U.S. role in Papua vote revealed

U.S. role in Papua vote revealed

Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, Jakarta

United States supported former dictator Soeharto when he incorporated West Papua into Indonesia in 1969 after a self- determination vote later dismissed as a sham, newly declassified documents show.

"You should tell Suharto that we understand the problems they face in West Papua," U.S. National Security adviser Henry Kissinger wrote then president Richard Nixon before Nixon's July 1969 trip to Indonesia, according to the U.S. State Department documents.

The documents were received on Saturday from the Washington- based National Security Archive think tank.

Nixon's trip coincided with an Indonesian-run vote in which West Papua tribal and community leaders -- hand-picked by Jakarta -- unanimously chose to join Indonesia.

Improving relations with Indonesia's authoritarian regime was then a U.S. priority. Kissinger characterized Soeharto as a "moderate military man ... committed to progress and reform."

In the newly declassified papers, Kissinger advised the president that "you should not raise this (West Papua) issue" with Soeharto, "except to note U.S. sympathy with Indonesia's concerns."

The vote, used to justify Soeharto's annexation of West Papua, is now generally viewed as a sham. Top U.N. officials who supervised Indonesia's takeover have admitted that most West Papuans were intentionally excluded.

Human rights groups say at least 100,000 people have died since 1969 in continuing resistance to West Papua's integration. The sparsely populated province is rich in natural resources.

Successive U.S. administrations have backed Jakarta in its insistence that West Papua remain Indonesian.

The U.S. State Department documents indicated that U.S. diplomats had realized "Indonesia could not win an open election" in West Papua, and that the vast majority there favored independence.

Then U.S. ambassador Frank Galbraith warned that Indonesian army operations had resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and "stimulated fears and rumors of intended genocide," the documents show.

But "the State Department sought to convince U.N. delegates that independence for the region was 'inconceivable,"' according to the documents.

The Netherlands occupied West Papua in the late 19th Century. It granted the Indonesian archipelago independence in 1949 but kept West Papua, arguing that it had no ethnic, linguistic or cultural links with the other islands.

In 1961, the Netherlands announced it would grant West Papua independence. Initially, the United Nations was to run a democratic referendum polling all West Papuans by 1969. But it quickly relinquished the job to Suharto's dictatorship.

Indonesia, sensing overwhelming opposition, polled only 1,025 of its supporters, who unanimously chose integration.