An inalienable part of Indonesia?: The Communist Party of Australia and West Irian
By Dominique Tasevski
West Irian is an Indonesian territory bordering Papua New Guinea (PNG) which has a Melanesian Papuan population.[1] Indonesia and West Irian were both part of the Netherlands East Indies.[2] In 1949, Indonesia was granted independence, however, the Dutch continued to rule West Irian.[3] The shared colonial ties between Indonesia and West Irian motivated Indonesian President Sukarno’s claim over the territory.[4] The Netherlands opposed Indonesia’s incorporation of Irian due to the ethnic, cultural and religious differences between Papuans and Indonesians and sought to maintain control over Irian due to their economic interests in the island.[5] Australia, the colonial ruler of neighbouring PNG, was deeply enmeshed in this dispute. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) was a key Australian organisation which followed this issue due to its longstanding interest in Indonesia.[6] The CPA’s support for Indonesian independence is well-known, however, there is little scholarship documenting the party’s subsequent foreign policy positions.[7] Scholars have not written an account of the CPA’s West Irian policy. The marginalisation of this story led me to the CPA’s Victorian State Committee archives. I have selected three sources from this collection which are complemented with additional primary sources from the CPA’s newspaper, Tribune, to provide a ‘true story’ of the party’s inconsistent stance on West Irian.
The CPA supported Indonesia’s absorption of West Irian. While examining the CPA archives, I found a March 1957 folder from the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra which contained pamphlets produced by the Indonesian Government outlining Indonesia’s Irian policy. In an undated pamphlet, Indonesian authorities assert that Irian was a central part of the Indonesian ‘homeland’ and Indonesia must control Irian to ensure ‘the abolishment of the last remnant of colonialism’ in Indonesia.[8] The pamphlet asserts that Indonesia’s territorial claim is not based ‘on racial…considerations’ as no nation ‘can boast a singleness of race.’[9] The arguments made within this document were replicated by the CPA and reflect its initial Irian policy. In December 1957, the CPA released a policy statement on Irian which echoed the pamphlet’s position by asserting that Irian constituted an ‘integral part’ of Indonesia.[10] The statement also reiterated the pamphlet’s argument by stating that Indonesia is a ‘multi-national state’ which is ‘not based on racial or ethnic grounds,’ rather, shared experiences of ‘fighting against Dutch colonial oppression.’[11] Therefore, the CPA’s original Irian policy replicated Indonesia’s position.
The CPA’s position was at odds with Australia’s major political parties. Australia’s government supported continued Dutch rule over West Irian due to concerns that Indonesia would attempt to annex PNG.[12] It was also alarmed by Sukarno’s leftist inclinations.[13] There was bipartisan Australian support for this policy.[14] In 1962, the Dutch relinquished their claims over West Irian.[15] In 1963, Indonesia formally gained control of West Irian. The United Nations (UN) requested that Indonesia provide Papuans with the opportunity to vote on Indonesian rule.[16] Many Papuans strongly opposed Indonesia’s incorporation of the territory.[17] This opposition was demonstrated by the 1963 creation of the guerrilla organisation, the Free Papua Movement (OPM.)[18] Indonesian repression in West Irian was demonstrated from as early as 1963 when the Papuan national flag was banned by Sukarno’s government.[19]
Indonesia’s oppressive conduct in West Irian contributed to a reversal of the CPA’s policy on the territory which it once described as an ‘inalienable part’ of Indonesia.[20] By 1966, Sukarno’s leftist regime had collapsed which resulted in the emergence of the anti-communist, authoritarian Suharto regime. Suharto’s intolerance of dissent influenced the change in CPA position. In 1969, the CPA claimed that Sukarno’s demise forced Papuans and Indonesians into a ‘difficult struggle’ against Suharto.[21] The distinction between Papuans and Indonesians is a significant reversal from its aforementioned earlier position. The party recognised the anti-democratic nature of the so-called ‘Act of Free Choice’, the UN supervised ballot in which approximately 1,000 Papuans handpicked by Suharto’s government were coerced to vote in favour of Irian’s integration into Indonesia.[22] The CPA labelled Indonesia’s actions in West Irian as ‘neo-imperialist’ and demanded that Australian ‘anti-imperialists’ support Papuans in their ‘struggle’ against Indonesia.[23]
