Spotlight on Papua
Spotlight on Papua
The recent declassification of documents by the U.S. National
Security Archive pertaining to the 1969 referendum on Papua has
put this vast and resource-rich westernmost province of Indonesia
in the spotlight.
The 35-year-old documents say, in effect, that the UN-endorsed
referendum was a sham as it excluded most Papuans during the so-
called "Act of Free Choice". In sum, the referendum was flawed.
One of the documents was a 1969 report from the American
Embassy in Jakarta to the U.S. Department of State, saying that
the impending referendum unfolded like a Greek tragedy in which
the conclusion was already preordained. Indonesia, it says
"cannot and will not permit any resolution other than the
continued inclusion of West Irian in Indonesia."
The documents referred to Papua, the western half of Papua New
Guinea, as West Papua. Indonesia renamed the province Irian Jaya
after the 1969 self-determination vote. Former president
Abdurrahman Wahid changed Irian Jaya back to Papua on Dec. 31,
1999.
The Papuans voted unanimously to stay with Indonesia in the
August 1969 referendum. The UN endorsed the referendum on Nov. 19
of the same year through its resolution No.2504 in which 80
countries expressed their support and 30 countries abstained.
It should be remembered that when Indonesia gained its
independence in 1945, the country comprised more than 400 ethnic
groups, encompassing stone-age to modern civilizations.
Indonesian leaders believed that the most efficient way to hold
the referendum was through the tribal chiefs.
Even today the vast and rugged province, which is 10 times the
size of the Netherlands, is still acutely underdeveloped. When
the referendum was held some Papuan tribes still lived in stone-
age societies. Language was a big barrier as Indonesian was new
in the province and the tribes' dialects were alien to Indonesian
officials.
Through the 1960s, the Cold War was in full swing. The U.S.
considered it prudent to take sides with Soeharto, an emerging
pro-Western army general in Indonesia, to stem the influence of
communism in the largest Southeast Asian country. In July 1969,
National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, according to the
document, told president Richard Nixon prior to his departure to
Indonesia not to raise the issue of Papua with Soeharto. "You
should tell Soeharto that we understand the problems they face in
West Irian," Kissinger was quoted as saying in one of the
documents.
Business interests danced to this tune. In fact the first
foreign company to invest in Indonesia after the 1965 political
earthquake that saw Sukarno tumbling from power was the U.S.-
based Freeport McMoRan. Thirty years later, the company was
sitting atop the biggest gold mine in the world, according to
Australian scholar Denise Leith.
We can say many things about the past, but nothing will change
the fact that Papua was a legitimate part of Indonesia during
those years. There is no way we can turn the clock of history
back. The fact remains that the United Nations endorsed the
referendum.
Having said this, however, we believe that the government
should address the issue of the flaws in the referendum by facing
it head-on. It should talk to the Papuans about the issue.
Secondly, the government should abandon its heavy-handed
tactics in managing the province. Like people in other troubled
regions of the country, the Papuans need no less than total
sincerity from the government. A violent approach will never
work. If the government promises something, it has to fulfill it.
Nothing will shatter the common bond of trust faster than when
the government says one thing at one time and another thing at
another. When the government offers the province autonomy, it
must make sure it honors this promise.
On the international front, the government should anticipate a
possible credo emerging from diverse sides on the need for Papuan
independence. The government should prepare adequate diplomatic
ammunition to defuse these factions before they become a movement
too strong to resist.
The way we look at it, something is brewing on the
international front. In March this year, Irish parliamentarians
urged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to review the world body's
role in the 1969 referendum, joining South African Archbishop
Desmond Tutu and scores of NGOs and European Parliamentarians. On
June 28, 2004, nineteen U.S. Senators sent a letter to Annan
urging the appointment of a Special Representative to Indonesia
to monitor the human rights situation in Papua and Aceh. This is
not to mention some groups in Australia that would like to see an
independent Papua.
The government has to work fast. It is simply too costly to
sleep on the issue and to pretend that losing another province --
after East Timor in 1999 -- will not hurt the nation.