Papua: Developments Affecting Conflict Resolution

Analysis & Recommendations for Action

United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 60th Session

April 2004

Introduction and Summary

Papua has been a conflict zone for four decades, with estimates of 100,000 people killed during that period. This paper seeks to examine the sources of international concern with respect to Papua and recent developments affecting conflict resolution, and to identify concrete and urgent action steps that stakeholders - the Papuan provincial government and civil society, the Government of Indonesia, and neighboring countries in the Asia Pacific region and other members of the international community - can take to resolve the conflict.

The Indonesian government's policies and practices with respect to Papua and its Melanesian citizens - specifically, the government's transmigration program, neo-colonial economic exploitation, and militarism - have had a devastating impact on the health and welfare of its citizens and on the territory's unique and important environment. Indeed, Yale legal researchers recently stated that "throughout the past forty years, the Indonesian government has shown a callous disregard for - and, at times, an intentional and specific malevolence toward - the basic human rights and dignity of the people of West Papua." The researchers conclude that the Indonesian government's actions - perpetrated in large part by the Indonesian armed forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia or TNI) - against the Papuan people constitute crimes against humanity and may rise to the level of genocide.

Action of the most urgent nature is required now by Pacific Islands Forum governments and other stakeholders in order to end the dynamics of destruction and death that promise to obliterate the West Papuan people, destroy their cultures, economies and well-being, ravage the territory's lush and life-supporting environment, and give rise to ongoing decades of instability in the region.

Background and Historical/Political Context

Situated on the western half of New Guinea, the world's second-largest island, Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya) has been controlled by a series of foreign powers for much of the past few centuries, including Dutch colonial administration, Japanese military occupation during World War II, liberation by General MacArthur's American troops, and Indonesian military and civil authority today.

Papua's current status as a province of Indonesia has its origins in a United Nations-sponsored process, initiated with backing from the United States' Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s, through which the territory was transferred from Dutch colonial administration to Indonesian control. Papuans were excluded from the negotiations, which culminated in the 1962 New York Agreement, a bi-lateral agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Seven years later, Indonesia conducted the 1969 Act of Free Choice (AFC), held to satisfy the New York Agreement's requirement of a formal "act of self-determination." Controversial amongst diplomats and other observers, international legal scholars and Papuans themselves, the AFC prompted protests from the U.N.'s chief observer and delegates to the U.N. General Assembly, who cited an atmosphere of repression in which the Indonesian government violated Papuans' rights of free speech, movement, and assembly, and continuously exercised "tight political control over the population."

In response to this treatment of Papuan self-determination, small, regionally based freedom fighter units, since the 1960s, have been waging low-level defense activities aimed at pushing the Indonesian armed forces out of Papua and establishing an independent nation state of West Papua. Known first as the Free Papua Organization (the Organisasi Papua Merdeka or OPM) and later as the National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional or TPN), these bush fighter units are armed mainly with traditional bows, arrows and spears.

Papua, together with the independent nation state of Papua New Guinea on the island's eastern half, is the planet's most culturally and biologically diverse place. The island is home to 1,000 different language groups (one-sixth of the world's total), with 250 of these located within Papua's borders. Since its incorporation by Indonesia, Papua's cultural make-up has shifted significantly. Papua's indigenous population of nearly 1.5 million people now share the territory with some 775,000 Indonesian migrants. Indigenous Papuans are predominantly Christian and racially Melanesian, while the new arrivals are predominantly Muslim and of Asian descent. Hundreds of thousands of the migrants have been sponsored by the Indonesian government's discredited transmigration program. Others are spontaneous migrants such as traders from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

The size of France, Papua has the largest contiguous expanse of tropical rainforest outside of the Amazon and among the largest number of endemic species anywhere on earth. It is also one of only three places on earth where glaciers exist in the tropics. Its snow-capped mountain chain - rising to heights of more than 4,500 meters above sea level, the highest between the Himalayas and the Andes - holds important cultural and spiritual significance for many Papuan communities and also is rich in deposits of gold and copper, mined by U.S.-based Freeport McMoRan, Inc. Reserves of natural gas and oil elsewhere within the territory are under exploitation by other transnational corporations, including U.K.-based BP.

The Indonesian military also has extensive financial interests in Papua. Roughly one third of the military's operational budget is covered by the Indonesian government, with the remaining two thirds raised on the side by the military itself using a number of legal and illegal methods, including "protection money" from local, national and transnational companies, illegal logging, and trafficking in stolen goods and endangered species. Papua-based interests represent a major source of income for the military in meeting its budget deficit. For example, in response to a shareholder resolution filed by the New York City Comptroller's Office in late 2002, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc., recently confirmed that its Indonesian subsidiary, PT Freeport Indonesia, directly paid the TNI and police security contributions totaling US$10.7 million during the past two years. Not surprisingly, the TNI has rejected democratic reform efforts to eliminate the military's territorial command structure, which comprises a nationwide network of military posts down to the village level and which ensures the financial interests of the TNI.

During the past four decades of Indonesian "integration," indigenous Papuans have experienced all forms of discrimination, human rights abuses, environmental destruction and political oppression. Under the three-decades-long regime of General, then President, Suharto, the Indonesian military designated Papua - along with Aceh and the now-independent nation of East Timor - as military operations areas, meaning that unlike other Indonesian provinces, travel to and within Papua requires special authorization. In addition, and as noted in annual human rights reports by the United Nations, U.S. Department of State, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International, the military - operating with impunity - has carried out numerous operations in the territory, resulting in widespread human rights violations. Indeed, the Indonesian military has killed, wounded, raped, robbed, tortured, kidnapped, illegally detained and exterminated a large part of the Papuan people.

According to the Yale Law School researchers, "The Indonesian government, particularly the military... has regularly brutalized the people of West Papua since the end of the colonial period, killing uncounted thousands in a series of incidents. Through its transmigration programs, the Indonesian government has undermined the social and cultural heritage of the people of West Papua by altering, at a fundamental level, the demographics and the underlying social structures of the region. Through the economic development efforts that it has sponsored, the Indonesian government has caused widespread and devastating pollution and other environmental damage, which, in turn, have led to the further obliteration or forced relocation of numerous West Papuan groups. Through its refusal to introduce necessary measures of medical and economic relief for a plague that, evidence suggests, the government itself introduced, the Indonesian government has turned a willfully blind eye to the decimation of the people of West Papua."

