West
Papua’s Cry For Freedom
By Ghali Hassan
25 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The
Australian Federal Treasure, Senator Peter Costello told ABC Radio recently:
“West Papua has always been part of Indonesia. Ever since Indonesia
has existed as an independent country West Papua had always been part
of Indonesia whereas, East Timor, of course was not”. Of course,
it is utterly untrue and misleading. The Australian Government thrives
on deception and distortion of facts.
Clearly a little historical
perspective is in order. West Papua which forms the western half of
the island of Niugini (New Guinea or ‘Nueva Guinea’) was
colonised by the Netherlands until 1962. The eastern half of the Island
is known as Papua New Guinea, and was colonised by Australia. On September
16th 1975, Australia granted full independence to Papua New Guinea,
although Canberra continues to interfere in the affairs of Papua New
Guinea with the same old colonial mentality. Unlike Indonesia and Australia,
the Island of New Guinea is inhabited by Melanesian people, with some
240 different tribes, each with its own language and culture. The tropical
Island of New Guinea is the most biologically diverse habitat in the
world, second only to the Amazon region.
While Indonesia gained its
independence from the Netherlands in 1949, it was on 01 October 1962,
the Dutch handed over the territory of West Papua to a United Nations
Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA). On 01 May1963, with tacit support
(heavy pressure on the UN) of the US Administration Indonesia took control
of the territory from the UNTEA. Many argued that the takeover of West
Papua was an invasion by the Indonesian military. The territory was
renamed West Irian and then Irian Jaya. Under the 1962 New York Agreement,
Indonesia was required to organize a referendum to seek the consent
of West Papuans for Indonesian rule.
In 1969, while many prominent
West Papuan leaders were in prison, the Indonesian military hand-picked
just over one thousand West Papuans tribal leaders for the so-called
“Act of Free Choice”. Indoctrinated and under strong threat
and intimidation by the Indonesian military, they voted in favour of
Indonesian rule. The rigged ‘referendum’ resulted in a 100%
vote which saw the replacement of one colonial power (the Netherlands)
by another (Indonesia). As a result, West Papuans lost their independence
and self-determination. To control West Papua, Indonesia relays on brutal
repression, covert military operations and the division of West Papua
into three provinces.
Like Papua New Guinea, West
Papua is rich in mineral and energy resources. Its resources exploited
by multinational corporations, including Union Oil, Amoco, Agip, Conoco,
Phillips, Esso, Texaco, Mobil, Shell, Petromer Trend Exploration, Atlantic
Richfield, Sun Oil and Freeport-McMoran (USA); Oppenheimer (South Africa);
Total (France); Ingold (Canada); Marathon Oil, Kepala Burung (UK); Dominion
Mining, Aneka Tambang, BHP, Cudgen RZ, and CRA (Australia). The extracted
billions in gold are shared between these corporations, the Indonesian
military and Indonesia’s elites at the expense of the people of
West Papua who remain poor, and their unique environment.
Freeport's Mt Ertsberg mine
is the second largest copper mine in the world. It also contains the
largest proven gold deposit in existence. Since 1967, Freeport-McMoran
extracted more than $100 billions from West Papuan soil, value. The
region around the mine is (military zone) closed off to outsiders, as
well as to the traditional land owners who have been dispossessed. The
mine is in the rugged central highlands of the Island at elevations
of more than 13,500 feet above sea-level. Freeport is simply turning
an entire mountain of gold and copper into an open pit.
In the US, Freeport was known
to be the largest polluter of land, air and water, both in terms of
volume and toxicity, in the whole of North America. In addition to extracting
the wealth of West Papua, Freeport has done irreparable destruction
to the surrounding environment, including the logging of unique rainforest
and the poisoning of nearby rivers. Other mines like Bougainville and
Ok Tedi in Papua New Guinea have had similar effects. Furthermore, Freeport
is the cause of thousands of West Papuan deaths, and continues to pay
the Indonesian military for gross human rights abuses, including the
killing on 11 November 2001 of Theys Eluay, the Chairman of the Papuan
Presidium Council and pro-independence leader.