The party closely followed events in West Irian. The CPA-affiliated organisation, the Campaign for an Independent East Timor, provided the party with updates on the Papuan resistance.[24] In an undated report, the organisation provided the CPA with information on Papuans’ independence struggle.[25] The report detailed the sporadic armed resistance of Papuans.[26] It provided examples of the ‘great crimes’ perpetrated by the ‘Indonesian military-fascist regime’ against Papuans, including Suharto’s attempts to ‘colonise’ the territory through encouraging widespread Indonesian migration into Irian.[27] The report states that Papuans ‘will settle for nothing less than independence.’[28] By 1971, the OPM declared an independent West Irian.[29] Despite the limited effectiveness of Papuan resistance, the CPA’s possession of this report indicates that sympathetic Australians were aware of the secessionist movement in West Irian and Papuan desires for independence.
The CPA ultimately reversed its West Irian policy. In 1977, it released a foreign policy paper detailing its new Irian policy and stating that in accordance with its ‘principled support for anti-imperialist struggles’ it no longer supported Indonesian rule in Irian.[30] The paper asserts that the CPA ‘acknowledges the movement for independence in Irian Jaya and supports the right of these peoples to freely determine their future.’[31] This document indicates the CPA’s inconsistent position on West Irian. During the Sukarno era, the party supported Indonesia’s claim to Irian. This policy was not informed by the views of the majority of Papuans, rather, it reflected Indonesian government propaganda. Despite the CPA’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, it initially supported Indonesian neo-colonialism. The CPA ignored the oppressive acts of the leftist Sukarno regime in West Irian and only begun to express concern about the treatment of Papuans following the emergence of the anti-communist Suharto regime. The primary sources examined in this piece illuminate a ‘true story’ about the CPA’s problematic and contradictory West Irian policy.
Historians are required to make difficult decisions when constructing a narrative about the past.[32] Many stories are omitted from historiography including accounts of the CPA’s Irian policy. Archives are historical actors which perpetuate the marginalisation of particular stories.[33] Archives are produced by individuals who make deliberate choices which ensure that only certain events, documents and people are remembered.[34] When attempting to reveal the ‘truth’ in history, scholars must examine archival documents, however, material located within archives do not necessarily reveal the whole truth about historical events.[35] For example, the CPA archive only provides limited documents which did not reveal its entire Irian policy. I was thus required to seek out additional primary sources when attempting to write this ‘true story.’ Therefore, the CPA archive provides an incomplete account of the party’s inconsistent West Irian policy.
Footnotes:
[1] Richard Chauvel, “Violence and Governance in West Papua,” in Violent Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis, Representation, Resolution, ed. Charles A. Coppel (London: Routledge, 2006), 181.
[2] Richard Chauvel, Essays on West Papua: Volume Two (Clayton: Monash University Press, 2003), 7.
[3] Keith Suter, “West Papua: Indonesia’s 26th Province or Australia’s New Neighbour?,” Australia’s Arc of Instability: The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security, eds. Dennis Rumley, Vivian Louis Forbes and Christopher Griffin (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 113; Edward Aspinall and Mark T Berger, “The break-up of Indonesia? Nationalisms after decolonisation and the limits of the nation-state in post-cold war Southeast Asia,” Third World Quarterly, 22 (2001): 1013.
[4] Suter, “West Papua: Indonesia’s 26th Province or Australia’s New Neighbour?,” 113.
[5] Chauvel, Essays on West Papua: Volume Two, 7; Suter, “West Papua: Indonesia’s 26th Province or Australia’s New Neighbour?,” 114.