The relationship between the Government of Indonesia and the people of Papua therefore has been influenced by a set of interrelated dynamics, with explicit human rights dimensions, specifically: (1) the flawed integration of Papua into the Republic of Indonesia and subsequent Papuan resistance to Indonesian sovereignty; (2) the top-down, paternalistic, and non-participatory economic and social development policies and practices of the Indonesian government; (3) the "counter-insurgency" operations of the Indonesian military which have been carried out in order to establish Indonesian control in Papua and to defend transnational mining operations and other investment projects externally imposed upon local indigenous communities; (4) the corrupt governance practices of the Suharto and successive regimes and continuing overall lack of the rule of law in Indonesia; (5) and the international community's willingness to tolerate these conditions within Papua.

New Developments that Affect Peace & Stability

In July 2003, the Jakarta Post reported that senior TNI and central government officials state that "Papua will be the target of a massive campaign after [the] war in Aceh. This reporting, which links with government/TNI statements that resolution of the Papuan situation is a priority for the 2003-2004 period, indicates that the TNI and the administration of President Megawati Sukarnoputri are willing to reject a nonviolent approach to resolution of the conflict in Papua. Signals of a military build-up in the province have already begun as the TNI moved additional troops into Papua in July 2003. The Indonesian Navy also recently has sent more personnel to Papua.

International analysts should understand that the push to "resolve" the conflict in Papua - as well as that in Aceh - is part of an overall TNI strategy to consolidate the military's upper-hand in Indonesia's 2004 national elections and to re-assert the military's dominance in Indonesia's political and economic life. The result is that democratic reforms - such as decentralization and civilian control of the TNI - initiated in the post-Suharto period have stalled. "No political party wants to risk confrontation with the military by pushing for military reform," said Rizal Sukma, Director of Studies at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to Sukma, President Megawati Sukarnoputri "believes the continuation of her power depends on support from the military." As another analyst puts it, "...nothing fundamental has in fact changed since 1998. TNI, or more accurately army, leaders (the navy and air force have not been significant players for decades), continue to hold a self-image and possess resources that predispose and enable them to intervene in national political life in a manner and at a time of their own choosing. Moreover, they have been steadily accumulating a list of grievances against civilian politicians that can serve as the justification, to themselves and others, for eventually taking power."

In Papua, as it once did in East Timor, the TNI is engaging in severely destabilizing activities including the assassination of nonviolent, moderate community leaders such as Papuan Presidium Council Chairman Theys Eluay and the creation of violent militias. Last year, ELSHAM obtained documentary evidence linking the TNI with the arrival in Papua of the violent, "Islamic" Laskar Jihad and the formation of armed, East Timor-style, pro-Jakarta Merah Putih (Red and White) militias. The Indonesian military is recruiting, training, arming, equipping, financing, supplying and otherwise encouraging, supporting, aiding and directing paramilitary actions against the Papuan people by means of the militias it has installed in Papua. Credible reporting by foreign journalists support ELSHAM's own findings that Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) personnel are engaged in training and equipping Laskar Jihad forces in camps along the border with Papua New Guinea.

In December 2003, Jakarta appointed Brigadier General Timbul Silaen, an indicted war criminal, to head the police force in Papua. Silaen is among those indicted by U.N. prosecutors and separately by Indonesian prosecutors for his role in the war crimes and crimes against humanity unleashed by Indonesian security forces and their militias in East Timor in 1999 in connection with the East Timorese overwhelming vote for independence. An Indonesian court, in what was widely assessed to have been a transparent travesty of justice, last year cleared Silaen and most other military and police officials. U.N. and East Timorese prosecutors continue to seek Silaen's extradiction to East Timor to stand trial. Silaen's appointment, along with the establishment of a base of operations in the Timika area of Papua in late 2003 by Eurico Guterres, a former East Timor militia leader convicted by an Indonesian court of war crimes in East Timor and facing at least 10 years' imprisonment, underscore mounting evidence of a campaign by Jakarta to create increased instability and violence in Papua.

At the same time, senior TNI and Megawati Administration officials have made explicit statements that soldiers who have carried out human rights violations are "heroes" and that respect for human rights must be sacrificed in order to preserve Indonesia's "territorial integrity."

There is also emerging evidence - as is coming to light following the July 2003 military mutiny in the Philippines - that the Indonesian military, like their Filipino counterparts, may be manipulating the threat of "terrorist" activities to attract increased financial support and training from foreign governments as well as domestic political and economic strength and popular support.

In this context, human rights defenders in Papua face serious threats to their personal safety and to their ability to continue to carry out their work. ELSHAM staff and defenders from other organizations have received death threats and other persistent intimidation, and faced arrest, jailing and torture following their successful investigations into TNI and police human rights violations in Papua. For example, in December 2002, assailants shot the wife, daughter and another relative of then-ELSHAM Director Johannes Bonay near the Papua border with neighbouring Papua New Guinea. The TNI is also using legal tactics to threaten defenders. On June 12, 2003, the new TNI military commander in Papua, Major General Nurdin Zainal, brought a lawsuit against ELSHAM, submitting a complaint against ELSHAM supervisor John Rumbiak and then-ELSHAM Director Johannes Bonay in connection with statements made at a press conference held by ELSHAM in September 2002 regarding the organization's initial findings in its investigation into the August 31, 2002, road-side ambush within the Freeport mining project area in which three Freeport schoolteachers were killed and seven other schoolteachers and a 6-year-old girl were seriously wounded.

According to a March 3, 2004, Associated Press news story, a senior U.S. official has confirmed that elements of the TNI were involved in the August 2002 ambush. The AP report cites two U.S. officials as stating that local TNI commanders ordered the ambush and quotes "a senior U.S. official familiar with the investigation as stating 'It's no longer a question of who did it.'" The official told AP, "It's only a question of how high up this went within the chain of command." The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta subsequently "corrected" the report, stating that the FBI investigation was continuing.

In addition to these concerns, there are systemic problems in Papua, including the massive shift in demographics of the population that will inevitably have negative consequences to the people of Papua as thousands of Indonesian outsiders continue to settle in the province. Year 2000 census figures for Papua indicated a population of 1,460,846 indigenous people and 772,684 non-indigenous people. This represents a ratio of roughly two Papuans to each non-Papuan, however this ratio does not translate in terms of access to wealth, distribution of resources or participation in the local economy.

Another alarming new trend is the increasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS cases in the province. According to new studies, there are 1,263 people living with HIV, including 539 who have contracted AIDS. Papuan cases represent roughly 30 percent of the total number of the 3,782 known HIV/AIDS cases throughout Indonesia although the people of Papua represent only some 1 percent of the country's total population. According to Constan Karma, Chairman of the Commission for Handling of AIDS (KPA), "if no action is taken, we fear the number of people with HIV/AIDS [in Papua] will reach 126,000 in the next decade."