Successive Australian Governments
not only turned blind eye to more than 40 years of human rights abuses
and destruction of the environment in West Papua, but they also encouraged
them. After more than two decades of supporting Indonesia’s brutal
repression of East Timor, Australia benefited greatly from the independence
of East Timor. Indeed, the Liberal Government of John Howard thrived
and gained political mileage out of “sadness and sorrow”.
After leading the UN mission into East Timor, later Australia used East
Timor’s weak position and government to carve up East Timor’
sea rights and oil resources at the expense of starving East Timorese.
In a word, Australia’s attitude toward its Pacific neighbours
is open naked colonialism.
The granting of temporary
visas to forty-two West Papuan refugees by the Australian Government
was not out of compassion, but to foment trouble in West Papua, according
to Indonesia’s intelligence. Australia is well-known for its inhumane
and often brutal treatment of refugees. Many refugees have been denied
their human rights and are incarcerated in remote camps around Australia
and on off shore Islands. Human rights groups and church leaders have
accused Australia of breaching international obligations and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights as a result of it’s off shore detention
of refugees.
Based on East Timor case
before and after independence from Indonesia, Australia’s interference
in the affairs of West Papua is purely self-interest and devoid of any
moral principle. Despite mounting credible evidence, including refugees’
testimonies of ongoing genocide and human rights abuses against the
people of West Papua [1 & 2], the Australian Government failed in
its obligation to protest to the Indonesian Government. Instead, the
Australian Government encouraged Indonesia and continues to burry the
truth about the situation in West Papua and beat the drums of US war
in the Middle East.
Manipulated by fear and a
constant diet of racism promoted by the Government, ordinary Australians
blindly trusted John Howard and thought that they could succeed simply
by following his deceptive policies and distortion of facts. Today,
Australians are “meaner”, more intolerant and less secure
than before John Howard become Prime Minister. Poverty is on the rise
and racism against minorities has increased and is now accepted as part
of Australia’s Anglo-Saxon values. It is hard to think of any
serious accomplishment of John Howard’s ten years in office. In
the end there is nothing there for most Australians. The “anti-terrorism”
laws have undermined basic legal rights and civil liberties and discriminate
specifically against Muslim Australians. And the new industrial laws
are so draconian that they dwarf the recently abandoned French First
Employment Contract laws or CPE. No one expects Australians to be like
the French, and the Australian Government implemented its new laws with
ease. Dissent is no longer exists in Australia, passivity is. A once
democracy turned into a police state by the power of one man.
In the mean time, Australians
have been entertained by the Government-appointed Cole Commission of
inquiry. The Commission - with no power - supposed to investigate whether
the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) had breached Australian laws by paying
kickbacks (bribes) to the Iraqi government.
The bribes allegedly paid
to secure grain sale contracts to Iraq during the 13-years long genocidal
sanctions - in which Australia was a full complicit - that killed an
estimated 1.6 million Iraqis, a third of them children under the age
of 5 years old. Corrupting the system was the only way available to
the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein to break a deliberate mass genocide
perpetuated by the Anglo-Saxon axis against the entire nation of Iraq.
Instead of investigating the Howard Government corruption, the Commission
is concentrating on Saddam Hussein. It is clear, the purpose of the
farcical Commission is a smokescreen to bail the Howard Government and
appease members of the US Congress and the UN.
The Australian Government’s
long record of collaboration with the Indonesian military and its support
for many oppressive regimes around the world is against West Papuans’
aspirations for self-determination and national independence. Through
peaceful struggle and negotiation, West Papua’s cry for freedom
may not be too painful.
Ghali Hassan lives in Perth,
Western Australia.
Endnotes:
[1] Brundidge, E. et al.
(2004). Indonesian Human
Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of
Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control. New Haven, CT: Allard
K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School.
[2] Wing, J., & King,
P. (2005). Genocide
in West Papua: The role of the Indonesian state apparatus
and a current needs assessment of the Papuan people. Sydney: West Papua
Project at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of
Sydney.