Anthony Deutsch, The Hague – A key 1969 vote on the future of the Indonesian island province of West New Guinea was "a sham" orchestrated by Jakarta, a Dutch government-commissioned study has found.
That vote, which made the province part of Indonesia, has been followed by decades of abuse at the hands of the Indonesian military.
The 740-page book, "An Act of Free Choice," was published Tuesday after five years of research by Dutch author Pieter Drooglever at the request of the Dutch government, the colonial ruler of Indonesia and New Guinea until 1949.
When the Netherlands gave up its colonies in the Dutch East Indies, West New Guinea was not included in a sovereignty agreement with Indonesia. Only in 1962 did the two countries agree to place West New Guinea under UN rule, amid strong international pressure.
The region was promised a popular vote on its sovereignty, but was transferred to Indonesian control six months later. In 1969, its status as an Indonesian province was set when, Drooglever concluded, the Indonesian government rigged a vote by 1,022 inhabitants on behalf of the population of around 700,000 concluded.
United Nations observers were turned away from the voting, the result of which was declared to be 100 percent in favor of joining Indonesia.
"The Act of Free Choice ended up as a sham," Drooglever wrote in a summary of the book. "A press-ganged electorate acting under a great deal of pressure appeared to have unanimously declared itself in favor of Indonesia."
Although Drooglever's conclusions were in line with those of other historians, the sponsorship of the Dutch government gave the report added significance since The Hague has always seen itself as an interested party in Indonesian affairs.
Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot, however, dismissed the report – requested by parliament in 1999 – as "superfluous" before it's official publication, according to the daily Trouw newspaper in an extensive three-page report Tuesday on the book.
Bot nonetheless presented the report to parliament Tuesday and in an accompanying letter called it "the result of an academic study, which forms an additional contribution to our history and the events surrounding the Act of Free Choice."
John Saltford, author of "The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua," hopes the Dutch book will break new political ground and bring Dutch and Indonesian authorities to recognize an injustice done to around 1 million West Papuans.
"There is nothing to be gained from clinging on to a distorted version of history that can only further distort current efforts to solve the West Papuan issue peacefully," he said.
Willy Mandowen, a mediator for the West Papuan Council, an influential Papuan political party, estimates that 100,000 Papuans have been killed by the Indonesian military. "For West Papuans, it has been a human tragedy. They should be given a chance to exercise their own fate. The history needs some corrections," he said.
Although they do not have the support of the Dutch and Indonesian governments, they have American backing in their search for self-determination.
Around 40 US lawmakers in August asked the United Nations to review its acceptance of the Act of Free Choice and allow West Papua to vote on whether to remain a part of Indonesia.
The House of Representatives has passed a law calling for the United States to review its human rights policy toward the province, where Indonesian security forces have murdered, tortured and raped local separatists, rights groups said.