Other health threats to Papuans include infant mortality, which the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) estimates to be 117 deaths for every 1,000 children under the age of one - the highest infant mortality rate in the world. This compares with an Indonesian national average of 50 deaths for every 1,000 infants. According to the 2001 United Nations Development Program Human Development Index, Papua is also Indonesia' s second poorest province, after West Nusa Tenggara. Unicef's Papua-based director, Kiyoshi Nakamitsu, attributed the unparalleled infant mortality rate in Papua to malnutrition amongst women and children due to poverty and to poor access to health care services, particularly in rural areas.

In summary, the Papuan people face increased militarism and repression and are a dispossessed and marginalized people in their own land. If current demographic and health trends continue, according to researchers, they face extinction as a distinct population within the next 25 years.

Recent Steps Toward and Away From Conflict Resolution

At the second Papua National Congress, held in Jayapura in June 2000, Papuan delegates articulated the problems in Papua and mandated the Papuan Presidium Council to settle these through peaceful means, such as dialogue and negotiation with key stakeholders, including the Government of Indonesia. Since that time, Papuan civilian leadership has been calling for a genuine dialogue with the Indonesian government, with the mediation of a third party. This development followed on earlier dialogue efforts by FORERI, an organization of community leaders, academics, women's groups, students and others in Papua, in 1998 and 1999.

In response to Papuans' increasingly visible and vocal demands for independence in the post-Suharto period, there have been a series of initiatives aimed at resolving the conflict in Papua peacefully. The first of these efforts was the 1999 National Dialogue on Irian Jaya, a process of dialogue with Terms of Reference signed by Indonesia's State Secretary and Papuan representatives. Due to a lack of political will on the part of the Habibie government, that process lapsed shortly after a February 1999 meeting in Jakarta between then-President B.J. Habibie and 100 Papuan leaders. A push by the government to grant Papua Special Autonomy status ensued, and in 2000, then-President Abdurrahman Wahid changed the name of the province from Irian Jaya to Papua as a symbolic step towards concrete constructive change.

In 2001, the Government of Indonesia enacted the Special Autonomy Law (Number 45/2001) for Papua. In doing so, the civilian government in Jakarta acknowledged that its centralized policies and development strategies for Papua have not led to justice, improved welfare, law enforcement, or respect for human rights in Papua, especially for indigenous Papuans. The central government also recognized that human rights violations, the denial of the fundamental rights of indigenous people, and the presence of different perspectives regarding the history of Papua's integration into the Republic of Indonesia are serious problems that need to be settled.

Rejecting these calls for peaceful dialogue to resolve the conflict in Papua, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Coordinating Minister for Security and Political Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Chief of the Armed Forces, Gen. Endriartono Sutarto, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, have all ruled out the possibility of dialogue.

As the TNI seeks to re-entrench its political and economic power structures in opposition to the democratic reforms promoted by civil society under the post-Suharto presidents Habibie and Wahid, Jakarta's approach to Papua - and indeed, to human rights and justice concerns throughout Indonesia - has reverted to repression and criminal activity. The administration of current President Megawati Sukarnoputri has offered the TNI weak and malleable civilian leadership which has proved itself incapable of continuing the hard-won democratic reform program that Megawati's own political party once championed.

The result for policy towards Papua is that the TNI is calling the shots, and Jakarta has shown no indication that it is serious about pursuing implementation of Special Autonomy. Indeed, as an illuminating and unprecedented opinion survey by the International Foundation for Election Systems demonstrated, only 17 percent of Papuans surveyed were aware of the Special Autonomy Law indicating that there has been relatively no socialization of the existence, meaning or implications of Special Autonomy in Papua.

In fact, Megawati's government, at the TNI's urging, has blocked implementation of the Special Autonomy Law, already passed by the Indonesian House of Representatives and signed by the President, by failing to issue the required implementing regulations. In addition, the central government has rejected Papuan Governor Salossa's proposal for establishing the Papuan People's Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua or the MRP), as mandated by the law, thereby preventing the provincial government of Papua from moving forward with implementation of the law.

Instead, on January 27, 2003, Megawati issued Presidential Instruction 1/2003 (Inpres) ordering the division of Papua into three separate provinces. This decision was taken in violation of the Special Autonomy Law, and as so many before it, was taken without consulting the Papuan people. The move has created more confusion and escalated tensions in Papua - provoking widespread popular demonstrations in opposition to the order.

At this writing, Indonesia's Constitutional Court is reviewing the validity of Law No. 45/1999, which calls for the partition. Indonesian lawyers, working together as part of the Papua Special Autonomy Defense Team, have argued that the law violates Indonesia's amended 1945 Constitution and is contrary to Law No. 21/2001, which establishes Papua's special autonomy status and which supercedes the partition order. The court's decision will have significant implications for elections in Papua later this year.

In addition to legal action, Papuans are mobilizing nonviolently to block the division. Nearly 1,000 Papuans, including five influential groups (the Papuan women's discussion group, tribal leaders, local figures, Papuan intellectuals' group and Papuan youth) held a late December two-day meeting that demanded the Government revoke Law No. 45/1999 which would partition Papua. They also called upon the Government to speed up the establishment of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) as mandated by a special autonomy law (Law No. 22/2001) now in limbo.

One extremely problematic consequence of the creation of three provinces in Papua will be a significant increase in the number of troops in the territory, as each of the separate provinces will have its own military command. Army Chief of Staff General Ryamizard Rachudu has told the Cenderwasih Pos that the division of Papua would result in the establishment of new TNI battalions. Three TNI battalions operate in Papua (battalion 751 based in Jayapura, battalion 752 based in Nabire, and battalion 753 based in Sorong). Plans are underway already for a new battalion based in Wamena, and in a meeting with community leaders in Wamena on July 20, 2003, Gen. Rachudu reportedly stated that other battalions would be established in Timika and Merauke.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the highly controversial Inpres was initiated and championed by the TNI through one of its off-shoots, the Lembah Baliem Foundation. In March 2002, Lieutenant General A.M. Hendropriyono, head of Indonesia's central intelligence agency (and known as the "butcher of Lampung" when troops under his command massacred at least 100 Muslim villagers there in 1989) and retired General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Coordinating Minister for Social and Political Affairs, working through the foundation, organized 240 people and flew them to Jakarta to meet with President Megawati and high-ranking officials, where they called for the division of Papua. In an October 2002 article, Far Eastern Economic Review Jakarta Bureau Chief John McBeth quotes an un-named senior military source saying that one of the primary reasons for the proposed division is to cement control by the TNI over the richest of the proposed three provinces.

The order for the division of Papua, the derailment of Special Autonomy for Papua, and the closing of avenues for dialogue with Papuans are the key destabilizing actions by Megawati's administration, and as discussed above, the government, guided by the TNI, appears ready to reject a nonviolent process of conflict resolution altogether. In this atmosphere, destabilizing human rights abuses and repression in the territory have continued, most notably with the November 2001 abduction and killing by members of the Indonesian Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) of Theys Hiyo Eluay, chair of the Papuan Presidium Council, who advocated for a non-violent resolution of the conflict in Papua, a damaging military sweep operation in Papua's Central Highlands (described below), and intensifying threats and intimidation directed at human rights defenders from ELSHAM and other organizations.

