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BY PIP HINMAN

Prime Minister John Howard, under pressure, once described the successive Australian governments' approaches to East Timor as “bipartisan wrong policy”. Yet this hasn't influenced his views on the self-determination struggle being waged by the West Papuan people.

Howard's “wrong policy” comments — made after the anti-independence militias backed by the Indonesian army (TNI) unleashed their post-ballot rampage — were designed to placate Australians furious at the government's support for Indonesia's invasion and annexation of East Timor.

Now, in a bid to ameliorate relations with Jakarta, Howard and foreign minister Alexander Downer — backed by the Labor “opposition” — are leading the charge internationally to support Indonesia's declaration that it will never let West Papua go.

At the Pacific Islands Forum in Kiribati last month and more recently at the APEC conference in Brunei, Howard and Downer have been at pains to reassure Jakarta they do not support West Papua's secession from Indonesia or the West Papuan people's right to have a UN-supervised referendum on independence. For their efforts, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid is extremely grateful.

Downer warned that support for the West Papuan secessionist movement could lead to a “bloodbath”. “The international community can't promote the disintegration of Indonesia. It would have a devastating impact on South-East Asia”, he was quoted as saying by the November 14 Sydney Morning Herald, adding that Australia's national interest was best served by not supporting independence movements.

The same line was put by Paul Dibb, head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University and former head of the Joint Intelligence Organisation in the defence department, in a paper presented to a Jakarta-based institute in Bogor in May.

Having demolished the argument that Indonesia is any military threat to Australia, Dibb said the biggest single threat to “regional security” is the “continuing turmoil” inside Indonesia, the result of “greater freedom in Indonesia since the downfall of president Suharto”.

Bemoaning the fact that the secessionist movements in Aceh and West Papua were encouraged by the success of the East Timorese national liberation movement, Dibb warned: “If any of these regions get independence, the reaction from the military will be intense, and may well put an end to democracy in Indonesia”.

Military violence

Dibb, like the Howard government (and Kim Beazley's Labor opposition), seem oblivious to one of main factors driving the independence movements: the military violence and terror unleashed against largely unarmed populations.

This was clear from Australian governments' unstinting support for Indonesia's brutal rule in East Timor, in spite of horrifying massacres such as the one in Dili in 1991. It was reinforced again in 1999 when despite intelligence reports revealing that the TNI was training and arming the East Timorese militias, the Howard government insisted it should be entrusted to supervise the ballot and aftermath.

The Australian government also has ample evidence of the criminal role the Indonesian army played in an effort to wipe out the West Papuan resistance movement, the OPM, from the early 1960s (including the napalm strafing, bombing and raping of whole villages) onwards.

Now, as the 40th anniversary of West Papua's December 1, 1961 declaration of independence approaches, Indonesia has stepped up its terror campaign, sending in two battalions from the Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad). Indonesian police have also launched a three month campaign (from November to February) — Operation Tuntas — against the separatist movement.

The Wahid government has now banned the raising of West Papua's “Morning Star” flag — the symbol of independence — with the military systematically killing those who do.

Comparisons with East Timor

Meanwhile, Downer and Howard are at pains to avoid commenting on the detail of the events surrounding Indonesia's annexation of West Papua in 1962. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it's hard to justify the military-led take-over given the rubber stamp by the UN following a sham act in which 1025 West Papuans were lined up in front of Indonesian troops to raise their hands in favour of West Papua's incorporation into the Indonesian state.

The 1962 New York agreement, signed by the Indonesian, Dutch and US governments, specified that all adult West Papuans had the right to participate in an act of self-determination. The UN “took note”, with resolution 2504, that an “act of free choice” had taken place, but not according to international practice. The West Papuans are appealing for international support for a genuine act of self-determination.

Howard and Downer continue to deny that there are any comparisons to be made between the national self-determination struggles in East Timor and West Papua.

It's true that the history and circumstances of the two peoples are different, although both were invaded after moves by their former colonial rulers to grant them independence. However, what is the same is the Australian government's attitude to both struggles.

In the case of East Timor, the government was forced by the build-up of mass domestic pressure to change its policy — after the 1999 ballot and post-ballot bloodbath. Let's make them change their criminal policy before the same scenario unfolds in West Papua.

[Pip Hinman is the national secretary of .]