Papua’s plight

The rebel commander, Goliat Tabuni, told the interviewer: “This is our land … how many of us have died? There are so few of us now.” The armed resistance was “fragmented and poorly armed”, according to the commentary by reporter Rachel Harvey, the BBC’s knowledgeable former Jakarta correspondent, but significant for its “symbolism” rather than “its ability to wage war”.

The Newsnight film briefly rehearses the history of the conflict. “Layers of grievance have built up over decades”, Harvey relates, since the so-called Act of Free Choice, which allowed Suharto to grab the territory in the first place. Forty years ago, about a thousand Papuans were corralled to vote publicly in favour of integration into Indonesia. This came after the United States had sponsored talks between Indonesia and the Dutch, who retained the territory as a colonial possession. The New York Agreement of 1962 was supposed to provide for all Papuans to vote in an act of self-determination, but the actual procedure, coming after years of political repression, was a sham, and the Americans knew it.

Documents obtained by the US National Security Archive include a US Embassy telegram from July 1969:

The Act of Free Choice (AFC) in West Irian [the Indonesian name for Papua] is unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion preordained. The main protagonist, the Government of Indonesia, cannot and will not permit any resolution other than the continued inclusion of West Irian in Indonesia.

America’s Ambassador, Frank Galbraith, noted that past abuses had stimulated intense anti-Indonesian and pro-independence sentiment at all levels of Irian society, suggesting that “possibly 85 to 90 per cent” of the population “are in sympathy with the Free Papua cause”. Moreover, Galbraith observed, recent Indonesian military operations, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands of civilians, “had stimulated fears and rumours of intended genocide among the Irianese”.

At the time, the UN “noted” the Act of Free Choice, and with that, the outside world effectively accepted Indonesian sovereignty over Papua. One of Suharto’s first acts on seizing power had been to pass a foreign investment law, and the first beneficiary was the Freeport company. What was good for Freeport was, apparently, good for America: Washington’s chief diplomatic priority, at the time, was for Papua to be integrated into Indonesia. Then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger passed secret advice, the NSA documents show, to President Lyndon B Johnson, that he was on no account to raise the matter with the Indonesian government.

The Lombok Treaty

It’s been the basic policy stance of the US and allied countries, at a governmental level, ever since. The second of the WPP reports, referenced above, focuses on the so-called “Lombok Treaty”, the security agreement between Indonesia and Australia, which goes so far as to suggest that expressions of support for Papuan independence - even from within Australia - should be regarded as “a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other Party”, and something which Australia is thereby committed to disallow.

The treaty was drawn up, apparently to repair relations with Jakarta after the Indonesian ambassador was recalled from Canberra, in protest over Australia’s decision to grant refugee status to a group of 43 Papuan leaders who reached Australia by boat and claimed asylum. That decision, in 2006, confirmed Australia’s recognition that - in the words of the 1951 Refugee Convention - they faced a “well-founded fear of persecution”. However, the Lombok treaty contains no mention of human rights, political freedom or free expression - all, apparently, off limits in the relationship.

Legislators in other countries have shown more of a sense of principle. The British parliament saw the launch, last year, of International Parliamentarians for West Papua, under the leadership of Andrew Smith, a former senior minister. In Washington, the House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Asia-Pacific wrote recently to SBY in the following terms:

Dear Mr. President:

In 2005, at your request, we suspended our support for West Papua’s right to self-determination in order to give you time to implement the Special Autonomy legislation passed by the Indonesian Parliament in 2001. We welcomed the promise of this legislation and your personal assurances that your government would finally accord the Papuan people a fair share of the great wealth derived from Papuan resources. However, after three years, we note that the people of Papua, through the voices of Papuan religious and civil society leaders as well in broad public demonstrations, have declared Special Autonomy a failure.

Unlike the Australian government, sub-committee members sought to link the rights of Papuans with continued US support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity. “Doing right by Papua means: a) implementing a plan of success; b) opening your doors to allow Members of the US Congress, United Nations personnel, and non-government agencies access to Jayapura and the rest of the province; and c) demilitarising your approach”, the letter continues. This came after the Sub-Committee’s chair, Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, visited West Papua but had his movements restricted by TNI troops.

Discussion and dialogue

Could there be a successful process for West Papua such as the one that did bring authentic and wide-ranging autonomy to Aceh? This was the subject of a humane and perceptive report, released last year by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, or LIPI, a body backed by the Indonesian government, and titled, Papua Road Map. One of the biggest obstacles to a genuine “dialogue” about a just and peaceful settlement of the conflict was, it said, the paucity of conversation among Papuans themselves, notably between provincial leaders and those “outside the state sector”.

An international third-party mediator could be appointed, LIPI suggested, to empower those presently confined to street protests, as witnessed in Nabire, to join in a broadly-based dialogue about “questions of violence and human rights abuses, the failure of development and the marginalisation of indigenous Papuans”.

Many are the promising auguries coming out of the country right now, certainly in comparison with the dark days of the Suharto regime. President Yudhoyono has promised, in past speeches, to approach the Papua issue “peacefully, justly and with dignity”. The international community must join the Congressional Sub-committee members in holding him to that, and “community” must mean everyone, including journalists, trade unionists, aid agencies and universities - not just governments.