Since March 2002, Papuans' concerns about the escalating threat of an Indonesian military crackdown and militia violence have led civil society groups, including Papua's three major Christian churches, to pursue urgently an initiative on conflict resolution. The groups set up a Peace Task Force in July 2002, inviting Indonesian civil and military authorities as well as TPN/OPM leaders to enter a dialogue to establish Papua as a Zone of Peace. The culmination of the first stage of the Zone of Peace process was a conference on peace for Papua, co-sponsored by Papua's governor, police chief and the provincial parliament together with civil society groups, and held in Jayapura, October 15-16, 2002. Major General Mahidin Simbolon, then-regional commander of the Indonesian military in Papua, was the only official who refused to participate in the initiative.

Indeed, in the intervening months since the Zone of Peace initiative was launched, the TNI has taken steps that destabilize Papua and undermine human security there. In April 2003, the TNI chose to reintroduce recently withdrawn Kopassus troops to conduct an ongoing and extensive sweep operation together with the army's Rapid Reaction troops (Kostrad) in Papua's Central Highlands following a deadly heist at a military post in the main town of Wamena in which TNI personnel have now been implicated. The joint military teams have burned five villages to the ground, targeting the homes of inhabitants as well as schools, medical centres and teachers' homes, and killed villagers' livestock. This military operation has displaced more than one thousand civilians who have fled to the forest for safety and are isolated from food, shelter and the assistance of humanitarian organizations.

In mid-January, five Papuans were sentenced to between 20 years and life for their alleged involvement in the April 2003 raid on a military post in Wamena. Earlier, nine Indonesian soldiers who were also alleged to have been involved in the April incident received sentences of six to 14 months. The enormous contrast in sentences handed down to TNI vs. civilians allegedly involved in the incident underscores the Indonesian authorities' biased approach to the justice proceedings and their apparent intent to further destabilize the area.

Meanwhile, many Jakarta-based non-governmental organizations and international organizations, as well as some foreign governments such as New Zealand and Vanuatu, have developed a more active role with respect to the Papua case. All are seeking to contribute something to peaceful settlement of the conflict. New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff has offered his government's good offices as a mediator for a dialogue between the Government of Indonesia and Papuan community leaders. The Government of Vanuatu recently welcomed the establishment in Port Vila, the Vanuatu capital, of a West Papua People's liaison office. Vanuatu also included Papuan advisors in its delegation to the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland in August 2003. These steps by regional governments come in the wake of Vanuatu's call - also voiced by Nauru and Tuvalu - during the September 2000 U.N. General Assembly, for a review by the U.N. Secretary General of the U.N.'s role in supervising the transfer of Papua from Dutch to Indonesian control.

At its April 2003 meeting, the European Union External Relations Council called for the E.U. to actively promote peaceful solutions to conflicts such as that in Papua. The United States government, as a matter of long-standing policy, also supports peaceful dialogue as the most constructive means to resolving the conflict in Papua.

While these policy positions are helpful, the situation in Papua is of an urgent and serious nature and demands concerted, concrete steps by the international community to address it. For example, though supporting implementation of Special Autonomy, the United States, the European Union, Australia and other governments have not prioritized effective diplomacy and other measures with respect to the Indonesian government aimed at stopping the division of Papua into three provinces or the serious human rights violations occurring there. Instead, governments are moving to strengthen their bilateral relationships with the TNI.

Seeking to solve the Papua case, justly, peacefully, and in a dignified manner, requires two things. First, that all stakeholders need to be united with a common platform. Second, all parties need to share a common understanding of the problems in Papua, a vision for Papua, and the elements (e.g., opportunities, challenges, roles, tasks, duties) necessary for achieving that vision.

RECOMMENDATIONS for Strengthening Peace & Stability

ELSHAM calls on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and its participating governments to work proactively to support the strengthening of peace and stability in Papua by encouraging - diplomatically and financially - the civilian-led Zone of Peace initiative in Papua and by implementing, on a priority basis, the specific recommendations outlined below.

General Steps

Recommendation: To immediately improve the serious human rights situation in Papua and to support peace- and confidence-building measures there, ELSHAM encourages the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to call on the Indonesian government to:

Immediately begin seeking genuine accountability and justice for crimes against humanity committed by Indonesian security forces, including the murder of U.S. citizens in Timika on August 31, 2002; the murder of moderate Papuan leader Theys Eluay in November 2001; the murder of Papuan students in Abepura in December 2002 and other well-documented crimes.

Immediately commit itself to a genuine dialogue process with respected Papuan community leaders and other sectors of Papuan society with the goal of peaceful conflict resolution;

Immediately reverse the executive order to divide Papua into separate provinces noting that this order is illegal and has already sparked violent confrontations in which Papuans have been killed;

Ensure that the TNI ceases the killing and the causing of serious bodily and mental harm to the people of Papua and their human rights defenders;

Remove Brig. General Timbul Silaen as police commander in Papua and extradite him to East Timor to stand trial;

End Eurico Guterres' operations in Papua and extradite him to East Timor for trial;

Adopt and ratify the primary international human rights conventions, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Labor Organization Convention 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. Urge the Indonesian Government to implement "best practices," as set forth in that ILO Convention and the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in its economic development policies.

ELSHAM further calls on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to:

1) Publicly condemn the Indonesian government's long history of crimes against humanity in Papua and call on the international community to support investigation of possible genocide by the Indonesian government against Papuans.

Military and Police

Background: The TNI, which has not engaged a foreign foe in more than 50 years, has regularly used weaponry and combat skills - obtained in part through foreign training and military assistance programs - against civilians, including Papuans, Indonesians, East Timorese, Australians, Americans and others. Military equipment supplied by other countries - especially the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France - is being used by the TNI in Aceh and has been used by the TNI extensively in Papua and East Timor in the past.

The military offensive in Aceh, which is Indonesia's largest military operation since the invasion of East Timor in 1975, is now proceeding at a level that is causing widespread civilian loss of life and the destruction of Aceh's public infrastructure.

As outlined above, in Papua, the military continues to provoke situations designed to strengthen its power there and to undermine peace and stability in the territory. With the Indonesian government's appointment of Brig. Gen. Timbul Silaen to head the Papua provincial police, as detailed above, the situation promises to further deteriorate.

At the same time, at the national level in Indonesia, there has been no meaningful progress towards reform of the military or the ending of military impunity for human rights violations and other criminal actions. On the contrary, the TNI is seeking to enhance its political role.