[6] See Heather Goodall, “Uneasy Comrades: Tuk Subianto, Eliot V. Elliott and the Cold War,” Indonesia and the Malay World 40, 117 (2012): 209-230, Heather Goodall, “Tracing Southern Cosmopolitanisms: The Intersecting Networks of Islam, Trade Unions, Gender & Communism, 1945-1965,” Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3, 3 (2011): 108-139 and Rupert Lockwood, Black Armada: Australia & the Struggle for Indonesian Independence 1942-49 (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1982) for scholarship documenting the CPA’s early policy towards Indonesia.
[7] Heather Goodall, “Tracing Southern Cosmopolitanisms: The Intersecting Networks of Islam, Trade Unions, Gender & Communism, 1945-1965,” Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 3, 3 (2011): 113.
[8] Ministry of Information Republic of Indonesia, “The Truth about West Irian,” 42 and 43, Communist Party of Australia, Victorian State Committee, Reference Number 1991.0152, Unit 142, University of Melbourne Archives.
[9] Ibid., 3 and 4.
[10] “C.P.A. Statement on West Irian: Return to Indonesia Will Help Our Security,” Tribune, December 18, 1957.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Richard Chauvel, “The Centrality of the Periphery: Australia, Indonesia and Papua,” in Different Societies, Shared Futures: Australia, Indonesia and the Region, ed. John Monfries (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2006), 128.
[13] Peter King, West Papua & Indonesia Since Suharto: Independence, Autonomy or Chaos? (New South Wales: University of New South Wales Press, 2004), 22.
[14] Chauvel, “The Centrality of the Periphery,” 128.
[15] Suter, “West Papua: Indonesia’s 26th Province or Australia’s New Neighbour?,” 115; King, West Papua & Indonesia Since Suharto, 22.
[16] Richard Chauvel, Essays on West Papua: Volume One (Clayton: Monash University Press, 2003), 7.
[17] David Webster, “From Sabang to Merauke: Nationalist Secession Movements in Indonesia,” Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 48, 1 (2007): 92.
[18] Suter, “West Papua: Indonesia’s 26th Province or Australia’s New Neighbour?,” 115.
[19] Ibid.
[20] “Indonesia and Australia,” Tribune, February 18, 1959.
[21] Alec Robertson, “Indonesia and West Irian: Why Australia’s Switch?,” Tribune, May 14, 1969.
[22] Robertson, “Indonesia and West Irian: Why Australia’s Switch?,” Tribune.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Bob Boughton, “ASIO and the Australia–Timor-Leste solidarity movement, 1974–79,” in Activists and the Surveillance State: Learning from Repression, ed. Aziz Choudry (London: Pluto Press, 2018), 98.
[25] Campaign for an Independent East Timor, “Report on the Liberation Struggle in West Papua-New Guinea,” Communist Party of Australia, Victorian State Committee, Reference Number 1991.0152, Unit 142, University of Melbourne Archives.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid; Chauvel, “The Centrality of the Periphery,” 107.
[28] Campaign for an Independent East Timor, “Report on the Liberation Struggle in West Papua-New Guinea,” Communist Party of Australia, Victorian State Committee, Reference Number 1991.0152, Unit 142, University of Melbourne Archives.
[29] David Webster, “Already Sovereign as a People:” A Foundational Moment in West Papuan Activism,” Pacific Affairs, 74,4 (2002): 520.
[30] Communist Party of Australia, “Communists & Australia’s International Relations,” 6 and 7, Communist Party of Australia, Victorian State Committee, Reference Number 1991.0152, Unit 220, University of Melbourne Archives.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Sarah Maza, Thinking about History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 233.
[33] Antoinette Burton, Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 6.
[34] Maza, Thinking about History, 150; Burton, Archive Stories, 6 and 7.
[35] Burton, Archive Stories, 20.