Slobodan Lekic, Jakarta – Wracked by separatist struggles across its vast chain of islands, Indonesia is being especially haunted by a referendum 32 years ago that former United Nations officials now admit was a sham.
The region in question is Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya, Indonesia's easternmost province, and the referendum legitimising the Dutch colony's annexation is proving to be a source of intensifying separatist fervor.
UN officials who conducted the 1969 vote by tribal chiefs now say most citizens of the province covering the western half of New Guinea island were intentionally excluded from the process.
"It was just a whitewash. The mood at the United Nations was to get rid of this problem as quickly as possible," said Chakravarthy Narasimhan, a retired UN undersecretary-general who handled the takeover. "Nobody gave a thought to the fact that there were a million people there who had their fundamental human rights trampled."
The ballot immediately sparked an uprising in the region. Indonesia's army has failed in repeated attempts to crush the rebellion, and support for independence has strengthened since president Suharto, Indonesia's former dictator, was forced from office in 1998.
In the past, bloody protests have erupted on December 1, the anniversary of Papua's 1961 independence proclamation. So Indonesian security forces are bracing for more trouble next Saturday, the 40th anniversary of the proclamation.
Independence activists have been further galvanised by the UN-supervised referendum in 1999 that allowed nearby East Timor to break away from Indonesia and become independent after years of fighting Indonesian forces.
They are demanding a similar plebiscite for Papua. The killing of Theys Eluay, a prominent pro-independence politician, on November 10, has added to tensions. Indonesian police confirmed on Wednesday that Mr Eluay was kidnapped and murdered.
Opposition to rule from Jakarta appears almost universal among Papuans. But the Indonesian Government is adamant about holding the region, the nation's biggest and home to rich natural resources.
When the Dutch originally granted independence to the Indonesia archipelago in 1949, they retained control of Papua, arguing it had no ethnic, linguistic or cultural links with the other islands.
Unlike Indonesia's mainly Malay inhabitants, Papuans are racially distinct Melanesians. While 85 per cent of Indonesians are Muslims; Papuans are either Christians or animists.
The Netherlands announced it would grant statehood to Papua and set up a local legislature December1, 1961. Indonesia reacted by launching a series of cross-border incursions. The invaders were easily routed by Dutch marines. But the US administration of President John F. Kennedy feared a military defeat could drive Indonesia into the communist bloc and pressured the Dutch to hand over the colony.
The Dutch eventually agreed, and in 1962 the UN was brought in to prepare a "one man, one vote" referendum for self-determination by 1969. Within a year, however, the world body relinquished administration of the region to Jakarta, and left Mr Suharto's military dictatorship in charge of preparing for a democratic plebiscite.
Indonesia, sensing overwhelming opposition to the takeover, decided to canvass only 1025 hand-picked supporters. The result, not surprisingly, was a unanimous vote for integration.