Based on ELSHAM's years of extensive research and documentation, we are convinced that the TNI represents a fundamentally grave threat to the stability and security of Indonesia and the region. We furthermore believe that the policy of the United States, Australia and other countries to strengthen their military ties with Jakarta as part of the "war against terror" is wholly misguided and dangerous. Given the backdrop of mounting casualties, wanton killings and human rights abuses attributable to the TNI in Aceh and Papua, we believe it is intolerable for governments to engage with the TNI on a business-as-usual basis.

Other major destabilizing and anti-democratic reform actions include:

* the TNI's failure to cooperate with independent investigations into its suspected involvement in the August 2002 killing of one Indonesian and two American schoolteachers and the wounding of eight other American civilians inside the Freeport copper & gold mining project area. Indonesian police and ELSHAM investigations have implicated the TNI in the attack;

* the military's well-documented assassination of respected and non-violent community leaders and its perpetration of numerous massacres in Papua, East Timor and Aceh and its failure to engage constructively in peace initiatives such as the establishment of Papua as a Zone of Peace;

* military training and funding of violent militias in Aceh, the Malukus, and Papua;

* military non-cooperation with Indonesia's ad hoc human rights court on East Timor;

* recent legislation drafted by the Indonesian military (TNI) that grants it authority to carry out operations without prior presidential order;

* the TNI's rejection of dismantling of its territorial command structure; and

* the TNI's continuing resistance to budgetary transparency and proper civilian oversight of its finances.

Recommendation: To prevent escalating TNI-backed violence against civilians in Papua and in other parts of Indonesia, ELSHAM calls upon all governments participating in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to:

Institute a top-to-bottom review of their bilateral relations with the TNI in light of the continuing severe human rights violations, and other anti-democratic and destabilizing actions taken by those forces, and with a view towards altering relations with the TNI in support of civilian nonviolent and democratic actors and social & political movements;

Impose an embargo on the supply of military, security and police equipment to Indonesia, to include contracts agreed before the entry into force of the internationally supported embargo launched in June 2003;

Insist on the withdrawal from Aceh of all military equipment they have previously supplied to Indonesia;

Suspend all forms of co-operation with the Indonesian military and police special forces to include training, participation in seminars and conferences, joint exercises and senior level military exchanges;

Urge the Indonesian Government to end the military operations in Aceh and Papua, to withdraw all non-organic Indonesian military troops (e.g., Kopassus) now operating in Papua, and to resolve these conflicts by means of peaceful dialogue; and

Urge the Indonesian Government to ensure the TNI's full cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation-led investigation into the August 2002 ambush within the Freeport copper & gold mining area and to ensure that the perpetrators of this deadly attack are brought to justice.

Political Prisoners

Background: Indonesia continues to arrest nonviolent dissidents and charge them under Suharto-era laws that seem designed to limit free speech. Many of these activists are from Papua. The crackdown on civil society in Papua undermines prospects for peaceful resolution of the conflict there. The legitimate role of human rights defenders, and the efforts of Papuan civilians to resolve their grievances through peaceful avenues should be encouraged and not repressed through killings, detention, threats, and other forms of intimidation and repression.

Recommendation: ELSHAM urges the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to condemn the light sentences handed down to the Kopassus personnel who assassinated Theys Eluay and to condemn the arrest and detention - and to support the release - of all nonviolent political activists.

Transparency and Access to Conflict Areas

Background: Papua is one of three main regions (including Aceh and the former province of East Timor) where the TNI and Indonesian police have committed the vast majority of gross human rights violations. The Indonesian government has attempted to avoid international scrutiny of the situation by blocking access to Papua by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (November-December 1998) and the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (January 1999) as well as to nongovernmental human rights and humanitarian organizations.

Recommendation: ELSHAM urges the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to call on the Government of Indonesia to end its restrictions on access to Papua by United Nations, international NGO humanitarian and human rights personnel, journalists and researchers, and to ensure an invitation and safe passage to Papua for the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on Torture; Extrajudicial Killing; Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance; Violence Against Women; Human Rights and Indigenous Issues; and the Right to Health.

West Papua is the name selected in 1961 by elected Papuan representatives to the New Guinea Council and is used today by most Papuans.

Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School, Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control, December 2003, p. 73 (available online at: http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Public_Affairs/426/westpapuahrights.pdf).

"Report of the Secretary General Regarding the Act of Self-Determination in West Irian," UN Doc. A/7723, 6 November 1969, Annex 1, para. 251.

Suharto, who took power in a violent, U.S.-backed coup during which the military killed an estimated 500,000 Indonesians, was forced to resign from the office of presidency in May 1998 by a peaceful popular civilian reform movement. Suharto's connections and interests in Papua are strong. As a major private investor in the Freeport mining operation, he has been one of only a few Indonesians to hold shares in the company. Suharto served as the commander of Operation Mandala, the Indonesian Armed Forces' 1962 plan to mount a full-scale invasion of Papua in order to "liberate" it from the Dutch, and he chose the occasion of his 1973 inauguration of Tembagapura, Freeport's main mining town complex, to rename the province from "West Irian" to "Irian Jaya."

See, for example, "Development Aggression: Observations on Human Rights Conditions in the PT Freeport Indonesia Contract of Work Areas With Recommendations," Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Washington, July 2002; "Mission to Indonesia and East Timor on the Issue of Violence Against Women, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences," UN Economic and Social Council, E/CN.4/1999/68/Add.3 (January 21, 1999); "Report of the Visit of the Working Group to Indonesia (January 31 to February 12, 1999)," UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Economic and Social Council, E/CN.4/2000/4/Add.2 (July 5, 1999); "Results of Monitoring and Investigating of Five Incidents at Timika and One Incident at Hoea, Irian Jaya During October 1994-June 1995," National Human Rights Commission of Indonesia, Jakarta, September 1995; "Violations of Human Rights in the Timika Area of Irian Jaya, Indonesia," Catholic Church of Jayapura, 1995; "Human Rights Violations and Disaster in Bela, Alama, Jila and Mapnduma," Indonesian Evangelical Church (Mimika, Irian Jaya), the Catholic Church Three Kings Parish (Timika, Irian Jaya), and the Christian Evangelical Church of Mimika, 1998; "Incidents of Military Violence Against Indigenous Women in Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia," RFK Center for Human Rights and the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy, Washington/Jayapura, 1999; LEMASA, "The Amungme Tribal Council's Resolution on the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its Implementation on Papuan Soil," Timika, December 10, 1998; Survival International, "Rio Tinto Critic Gagged," Survival International, London, 1998; Robert Bryce, "Plaintiffs in Freeport Suit Are Harassed," Austin Chronicle, September 27, 1996; and LEMASA, "The Indonesian Armed Forces in Timika Forcefully Took Away the People's Document," Timika, August 14, 1996; and "Timika: Where's Mama?" Tempo, Regions 27/I, March 13-19, 2001; Robin Osborne, Indonesia's Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya (1985); Carmel Budiardjo & Liem Soei Liong, West Papua: The Obliteration of a People (3d ed. 1988) (1973); West Papua: Plunder in Paradise (Anti-Slavery Society Indigenous Peoples and Development Series ed., 1990); and Ballard, Chris. "The Signature of Terror: Violence, Memory and Landscape at Freeport," in Inscribed Landscapes: Marking and Making Place. Edited by Bruno David and Meredith Wilson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001.

