesian one. With Washington putting pressure on the Netherlands and things becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the Dutch in their former colony, the Kingdom advanced its exit plan to completely wash its hands of the East Indies. The US brokered a series of negotiations between the Dutch and the Indonesians which led to the signing of the New York Agreement in August 1962 (significantly no representatives of the West Papuans took any part in the talks). The Agreement stipulated that a plebiscite would be held in West New Guinea by 1969 to determine its future, all adults would be allowed to participate in the “Act of Free Choice”, and the Musyawarah (consultative councils) would be instructed as to how the referendum should reflect the will of the people. Under the Agreement’s provisions the territory was placed under temporary UN administration (UNTEA) until May 1963 when it was handed over to Indonesia to administer in accordance with the pre-agreed conditions for holding a vote to determine independence or incorporation.

From the start Jakarta was determined to snuff out any semblance of Papuan separatism and desire for autonomy. Assimilation into the Indonesian economy and culture was the plan. Government policy and programs aimed at diluting the tendency of the indigenous population to identify themselves as Melanesians, and trying to substitute in them a sense of being Indonesian [Dale Gietzelt, ‘Indonesization of West Papua’, Oceania, 59(3), March 1989]. As part of this policy the Papuans’ use of Dani and other Melanesian languages was forbidden by the Government [‘Neglected Genocide’, op.cit.]. Papuans were reclassified as ‘Irianese’ by Jakarta. To keep a close watch on the indigenous population and especially those the Government identified as subversives, Indonesia had troops on the ground in Irian Barat right from the onset of the interim UN period and the military build-up continued apace [Pieter Drooglever, ‘The pro- and anti-plebiscite campaign in West Papua: before and after 1969’ in P King, J Elmslie & C Webb-Gannon (Eds.), Comprehending West Papua.].

Grasberg Mine, Wt Papua

The military (ABRI) influx and crackdown in West Irian, which escalated in the years up to the Act of “Free Choice” had a secondary purpose, aside from neutralising opposition to Indonesian integration. After the 1963 takeover Sukarno welcomed foreign multinational companies to the new province to engage in what would become a ruthless exploitation of natural resources. The Dutch during the colonial era established that the territory was incredibly rich in minerals. At Tembagapura (“Copper Town”), the large US company Freeport Copper and Gold built a giant gold mine, Erstberg Mine (Dutch for “Ore mountain”), and later near Puncak Jaya, a second even larger open pit mine called Grasberg, the largest in the world – and in partnership with Rio Tinto, the world’s third largest copper mine.

One of the principal functions of the large military presence was to protect these vital economic assets from sabotage. Both mining operations were given free rein by Jakarta with the predictable resultant environmental damage. Freeport Copper became a lucrative source of patronage for the government, especially for the later, Suharto regime. In return, the regime protected Freeport, politically and physically [Denise Leith, ‘Freeport and the Suharto Regime 1965-1998’, Contemporary Pacific, 14(1), Spring 2002].

After the fall of Sukarno in 1966, it was business as usual for his replacement, General Suharto, in regard to the corrupt practices and under-the-table money transfers between the Indonesian regime and huge US corporations. In fact the quid pro qua relationship between Jakarta and foreign capital was further extended with a widening of mining licence access and concessions to US business interests. Suharto’s New Order government and US multinationals were now partners for the long haul [‘Neglected Genocide’, op.cit.].

Acquiring the 420 thousand square kilometres of West New Guinea in 1963 allowed Indonesia a means of easing the archipelago’s demographic pressures on the overpopulated islands. The Government instigated a transmigration program, moving mainly Javanese, Sumatran and Sulawesi Indonesians to live in West Irian. Jakarta provided special autonomy funding (in part sourced from the World Bank) in effect to divide and rule the Papuan population. By favouring certain Papuan elites and regions who were more cooperative with it, over others, the Government was able to undermine and weaken the local separatist movement [Peter King, ‘Self-determination and Papua: the Indonesian Dimension’ in P King et al (Eds), op.cit.]. Despite Government pledges that there would be no transmigration to West New Guinea, the transplanted population from other Indonesian provinces by as early as 1964 was estimated at 16,000 (twice the maximum number of Dutch residents in the territory pre-UN administration) [John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969: The Anatomy of Betrayal].

The growing presence of loyal, pro-Indonesia migrants in the West Irian province was also designed to shift support toward the unification goal of the Government. The attempt to assimilate Melanesian locals into Indonesian life, culture and economy was however counterproductive because the money Jakarta poured into the province creating new jobs in work projects benefitted the subsidised Asian newcomers much more than the urban and rural Papuans. This had the effect of marginalising Papuans from the rewards of economic development. Therefore ironically, rather than binding them to Indonesia the experience with the centre resulting in a sharpening of their sense of racial and cultural distinctiveness, laying the seeds of an embryonic nationalism [Gietzelt, op.cit.].

