In Bed With the Killers  

Continuing my occasional practice of linking to stories about oil company operations in the third world (which will become more numerous as they are forced to find and exploit smaller fields in obscure locations), here's an article by George Monbiot on BP's operations in West Papua / Irian Jaya.

A few weeks ago, BP, the British company which has invested most in “corporate social responsibility”, received final approval to start developing a gas field in West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea. There is nothing unusual about this: oil and gas companies are opening new fields all the time. What makes this operation interesting is the question of whether BP has any right to be there.

At the beginning of 1962, West Papua was being prepared for independence by its colonial ruler, the Netherlands. But in April of that year, JF Kennedy wrote to the Dutch prime minister, warning him that if he did not give the country to Indonesia, “the entire free world position in Asia would be seriously damaged”. The Indonesian government would “succumb to communism” if it were not appeased.

But it couldn’t be done overtly. Kennedy proposed that the Indonesians be allowed control of West Papua for “a specified period”, after which the Papuan people would be “granted the right of self-determination.” An agreement was drawn up in New York, stating that the UN would supervise a referendum in which “all adult Papuans have the right to participate”.

The problem, as the US ambassador to Indonesia observed, was that “85 to 90 per cent” of the population was “in sympathy with the Free Papua cause.” A free vote would produce a clear result in favour of independence. So the US told the UN that the result had to be rigged. As a letter from the US embassy to the State Department in 1968 revealed, the order was obeyed. The UN’s representative is “attempting to devise a formula … which will result in affirmation of Indonesian sovereignty.”

So instead of a referendum in which “all adult Papuans” participated, in 1969 the UN oversaw a rather different process. 1,022 men were selected by Indonesian soldiers, taught the words “I want Indonesia”, then lined up at gunpoint. One man who refused to say his lines was shot. Others were threatened with being dropped out of helicopters. This rigorous democratic exercise resulted in a unanimous vote for Indonesian rule.

No one who has studied this transfer of sovereignty believes it was fair. Four years ago the former UN Under Secretary-General CV Narasimhan confessed, “It was just a whitewash. The mood at the United Nations was to get rid of this problem as quickly as possible … Nobody gave a thought to the fact that there were a million people there who had their fundamental human rights trampled.” Like East Timor six years later, West Papua was, in effect, annexed.

BP has a legal right to obtain a licence from Indonesia to operate in West Papua. But it is hard to see how this translates into a moral right.