Yale (supra 2), p. 73.

"Army's elite soldiers pulled out of Papua," by Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, July 3, 2003.

For example, among the nine candidates registered to compete for president through Suharto's Golkar political party are his son-in-law, former Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, a former Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) commander who fled to Jordan to escape prosecution and who was court-martialed after he admitted to ordering the abduction, incommunicado detention and torture of nine pro-democracy activists; Lieutenant-General Agum Gumelar, another Kopassus commander, and General Wiranto, who was TNI commander during the TNI-sanctioned killing of more than 1,000 Timorese and the destruction of East Timor's infrastructure in 1999. Source: "In Indonesia, old soldiers never die," editorial, Sydney Morning Herald, August 4, 2003.

"Indonesian Army's Upper Hand : Military Reasserts Broad Influence, Diplomats Say," Alan Sipress,

The Washington Post, June 26, 2003.

"Indonesia's army remains a closed corporate group," R. William Liddle, The Jakarta Post, May 3, 2003.

See, for example, "Indonesian General's Comments Raise Human Rights Fears," Associated Press, July 10, 2003.

See, for example, Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Papua, ELSHAM, Jayapura, June 2003.

"Indonesian Army Ordered Deadly Ambush," Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, March 3, 2004.

http://www.unescap.org/stat/cos12/indonesia.pdf

"HIV/AIDS cases in Papua reach alarming level ," Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, May 27, 2003.

"Unicef concerned over high Papua infant mortality, AIDS," Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, June 14, 2003.

Support for peaceful dialogue between the parties is also the official policy of the U.S. government and the European Union.

Papua Public Opinion Survey, Indonesia, International Foundation for Election Systems, February 2003.

Cenderawasih Pos, July 22, 2003.

Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, who assumed the position of commander of the Trikora military command in Jayapura in January 2001, is a member of Kopassus, the army's elite commandos. He has had no fewer than six tours of duty in East Timor, starting with Operasi Seroja, the invasion of the territory in December 1975. Like all Kopassus officers serving in East Timor, Simbolon played an active role in SGI, the special Kopassus unit designed for counter-insurgency, whose local command posts were used to torture captured East Timorese. He graduated from the military academy in 1974. He and many of his class-mates have distinguished themselves as 'East Timor veterans' whose military careers have been greatly enhance by their many operational tours of duty in East Timor.

Simbolon led the unit that arrested Timorese resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao (now President of East Timor), in 1992, for which Simbolon was given a special promotion from major to colonel. The climax of his East Timor experience came in 1995 when he served for two years as commander of the Wira Dharma Korem in charge of East Timor. Then, until 1999, he was chief of staff at the Udayana military command based in Bali, the command in overall control of East Timor. The Udayana commander at that time was the notorious Major-General Adam Damiri. It was during the commandership of these two generals in Bali that Operasi Sapu Jagad, was launched, an operation whose main purpose was to create, recruit and finance the many militia units that spearheaded the army's campaign of violence before, during and after the UN-supervised ballot. This operation was responsible for the widespread destruction and killings of hundreds of civilians that climaxed in September 1999, after the ballot result was announced on 4 September. One of the militia units, Mahidi, an acronym meaning 'dead or alive with integration', was actually named after Simbolon.

In the wake of the Indonesian military's November 2001 assassination of nonviolent Papuan leader Theys Eluay and other severe human rights violations, all signs suggest that Simbolon's command in Papua has resulted in an intensification of the use of intelligence operations which he practiced during his many years of service in East Timor.

For example, the Bush Administration has made strenuous efforts to re-establish U.S. training and assistance to the TNI (cut off by previous administrations because of the TNI's human rights violations and other crimes in East Timor), while the U.S. Congress has moved to block training to the TNI. The John Howard government in Australia is taking similar steps to re-engage with the notorious Kopassus.

2). Classified US Docs on West Papua written by Edmund McWilliams regarding the US Role in the Annexation of West Papua

Friday, 19 Sep, 2003, 12:58am Classified U.S. Documents Reveal Papua A Victim of Cold War Subterfuge Edmund McWilliams

[a retired senior Foreign Service Officer who served as Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta in the late 90's]

Background

Classified U.S. Government documents recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act reveal U.S. complicity in a subterfuge whereby the United Nations General Assembly gave its formal approval to a manifestly undemocratic plebiscite which denied the people of the Indonesian Province of Papua their right of self-determination. That exercise, known as the "Act of Free Choice," was promised in an agreement brokered by the U.S.. and signed at the United Nations in 1962 between the outgoing Colonial power, the Dutch, and the Indonesian Government which claimed the territory.

George Washington University's "National Security Archives's" Brad Simpson compiled the declassified documents collected in research entitled "Funding Repression: The Indonesian - East Timor Project." The compilation of declassified U.S. Government messages and memoranda documents U.S. Government actions and policies regarding Indonesia's annexation of the territory of West Papua in 1969. The documents reveal a little known, disturbing example of Cold War realpolitik in which a patently undemocratic process enabled the Government of Indonesian dictator Soeharto to assume control of a vast territory populated by a people racially, religiously and culturally distinct from the great majority of the Indonesian population.

Incorporation of the largely Christian/animist, Melanesian Papuans into largely Islamic, Malayu Indonesia has had tragic consequences. Well-respected human rights monitors including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the State Department's own annual human rights report for years have chronicled unrelenting human rights abuse meted out by the Indonesian military to West Papua's civilian population. These sources and other reporting including UN development assessments also make clear that despite the enormous wealth that has flowed to Jakarta's coffers from West Papua great natural resources, basic health, education and other services remain unavailable to many Papuans after 40 years of Jakarta misrule.

A prominent Papuan human rights activist, John Rumbiak, contends that "the Indonesian government's policies and practices with respect to Papua specifically, the government's transmigration program, neo-colonial economic exploitation, and militarism have had a devastating impact on the health and welfare of its citizens and on the territory's unique and important environment.." A Yale research project investigating international genocide, in a report released this Spring, concluded that "throughout the past forty years, the Indonesian government has shown a callous disregard - and, at times, an intentional and specific malevolence - for the basic human rights and human dignity of the people of West Papua." The Yale project researchers conclude that the Indonesian government's actions - perpetrated in large part by the Indonesian armed forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia or TNI) - against the Papuan people "constituted crimes against humanity and could rise to the level of genocide."