With the Act of Free Choice required by the terms of the NYA to take place by the end of 1969, Indonesia lost no time in consolidating its plans to secure West Irian. Occupation of the territory was accomplished in a three-pronged strategy, by transmigration of non-Papuans into Irian (as outlined above), through a bureaucracy dominated by Javanese and other Indonesians intent on keeping a tight rein on the Papuan majority, aided in this by in excess of six thousand well-equipped Indonesian soldiers on the ground in West Irian. Jakarta’s objective for ABRI (the Indonesia armed forces) was to pacify the resistance to integration, so that the referendum, when it came, would be assured of a vote for unification with the Republic.

From about 1965, ABRI, under the command of General Suharto, engaged in a “secret war” against the Papuan resistance group, OPM (Free Papua Movement) as well as a terror campaign against targeted groups of Papuan villagers. This involved aerial bombings of Papuan villages located in the Arfak Mountains as well as the Ayamaru, Teminabuan, Paniai and Enarotali regions. The indigenous uprising against the Army in the Arfak highland continued sporadically over several years with the security forces eventually suppressed it, killing approximately 2,000 tribesmen and villagers in the process. Military operations in other parts of West Irian, ie, Ayamaru, Teminabuan and Inanuatan (code name: Operasi Tumpas (Obliteration)), resulted in an alleged 1,500 deaths, including whole villages being wiped out by aerial strafing [‘The Indonesian Army – Act of Free Choice’ (Joseph Daves), www.theindonesianarmy.com]; ‘Papuan Conflict’, (Wikipedia entry), www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_conflict].

Papuan perspective of the “Act of Free Choice”

In the lead-up to the Act of Free Choice, the Indonesians stepped up the intimidation of Papuans. President Suharto issued thinly-veiled threats: anyone who opposed West Irian’s integration with Indonesia would be “guilty of treason” [Brian May, Indonesian Tragedy, cited in Daves, ibid.].

The military command, aside from intimidation and force, used other methods to win over the population (or at least the various tribal elders). Brigadier General Moertopo, put in charge of the ground operations by Suharto, alternated coercion with transparent bribery to secure acquiescence. Planeloads of much-valued consumer goods were distributed to selected local chiefs and community leaders to bring them across to the Indonesian side. Those that accepted the Indonesian largesse would be required to help deliver the pro-integration vote [‘The Indonesian Army’, ibid.]. Many of the Papuan separatists captured by ABRI, such as the Arfak leader Lodewijk Mandatjan, “turned” (dibina) against the resistance or in some cases were recruited to the Indonesian cause by the Red Berets in West Irian [ibid.].

The provisions of the New York Agreement (NYA) which stipulated that self-determination had to be allowed to take its course were breached by the military repeatedly right up to the plebiscite. Because of the tight control kept by the Indonesian administration and army the native population was denied the freedom of speech, movement and assembly that Jakarta had pledged to guarantee in the 1962 accord [Socratez Sofyan Yoman, ‘The injustice and historical falsehood of West Papua’s integration into Indonesia through the Act of Free Choice, 1969’ in King et al, op.cit.].

When it came to the vote itself, the decision-making process was profoundly flawed. Instead of the specified fully-participatory referendum, exercising the one adult one vote principle, the Indonesians set up a consensus by discussion mechanism (Musyawarah Dewan) to decide the matter. Further, the ABRI manipulated the process, appointing a hand-picked consultative committee, 1,026 men (out of a total population of nearly 810,000) who in an open forum with the army standing menacing by, opted for incorporation with Indonesia. Thus, the community representatives who voted to join Indonesia did so because they were either cowed or bribed into doing so it. Papuan students and anyone else suspected of expressing support for independence were rounded up and detained during the consultative meetings to prevent them demonstrating against the ‘yes’ vote [May, op.cit., Indonesian Tragedy].

Indonesian stage-show: the appearance of unity for Ortiz-Sanz’s arrival

The Act of Free Choice was thus completely undemocratic, a travesty of justice. To compound the crime, the UN itself was complicit in the Indonesians’ act of “deceit and theft”, bestowing upon it an air of legitimacy [ibid.]. The UN’s representative in attendance, F Ortiz-Sanz, despite blatant evidence of the illegality of the process, basically rubber-stamped the Indonesians’ actions (detailing only minor objections to the process in his report). Consequently the UN Secretary-General (U Thant) merely ‘noted’ that the Act had resulted in West New Guinea’s integration into the unitary Republic of Indonesia [ibid; UN General Assembly Resolution 2504 (XXIV).]. Papuan and external critics of the Act would come to refer to it as “an Act of No Choice” or “an Act Free of Choice” [Nonie Sharp, Review of RJ May, ‘Between Two Nations: The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Border and West Papua Nationalism’, Journal of Polynesian Society, 97(3), Sept. 1988].

With Indonesia making the outcome a fait accompli by force and the UN giving a half-hearted nod of approval, other countries such as Australia and the UK basically looked the other way. The Americans by 1969 were deeply embroiled in Vietnam and in the region were all about advancing the cause of anti-communism [‘Indonesian Army’, op.cit]. The integration outcome was seen as good for political stability and for business. ‘Strongman’ Suharto and his New Order regime had the green light to apply an even firmer clamp on radicalism in West Irian. And the retention of a territory abundant with minerals, oil and timber by a friendly power open for business (especially American) was a status quo that suited Washington economically as well as politically.