Today marks the 45th anniversary of the first raising of the Morning Star - the national flag of West Papua - on December 1 1961. Prior to 1961, West Papua was a Dutch colony, but in 1952 the Netherlands recognised the West Papuans’ right to self-determination in accordance with Article 73 of the United Nations Charter. Indonesia felt differently and claimed the territory for itself. However, it declined the Netherlands’ invitation to stake its claim before the International Court of Law. A West Papuan government was set up in May 1961, tasked with the preparation of the country for full independence in 1971.
Seventeen days later, Indonesia launched a small paratroop invasion. The invaders were arrested by the West Papuans. In January 1962, Indonesia provoked a small naval battle, but again the fledgling West Papuan state survived. Unfortunately for the West Papuans, however, Indonesia had some powerful friends. In the ‘New York Agreement‘ of 1962, the U.S. forced the Netherlands to surrender West Papua to Indonesia and the Australians to reverse their policy of supporting West Papuan independence. The Agreement, conducted without the presence of a West Papuan representative, effectively transferred control of West Papua to Indonesia.
Why? It’s a familiar story. General Suharto had recently come to power after murdering half a million suspected Communists - the U.S., so the story goes, feared losing Indonesia to Communism and so didn’t want to upset it by pushing the issue of independence for West Papua. In reality, as elsewhere, the U.S. supported Suharto because he was pro-Western and pro-business. It supported the Indonesian annexation of West Papua to allow these guys unfettered access to the land’s valuable natural resources. Freeport-McMoRan is to West Papua as United Fruit was to Guatemala.
The New York Agreement temporarily transferred control of West Papua to Indonesia but stipulated that a plebiscite would have to be held to determine the final status of West Papua (or ‘West Irian’ as Indonesia branded it). That plebiscite, the ‘Act of Free Choice’, was eventually held in 1969, but it was a sham. The Indonesian government rejected (.pdf) the principle of "one-man, one vote", citing geographical consideration and the "primitive" nature of the West Papuan people. In reality, no-one was under any illusion that Indonesia would ever allow an independent West Papua. The United States certainly wasn’t - in May 1968, the U.S. Ambassador to Jakarta reported (.pdf) that, ‘It is the opinion of most observers in the area that Indonesia will not accept independence for West Irian and will not permit a plebiscite which would reach such an outcome.’ As one Indonesian member of Parliament declared at the time, "We are going through the motions...But West Irian is Indonesian and must remain Indonesian. We cannot accept any alternative." But the United States didn’t care about the West Papuan right to self-determination. All that mattered was a pro-U.S., pro-business Indonesian government. Hence, ahead of President Nixon’s visit to Jakarta in 1969, Henry Kissinger advised him to "avoid" talking about the upcoming "act of free choice" elections. In the end, the ‘plebiscite’ consisted of a panel of 1,024 hand-picked West Papuans (out of a total population of 750,000). This despite the fact that the New York Agreement demanded that all men and women be given the chance to vote for self-determination.
During the years before the ‘Act of No Choice’ (as it is sometimes called) the Indonesian army slaughtered at will and committed widespread and terrible human rights abuses. It was made clear to the people of West Papua what would happen if they voted the wrong way. Just to make sure, the Indonesian military rounded up a large group of tribal leaders and held them captive for a month, threatening them at gunpoint with death if they voted for independence. Unsurprisingly, when the vote was finally held, the result was unanimous - the West Papuans wanted to be ruled by Indonesia. The vote was declared fair by a UN observer, despite the fact that he left after only 200 votes had been cast. Shamefully, the UN accepted the farce as legitimate and West Papua was annexed permanently to Indonesia.
Indonesia had already sold a 30 year mining license to the Freeport mining company in 1967, and now the TNI (Indonesia’s gangster-military) began its campaign of murder, torture and rape that was to last decades. The Indonesian government also began its programme of transferring Javanese into West Papua to displace the natives and make them a minority in their own land. This ethnic transfer has continued throughout the occupation, accelerating during the 1990s.
A paper (.pdf) compiled for the Indonesian Human Rights Network in April 2004 gives an idea of the brutality inflicted upon the natives of West Papua during the Indonesian occupation. It is worth quoting from at length:
"In May 1970, a unit of the Indonesian Armed Forces ("ABRI") Udayana Division shot dead Maria Bonsapia, a pregnant villager, before a crowd of 80 women and children. The soldiers cut the fetus out of her body and dissected the baby. A group of soldiers also raped and killed her sister. The soldiers then informed the gathered crowd that their military colleagues had recently massacred 500 West Papuans in the Lereh district."