The declassified messages and briefing papers compiled by the National Security Archives project document U.S. (and U.N..) awareness that the Papuans act of self-determination, the "Act of Free Choice" which the Indonesian Government was required to conduct under a 1962 bilateral agreement with the Government of the Netherlands, was deliberately and fatally flawed in conception and implementation. The U.S., which had brokered negotiations between the departing Dutch colonial power and the Government of President Soekarno, bore a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of the process through which the Papuan people were to determine their future. The documents reveal that the U.S. manifestly failed in this responsibility.

Negotiations for the 1962 "New York Agreement" were organized and mediated by the senior U.S. diplomat Ellsworth Bunker who worked to defuse a festering confrontation between the Dutch and the Government of President Soekarno. Soekarno, father of the current Indonesian President, was determined to unite all of the Dutch colonial holdings in the region under the Indonesian flag and sent troops to West Papua in an attempt to secure it. Ironically, those troops were led by then Colonel Soeharto, the brutal dictator who would subsequently force Soekarno from power in 1966. In 1962, the Kennedy Administration, anxious to avoid an anti-colonialist war and concerned that the unpredictable nationalist Indonesian leader might turn to Moscow or Beijing for help, employed Bunker to press the Dutch to forego plans to accord the Papuans independence and instead make a deal with the Indonesians. The resulting 1962 "New York Agreement" placed the Papuans under what amounted to an Indonesian trusteeship for seven years, with the promise of an "act of free choice" at the end of that interregnum... The U.N., according to the agreement, was to provide an interim minimum seven month administrative presence allowing the Dutch a diplomatic departure and, crucially, was also to provide oversight ("assistance and participation") to ensure the act of free choice was free and fair. Papuans were afforded no role in the 1962 negotiations.

The succeeding seven years of rule from Jakarta were a disaster for the Papuans. Under the guise of rooting out ineffectual, small scale resistance mounted by poorly armed Papuans resisting brutal Indonesian rule, the Indonesian military mounted successive campaigns which exacted an enormous toll on the defenseless civilian population. The Indonesians broadly failed to provide critical health services, education or economic development to the Papuans who had languished under Dutch colonial rule. The Indonesian government launched exploitation of the vast natural riches in West Papua well before the "Act of Free Choice" with benefits accruing to the Indonesians

and foreign firms, notably the U.S.-based Freeport McMoran which in 1967 began excavation of what is today the world's largest copper and gold mine.

What the Documents Reveal

U.S. Government documents reveal clear U.S. understanding that as a consequence of Jakarta's misrule most Papuans, given a free and fair choice, would opt for independence. A May 1967 U.S. Embassy report noted that the Papuans "resent (the) arrogance of Indonesian military and blame Indonesian officials for drastic shortages of goods and poor living standards now prevailing." A separate Embassy report explained that the Indonesian Government's presence in West Papua "is expressed primarily in the form of the Army." An October 1967 Embassy airgram cited a Papuan holding a senior position in the Indonesian Foreign ministry as stating "99 percent of the Papuan population favors independence from Indonesia." A July 1969 "confidential" airgram from the Embassy reported that "grievances and anti-GOI sentiment are quite real, however, and there is little question that a great majority of the non-Stone Age Irianese favor a termination of Indonesian rule." The message continued: "Opposition to the GOI stems from economic deprivation over the years, military repression and capriciousness and mal-administration." The report concluded that "probably a decided majority of

the Irianese people, and possibly 85 to 90 percent, are in sympathy with the Free Papua cause or at least intensely dislikes Indonesians." The message identified among the Indonesian rulers "a tendency to degrade the Irianese for their darker skin" and noted that Indonesian soldiers "commonly expropriate agricultural commodities." The report also cites a more specific crime noting multiple reports from missionaries that upon taking control of West Papua from the UN in 1963, Indonesian military personnel emptied warehouses of goods belonging to local merchants and transported the merchandise and food by Indonesian Air Force planes out of the area. The report notes that within two months, there was an acute shortage of food and consumer goods. Reporting from the Embassy to Washington is also replete with accounts of human rights abuse by the Indonesian authorities including holding and mistreatment of political prisoners, looting conducted against the Papuan civil population, and general brutality.

At the same time, the Embassy also was aware of the Indonesian Government's determination to retain control of West Papua ("West Irian"). A February 1968 Embassy airgram cited "most observers" as concluding that while there was broad Papuan support for independence, "Indonesia will not permit a plebiscite which would reach such an outcome." While the U.S. Embassy met regularly with Papuans and reported their grievances in classified channels to Washington, senior U.S. officials made clear to the Papuans that they "should look to Holland in the first instance for insuring the fair implementation of the New York Agreement" arguing that while the U.S. brokered the agreement, it was not a signatory to it. At the same time, Embassy reporting also noted Indonesian efforts to prevent Papuans from contacting and seeking redress from the few U.N. officials in the area.

The visit of an Embassy official to Papua in early 1968 provided the U.S. with early warning that the Indonesians were planning to subvert the "Act of Free Choice," the plebiscite that was to have been a genuine act of self-determination as envisaged in the U.S.-brokered 1962 New York agreement. An extensive report on the visit cited a U.N. official as describing the "probable" Indonesian plans as entailing the following: "the Government will divide West Irian into a number of areas and select a slate of three to five persons from each area; a minority of each area's groups may be chosen on the basis of local preference, but the majority will be Indonesian or Indonesian controlled; the groups thus constituted will convene as a whole and endorse union with Indonesia." That description largely anticipated the subterfuge Jakarta was to conduct some 18 months later. Underscoring the necessity of resorting to such fraud, the same report notes "all but one Westerner contacted were persistent in the belief that Indonesia could not win an open election." The Embassy reporting officer concluded that "violence is inevitable."

The documents make clear that while the U.S. Government, through its Embassy in Jakarta, was fully aware of the Indonesian intent to subvert the plebiscite, Washington was not disposed to do anything to protect the democratic integrity of the process. A June 1969 Embassy "confidential" telegram to the State Department stated: "Considering all aspects of (the) situation, mission wholeheartedly endorses Department position and guidance... USG has nothing to gain by interfering in (an) already complex problem and thereby disrupting present fruitful relations with GOI (Government of Indonesia)." The Embassy message to the Department continues, "we should, however, continue in low key to bring to GOI attention need for credibility in Act of Free Choice for Irianese sake and to keep relations with Government of Australia and Government of Netherlands on (an) even keel." A "secret" State Department telegram to the U.S. delegation at the United Nations also in June 1969 underscored this U.S. position. It instructed the U.S. UN team as follows: "As you are aware, discussion (of) this subject with U Thant (UN Secretary General) is for a number of reasons a very delicate matter. We do not wish to undercut our noninvolved stance and appear to be interfering in what is essentially a matter between SYG (Secretary General U Thant) and GOI. We wish especially to avoid leaving (the) impression that USG (is) pressing the SYG toward firmer position with GOI on carrying out 'letter and spirit' of the 1962 agreement."

