West Papua: British profiteers plunder Indonesian colony
The directors of British mining giant, Rio Tinto, must be looking forward to many years of exploiting West Papua’s gold and copper resources following the recent election of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice-President Megawati Sukanoputri.
With East Timor gaining independence, these "moderate democrats" are committed to preventing any further reduction in the territory under Indonesian rule.
The profitable relationship in West Papua between Indonesian occupation and corporate exploitation, which began in 1963, is set to continue.
Indonesia and the multinationals: a special relationship
Rio Tinto has a large stake in the mine set up and operated by the US-based company Freeport McMoran. It is the largest mine in the world, producing the world’s largest output of gold (2.8 million ounces in 1998) and second largest output of copper. In recent years the mine has expanded significantly, with most of the new investment coming from Rio Tinto, giving it a 40 per cent share of the copper produced in 1998.
Dating back to 1967, the mine has depended on the patronage of the Indonesian authorities, which created the conditions for its prosperity. Using terror to submit the people to Indonesian rule and take control of their land, the colonial government doled out concessions to mining and logging companies.
The Freeport mine was built on land seized without compensation from the Amungme tribe. To make way for the mine and for the company town built to house the workers brought in from Indonesia, up to 40,000 people were removed and forced to start a new life in unfamiliar surroundings. More land was swallowed as the mine expanded.
The mine has caused widespread environmental damage. In 1993 it was dumping about 95 per cent of the tonnage it processed into the river used locally for drinking water.
Local people complained that outbreaks of skin disease and diarrhoea were caused by this pollution.
In 1997 the authorities accepted that the river was undrinkable. Sedimentation from these wastes has caused the river to flood the plains used to grow sago, the staple crop. In 1997 a village was buried under mud and tailings from the mine forcing eighty families to be relocated.
The company has tried to clean up its image, claiming that it looks after local people by providing health, education and employment.
In 1996 it announced a $16 million fund for tribal groups around the mine. But the mine provides relatively few jobs for local people: only 1,500 out of the 12,000 workers in 1993 were Papuan.
Throughout its existence the mine has been a focus for protests against the Indonesian occupation and the depredations of foreign corporations.
The company has worked closely with the Indonesian army, which has committed atrocities in the surrounding area. In 1994 the Indonesian press reported a massacre of 120 people after a West Papuan flag-waving ceremony in a village 20 km from the mine.
In 1995 a Catholic bishop, Msgr H.F.M. Munninghoff, reported that civilians were held and sometimes tortured on company facilities.
Imperialism and West Papua: a history of betrayal
Like Indonesia, West Papua (the western half of Papua, called New Guinea by the Europeans) was a Dutch colony. However its Melanesian inhabitants in the East (now Papua New Guinea) have cultural affinities with their neighbours, and shared with them the desire for a single independent state.
After Indonesia gained independence in 1949, the Dutch remained in West Papua and Australia ruled in the east. The two powers eventually agreed to independence, but when Indonesia objected, the Dutch handed over West Papua to the United Nations.
West Papua became a victim of scheming by the United States at the height of the Cold War.
Anxious to make Indonesia a key ally of the US, as well as to curb the growing influence of Indonesia’s communist movement, the Kennedy administration lobbied vigorously in the UN in support of Indonesia’s claim to West Papua.
They dismissed the aspirations of "some 700,000 Papuans living in the Stone Age" in racist terms. As a result in 1963 the UN allowed Indonesia to occupy West Papua, on condition that a "full and free referendum" was held.
US companies were of course rewarded handsomely for their government’s support for Indonesia’s claim to West Papua with a generous share of the fruits of this resource-rich colony, not to mention a market for US-made weapons needed to quell dissent.
The Indonesian army waged a brutal campaign to stamp out the movement for independence, rounding up and killing those active in the political life of the territory and bombing villages which resisted.
As Papuan men withdrew to the forests to take up arms, the army began a full-scale counter-insurgency war, with Britain and France as well as the US providing the goods.
By 1969 the Indonesians were ready to hold their "referendum", which resulted in the "Act of Free Choice" rubber-stamping Indonesia’s rule. The army picked 1,025 men to vote, with President Suharto making it clear that a vote for independence would be counted as treason.
To control the population the authorities have used a combination of repression, causing at least 100,000 deaths since 1963, transmigration and resettlement of the local population in "model villages".
Tens of thousands of Indonesians have been brought over from Java and other densely-populated provinces to occupy land taken from local people, in a programme financed by the World Bank and implemented by British and Canadian development consultants.
The settlers have often been abandoned without infrastructure, state support or knowledge of local conditions. Migrants have also been brought over to work in the mines, pulp mills, plantations and fish farms set up on prime land or coastal waters by Indonesian and other foreign investors.
In common with Indonesia, every square metre of forest in West Papua has been parcelled out in concessions to logging and mining companies.
Indonesia is currently losing two per cent of its forest every year. West Papua’s forest, including the Lorentz National Park, home to seven Papuan tribes and incredibly rich in its biodiversity and range of habitats, is under threat.
In spite of the repression, the authorities have not extinguished the people’s spirit of resistance or their desire to take back control of their land and to win their freedom. A guerrilla movement, the OPM (Free Papua Movement) is active, and there is widespread civilian resistance to Indonesian rule.
It is vital that we in Britain expose and challenge the role of British and other foreign companies in plundering West Papua’s natural resources.
The British government and the "international community" have been complicit in covering up the crimes, which have been and are still being committed in that territory. We must champion the West Papuan struggle for freedom.
For further information contact:-
TAPOL - the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, 111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey CR7 8HW; Tel:0181 771 2904; website: www.gn.apc.org/tapol
PARTIZANS - People Against Rio Tinto and its Subsidiaries, 218 Liverpool Road, London N1