"In the village of Kuyuwagi, Indonesian soldiers disemboweled local Papuans whom they had killed, twisting their entrails around sticks and inserting stones, cabbages and leaves into their bodies. The soldiers also used bayonets to pierce pregnant women through the vagina and tear them open to the chest. They cut unborn babies into halves. In one incident, an Indonesian soldier killed Nalogolan Kibak, the tribal leader of Kampong Dila, and filled a bucket with his blood. Then the soldiers forced the tribal leaders, teachers, and pastors of the area, at gunpoint, to drink the blood"
The report concludes:
"The Indonesian military and security forces have engaged in widespread violence and extrajudicial killings in West Papua. They have subjected Papuan men and women to acts of torture, disappearance, rape, and sexual violence, thus causing serious bodily and mental harm. Systematic resource exploitation, the destruction of Papuan resources and crops, compulsory (and often uncompensated) labor, transmigration schemes, and forced relocation have caused pervasive environmental harm to the region, undermined traditional subsistence practices, and led to widespread disease, malnutrition, and death among West Papuans."
Indonesia’s treatment of the West Papuans fits the criteria, according the report, for genocide. The Rev. Socratez Yoman has also recently described the current Indonesian policies of escalating transmigration and military ‘policing’ as effectively genocidal.
According to Amnesty International, at least 100,000 West Papuans have been killed by Indonesian troops during the course of the occupation.
Since the fall of the military dictatorship of General Suharto in 1998, the situation has improved, although not much. Indonesia’s new, democratic governments chose to continue the occupation and continue to violate the West Papuan’s human rights (in part by creating a culture of impunity). Indonesian President Wahid - the first President post-Suharto - offered the Papuans far-reaching autonomy but stopped short of full independence. Even this was too radical for the Indonesian military and establishment, who sabotaged his policies. Still, the incident illustrated the West Papuan readiness to engage in peaceful dialogue with Indonesia. If only the same could consistently be said of the Indonesian side.
In 2002, Amnesty International reported that human rights violations in West Papua are a "daily reality" while in 2005 two men - Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage - were sentenced to 15 and 10 years respectively for "treason". Their crime? Raising the Morning Star flag on December 1 2004, an illegal act under Indonesian law. West Papuan activists raise the Morning Star every year - including this one - in a heroic testament to this people’s determination and commitment to resistance (largely peaceful) despite the barbarous cruelty they have had to endure on their own for so long.
On their own. We’ve already seen how corporate interests led the U.S. to support the Indonesian annexation of West Papua and how the U.S. led the Netherlands and Australia to do the same. The situation has, alas, changed little since then. Today the occupation of West Papua continues, as does the aggression of the TNI; more than 15,000 West Papuans currently live in camps in Papua New Guinea whilst many others have been forced to go into exile, whilst Indonesia currently has 30,000 soldiers deployed in West Papua (soon to be increased to 50,000; or one for every 44 citizens).
Australia has recently signed a security agreement with the Indonesian government, while earlier this year Foreign Minister Alexander Downer made it clear that Australia supports Indonesian "territorial integrity, including Indonesia’s sovereignty over Papua". The U.S. Freeport mining company reported revenue of $350.7 million in the third quarter of this year, even as it is destroying the West Papuan environment and plundering its resources. The world has truly failed the people of West Papua.
Britain has a long and dirty history of selling arms and equipment to Indonesia - equipment it then used against resistance movements in West Papua and East Timor. The U.K. sold Hawk jets to Indonesia which were then used (predictably) to perpetrate the genocide of 200,000 East Timorese. Green Party and Plaid-Cymru MEPs have today launched a Written Declaration calling on the European Union to intervene in forcing Indonesia to respect human rights and grant its people the free and fair plebiscite that was promised to them so long ago. From the major parties, so far, there has been a deafening silence. A protest is being held today outside the Indonesian Embassy in London, during which the Morning Star flag will be raised. We must demand that our politicians do all they can to force Indonesia to respect the law, so that the Morning Star will not have to be put back in a draw tomorrow to gather dust for yet another year of occupation.
Cross-posted at The Heathlander