West Papuan Decolonisation by Eileen Hanrahan;

Author:Eileen Hanrahan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789813343023
Publisher: Springer Nature

Again, consistent with a settler colonial mentality, only the Indonesian state, not the UN, has authority over the Indigene; Indigenous Papuans are non-actors.

Officials in the Indonesian narrative also dismiss the UN representative’s proposal of mixed voting methods (i.e., one for urban areas and one for the ‘interior’), as they claim the population of both regions was “illiterate and not interested in these issues” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 73. However, this is contrary to Indonesianist, van der Kroef’s assessment, from 1960 onwards in the territory he toured that there was strong evidence for a “Papuan political awakening” a “belated but unmistakable nationalism” (van der Kroef 1958, p. 693, cited in Sharp & Kaisiëpo 1994, p. 13).

The writers of the Indonesian narrative emphasise that Indonesia’s compromise of consultation was conditioned by “social, geographic and human realities” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 75). They claim the methods ascribed by the NYA (i.e., Indonesian practice) involved “consultations towards consensus to secure their approval for implementing the act of free choice through the regional councils which would be enlarged to form consultative assemblies” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 74). (It is arguable that this process, designed by the UN to identify voting methods, was conflated to be the legitimate method of the vote itself.) The narrative asserts that the assemblies did not reach a decision “through voting” but rather “understanding and knowledge” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 74). It should be pointed out that consultation method outlined in the NYA is a Javanese village custom, not a Papuan one. Papuans vote at assemblies in their political arrangements, and subsequently everyone abides by the democratic decision. One retired UN official, who was in West Papua at the time of the vote, claimed that such blatant disregard for UN procedures for a self-determination vote would not occur in today’s world (Michel Pelletier, personal communication, 2005). He also spoke of military intimidation (i.e., a gun being held at his chest to keep him in the UN base, even though it was his job to monitor UN processes).

Officials asserted that the “indirect act of self-determination was consistent with international practice” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 79). Still, in the spirit of international cooperation, some UN-prescribed ‘democratic’ prerequisites were accepted, despite the NYA being more a “political not a juridical document” (Permanent Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations 2001, para. 76). Here, the Indonesians were perhaps attempting to ward off a legal assessment of the document. Such reticence for a review resonates with the refusal of the nation-state to engage with the ICJ, a decision which was also recorded in the narrative as being for political not juridical reasons.

The final result, the officials concluded, stood in spite of a concession that “certain elements of West

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