The importance of maintaining a discreet public distance from the rigged plebiscite was underscored in a "secret" memo signed by Henry Kissinger, then serving as Director of the National Security Council, and addressed to President Nixon. The July 18, 1969 document is a briefing paper preparing President Nixon for his upcoming visit to Jakarta. Kissinger's briefing paper, under the heading of "Points to Avoid," cautions Nixon: "the West Irian "act of free choice" will be underway during your visit. It consists of a series of consultations rather than a direct election, which would be almost meaningless among the stone age cultures of New Guinea." Kissinger's memo continues: "there is a UN observer on the scene, and we assume that U Thant will go along with the Indonesian form of the act of free choice. There is, however, a small but active West Papuan independence movement, and a variety of groups in Australia and the Netherlands which take exception to the Indonesian techniques of self-determination. Because the U.S. played a mediating role in resolving the Indonesian/Dutch controversy over the future of West Irian, there may be a tendency to associate you with the form in which the act of free choice is being conducted. We should avoid any U.S. identification with this act."

In "talking points" prepared for Nixon's meeting with Soeharto, the Kissinger memo advises Nixon that "we believe West Irian will definitely decide to stay with Indonesia." Kissinger advises Nixon not to raise the issue but adds that if the Indonesians were to raise it, Nixon should say that "we understand the problems they face in West Irian but do not believe it is in our interest or that of Indonesia for us to become directly involved." The U.S. willingness to give tacit support to the subterfuge in West Papua, which was underway during the visit, is explained in part by the Kissinger memo's description of the Soeharto regime, whose army, by that time, had succeeded in killing hundreds of thousands, possibly half a million political enemies. Kissinger's memo said of Soeharto's rule: "The government is under the control of a moderate military man, Suharto, who although indecisive by outside standards is committed to progress and reform. He has achieved impressive results in his own way in cleaning up the mess left by Sukarno."

As planning for the a mid-1969 "Act of Free Choice" unfolded, the Embassy reported without comment information provide by the Indonesian Government that it had succeeded in limiting the role of the Secretary General's personal representative, Bolivian Ambassador Fernando Ortiz-Sans, who, according to the New York Agreement, was to assist in administering the plebiscite. The Embassy reported that the Indonesians in New York had managed to delay the arrival of the UN official (Bolivian Ambassador Ortiz Sans), reduce his staff from 11 to five (his staff eventually grew to 16) and ensure that he would be based in Jakarta and not in West Irian. A May 1969 airgram from the Embassy noted the diminished role of Ortiz-Sans as the plebiscite approached: "the active role he envisaged for (his) mission in influencing the GOI has been blunted in recent months and his grand plans have been circumscribed and his activities limited strictly to observer/advisory function."

The Embassy also regularly reported progress of GOI plans to preclude any democratic result in the plebiscite. An August 1968 telegram from the Ambassador described the Indonesian Government as "working to carry out (the) 1962 agreement in (a) manner which is meaningful but which at the same time will ensure continued Indonesian control of West Irian." A June 1969 Embassy airgram reported without comment death threats from the Indonesian military issued to any Papuan who did not vote for integration in the "Act of Free Choice."

The "Act of Free Choice" transpired during the summer of 1969 and followed Jakarta's plan closely. The Indonesians selected a total of 1026 Papuans who were assembled at various locations and given the option to vote for or against Papua's incorporation into Indonesia. (Eventually only 1,022 participated.) The process, as described in notes from the period compiled by a western journalist in Papua and by an Indonesian "observer" sponsored by Jakarta, was transparently fraudulent. "Delegates" were encouraged to drink excessively by their Jakarta military hosts. Those who indicated any resistance to a pro-Jakarta vote were bluntly threatened. In the end, the vote was unanimous for annexation.

U.S. behind-the-scenes support for Jakarta's fraudulent "Act of Free Choice" was most important at the United Nations where the General Assembly, in the Fall of 1969, was called to accept the exercise. An August 1969 memo from the State Department's Director for Indonesia, Paul Gardner, to Assistant Secretary Green in advance of a meeting between Ambassador Green and the Indonesian U.N. Ambassador reconfirmed the USG strategy of offering quiet diplomatic support to the Indonesians. The memo alerted Green that "the Ambassador might ask for our support in preparing smooth U.N. handling of the act." It advised: "You might point out that lobbying for certain procedures could focus undue attention on the agenda item, stimulating other nations to take part. If asked by other delegations for our views, however, the U.S. delegation would note that lengthy debate could serve no useful purpose." In fact, U.S. support for the Indonesians at the U.N. General Assembly ultimately proved to be substantial. A November 17, 1969 "memorandum of conversation" reported on a discussion between Secretary of State Rogers and Indonesian Foreign Minister Malik and their staffs. The memo notes that in response to a request from Malik that the U.S. "do what it could to convince the African nations of the need for judicious handling of the "Act of Free Choice matter," Secretary Rogers responded that the U.S. "had already been in touch with the delegations mentioned by Foreign Minister Malik as well as with others." Rogers added: "In our general discussions on this matter we have taken the position that the 1962 Agreement has been satisfactorily executed." The Secretary then offered to contact one key African Ambassador personally.

The importance of the U.S. role in the ultimate UN failure to disapprove the fraudulent "act of free choice" is made clear in a December 1969 message from the Indonesian mission to the UN to the U.S. mission. The message, signed by the Indonesian Mission Chief, states: "On behalf of the Indonesian delegation, permanent mission and staff, let me express to you our appreciation for your valuable support regarding West Irian, which has helped make possible the successful completion of the long struggle of the Indonesian people for complete freedom, national unity and territorial integrity."

Postscript: In what must appear as deja vu for Papuans, the U.S. and the international community appear again to be conspiring with the Government of Indonesia to subvert the civil and political rights of the Papuans. After having pressed Papuans to accept Jakarta's offers of "special autonomy" rather than pursue independence, the U.S. and many in the international community have reacted in silence as Jakarta has reneged on its own special autonomy offer and instead, has sought to divide the Province into three parts. At the same time, among those concerned about justice for the Papuans, there is a growing campaign to persuade the United Nations to review its acceptance of the fraudulent 1969 "Act of Free Choice."