operations were required.
The Colonel accepted that penetrating the Papuan communities with secretive agents would be extremely difficult due to the absence of any indigenous Papuans within his organisation. To overcome this hurdle, he had decided to utilise several of his specialist undercover agents to assume the role of black marketeers in the targeted areas, and ingratiate themselves with the local traders. These operatives would be separated from family and friends, frequently for extended periods.
When the unit had been dismissed and the briefing completed, the Colonel examined his notes, satisfied that his highly-skilled soldiers would complete the clandestine operations ordered by Central Command, and other more delicate missions he personally had authorised.
An uncommon smile curled the officer’s upper lip as he nodded sagely to himself; satisfied that amongst his bag of dirty tricks, the introduction of pigs infected with the very contagious swine flu across the Papuan environment would exacerbate food shortages across the undeveloped territory. Several hundred infected animals had been moved from Bali by freighter, the virus to be introduced into the animals prior to the ship’s arrival in the far eastern destination known as Irian Barat.
* * * *
USA
Phoenix Arizona
Chubby fingers held a Cuban in one hand and a near-empty tumbler of Southern Comfort bourbon in the other. The Summit Gold Mining president peered out across the city of Phoenix two miles north, where the Phoenix Corporate Tower stood supreme. Soon, he mused, the title of being the tallest skyscraper in Arizona would be passed to another, the Wells Fargo Plaza, as it was completed in just over a year.
He turned to the former diplomat and, consciously tapping ash from the cigar to the floor, raised his glass. ‘To our good friends in Jakarta,’ he toasted.
The former United States Secretary of Defense nodded. ‘…and to a clear and prosperous path ahead.’
The Summit Gold president nodded knowingly. His associate had been instrumental in orchestrating Washington’s substantial increase in military aid to Indonesia, which was delivered with the customary “facilitations fees” to that nation’s generals, via Langley financial conduits. President Nixon had returned from visiting Jakarta where behind closed doors, he assured President Suharto that the United States fully supported an outcome when the plebiscite was held, whereby Indonesia would legitimately absorb West Irian.
When President Sukarno had been overthrown in a coup, there had been a rush to invest in the emerging economy, and Summit Gold had been amongst the many USA interests that had immediately invested in Indonesia. The new regime under General Suharto had thrown open thousands of square kilometres of offshore oil fields to US multi-nationals such as Atlantic Richfield, Mobil Oil, and Union Carbide. Stock markets responded favourably and, amongst those that benefited, was the US listed Natomas Co whose shares were listed in 1968 at sixteen dollars, and within one year had increased in value by eightfold.
The Summit Gold board members wielded considerable influence in Washington and had Pentagon assurances, that arms shipments destined for the illegal campaign in Cambodia would be redirected to the Indonesian military, to consolidate their presence in West Irian. Publicly, the US Government had supported almost $400 million in grants and loans to Jakarta, accepting that much of this would be siphoned off by the so-called New Order’s quasi-military regime.
When the initial Contract of Work to commence operations was signed, the Summit Gold founding shareholders accepted that an allocation of fully-paid shares would be allocated to selected members of Jakarta’s powerful elite. Summit Gold had negotiated a seventy-five percent share in the new Indonesian mining entity, P.T. Akumuga Mining. The Indonesian Government was gifted ten percent, and the remaining fifteen percent was held by a nominee entity, on behalf of undeclared local interests. Akumuga Mining’s investment agreement with the government provided for Summit Gold to carry out exploration, mining and production activities, across an area of some twenty-five thousand acres, on a site adjacent to the border with Papua New Guinea.
The company’s operations had been in progress for eighteen months, and capital expenditure had already exceeded $100M with expectations that a further $50M would be required in the coming year.
The former United States Secretary of Defense topped-up their tumblers. He was conscious that his associate had reservations about the outcome of the imminent plebiscite. ‘The situation will be much clearer once the United Nations observers leave the area in August and the military can consolidate its presence at the mine.’
The company president suppressed a sigh, recalling what his associate’s Pentagon contacts had suggested would be the impact on the indigenous tribes, once Jakarta officially assumed control over the former Dutch outpost. ‘I just wish we could have accommodated the Papuans without all this bloodshed.’
‘Forget about those stone-age bastards,’ the Secretary countered. ‘Once their environment has been fully developed and they’re dragged into the twentieth century, they’ll come to appreciate the downstream benefits from the mine’s development.’
The Summit Gold president turned back to the window and stared out into space, his conscience reminding him that this was unlikely to be true.
* * * *
West Irian
Indonesia’s General Murtopo had warned the Papuans that if they voted against Indonesia “their accursed tongues will be cut out and their evil mouths wrenched open”.
As the commencement of polling approached, elements of Jakarta’s ruthless and highly-trained Police Mobile Brigade BRIMOB and the army’s KOPASSUS Special Forces swept across the territory, to ensure the desired outcome. Jakarta’s strategy cut off resistance groups from supporting the village populations, thereby destroying their food supply. Thousands of Papuans were killed as the occupying army inaugurated a system of relocating smaller village communities into designated and more manageable, but agriculturally-poor areas. Deprived of their traditional food supplies many perished. As the military round-up of Free Papua activists continued, intimidated villagers quickly fell into line.
However, strong pockets of resistance remained in the more isolated, mountainous regions. In April, rebellions erupted in the Western Central Highlands, when one hundred armed Papuan policemen joined the rebels. The Indonesian military’s response was brutal. When a gathering of demonstrators near Jayapura proclaimed a “National Republic of West Papua” the group was dispersed by machine-gun fire leaving many dead, and others to be imprisoned. Unconstrained, a platoon of Indonesian soldiers forced their way into the United Nation’s post and arrested Marshal Williams, the UNRWI’s black American Chief administrative officer, mistaking him for a Papuan.
Jakarta despatched nine ground-force task units to Irian Barat.
Uprisings continued throughout the territory; air fields were sabotaged to prevent Indonesian troop landings, which precipitated the poorly-conceived aerial drop of four battalions of Red Beret paratroopers from Hercules aircraft. Most of the soldiers drowned in Lake Paniai when the pilot missed the target, and those who survived were killed by Papuan Resistance forces.
* * * *
On July 14, 1969, the Act of Free Choice finally began as the sound of democracy faded.
An assembly of only one thousand Papuan members, selected to represent the entire Papuan population, had spent several weeks before the
