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.