"Indonesian territorial integrity" ...it's just a bloody map

16th October 2007

Richard Samuelson, Co-Director, Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK

“The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.” Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, 1941

For nearly 40 years, a succession of Generals in Jakarta, from Suharto to Yudhoyono, together with their fellow conspirators in London, Washington, Canberra and the Hague, have told a very big lie; that the people of West Papua chose feely to join Indonesia in the 1969 “Act of Free Choice”. And by repeating the lie over and over again they’ve hoped that people would eventually come to believe it.

The truth is Indonesia’s greatest enemy. The Indonesian, British, American, Australian and Dutch governments all know the truth; In 1969 Suharto’s henchmen put their rifles to the heads of 1,026 West Papuan elders and threatened to blow their brains out if they voted for independence. They all know the truth that if the West Papuan people had been given a genuine one person - one vote referendum they would have voted overwhelmingly for independence. And they also all know the truth that the only way Indonesia can hold on to West Papua now is by repressing peaceful Papuan dissenters like Filep Karma & Yusak Pakage, jailed for 15 & 10 years for peacefully raising the West Papuan flag.

Indonesian embassies all over the world are spending millions of rupiahs in a desperate attempt to prevent the truth from coming out. But it’s money down the drain. Indonesia is loosing the battle. However many independence campaigners Indonesia imprisons, tortures, intimidates or kills inside West Papua, all the money in the world can’t stop West Papuans in Britain, the USA, Australia or the Netherlands from simply telling the truth.

Indonesia’s big West Papua lie is now so obviously a lie that it has become too embarrassing for Indonesia’s Western allies to repeat the lie itself. You won’t now hear a British government Minister trying to defend the “Act of Free Choice”. In fact the UK government now calls it “extremely flawed” [1] and has even officially admitted that in 1969 “a thousand hand-picked Papuans were largely coerced into declaring for Indonesia”.[2]

But while the UK and Indonesia’s other Western co-conspirators don’t now tell the big lie themselves, they are nevertheless still trying to protect the lie from the truth’s corrosive power. Now, when anyone (whether an ordinary citizen, Member of Parliament or even David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition in the UK Parliament [3]) asks the British Foreign Secretary any question about West Papua’s right to self-determination, the Foreign Office sends up a smoke screen to try to protect Indonesia’s big lie. They say the UK “respects Indonesia’s territorial integrity”.

Question: In the 1969 “Act of Free Choice”, were the West Papuan people allowed to exercise their internationally-recognised right to self-determination in accordance with international law?

Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.



Question: The UK has already admitted that the West Papuan people were “coerced” into joining Indonesia in 1969, so isn’t it the logical conclusion that the West Papuans should now be given the chance to vote in a free and fair self-determination referendum?



Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.



Question: Now that Indonesia has signed up to the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, should the West Papuan people be allowed to campaign peacefully for independence, or is it still OK for Indonesia to jail them for 15 years for peacefully raising the West Papuan “Morning Star” flag?



Answer: The United Kingdom government respects the territorial integrity of the Republic of Indonesia.



“Respecting Indonesia’s territorial integrity” is blatantly not an answer to these questions which would stand up in any court of law. The Foreign Office’s answers would be laughable if their consequence wasn’t so serious for the West Papuan people suffering under Indonesian oppression. Very sadly, it’s all too clear that by repeating the “territorial integrity” mantra over and over again the UK and Indonesia’s other Western friends are simply avoiding giving answers in order to protect Indonesia’s big lie … and at the same time, of course, protect British economic interests (BP is collaborating with the Indonesian government on a huge natural gas project in West Papua. Rio Tinto has a share in one of the world’s biggest gold & copper mines in the West Papuan highlands.)



So it’s high time to prick the “territorial integrity” bubble once and for all by exposing what “Indonesia’s territorial integrity” actually means. It’s just a bloody map.



Indonesia claims West Papua because it says that every square mile of the Far East which the Dutch grabbed, Indonesia should now be allowed to grab too. From Sumatra to New Guinea, every island or part of an island which used to be coloured Dutch orange on the old maps, should now, they claim, be coloured Indonesian red. Indonesia’s argument means that one old Dutch Empire should simply be replaced by a new Javanese Empire.



“Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map. How can a bloody map justify the oppression of a million and a half Melanesians? How can a bloody map justify the Indonesian military imprisoning, torturing, raping, terrorising and murdering West Papuan men, women and children? How can a bloody map justify the use of State violence and terror to keep a people inside a country they simply don’t want to be part of?



A generation ago, the British in India, the French in Algeria and the Dutch in Java were prepared to shed innocent Indian, African and Indonesian blood in a vain attempt to keep the map of the world coloured as they wanted. Just like Indonesia is now doing in West Papua, the British, French and Dutch Empires were prepared to use violence to keep people within their imperial territory against their will … to “protect their territorial integrity”.



“Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map … and it’s a map drenched in the blood of at least 100,000 innocent West Papuans, murdered during 45 years of brutal Indonesian occupation.



The big lie that the West Papuans chose freely to join Indonesia in 1969 has now been exposed. It’s so obviously a lie that democracies like the UK are now too ashamed to repeat it. And “Indonesia‘s territorial integrity” is just a bloody map. It’s now time for the Western democracies to admit that people are more important than maps; that the era of using violence to keep people inside an Empire against their will is over.



It’s time to put the people of West Papua first. At long last, it’s time to allow the West Papuans the chance to determine their own future.





Richard Samuelson

Co-Director, Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK

www.freewestpapua.org



Tel: +44 (0)1865 728412

E-Mail:  samoxen@dsl.pipex.com





[1] Baroness Royall (UK government spokesperson), House of Lords debate on West Papua, 8th January 2007.



[2] Baroness Symons (UK Foreign Office Minister) House of Lords, 13th December 2004. Confirmed in a letter from Jack Straw, UK Foreign Secretary, 4th February 2005.



[3] On 24th August 2007, David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition in the UK Parliament & Leader of the Conservative Party, met Benny Wenda, Leader of the West Papuan independence movement in the UK. Mr Cameron promised that he would “probe the [UK] government on West Papua’s right to self-determination”.



In reply to his “probing” so far, the UK Foreign Office has simply repeated to Mr Cameron that “the UK government respects Indonesia’s territorial integrity”.