REVIEW: By Lee Duffield
Declining population in West Papua, and critical loss of life through clashes with the Indonesia military raise the question of genocide in a new book by Brisbane writer Dr Greg Poulgrain.
This work, Curse of Gold, published in English by Kompas, as the title indicates traces the roots of subjugation going on in West New Guinea (West Papua) to a cynical grabbing for resources. An Indonesian language edition is forthcoming.
The book is a history beginning with the discovery of huge deposits of gold in 1936, deposits more than twice the gold being mined at Witwatersrand, together with discovery of oil just off-shore.
The principal mine now, with an Indonesian billionaire as main owner, has 560 km of tunnels and produces 50 tonnes of gold annually.
The existence of the gold was kept secret, awaiting investment and development opportunities, held up by war with the Japanese, known just to Dutch interests, the Japanese, and significant for the future, the Rockefeller petroleum company Standard Oil in the United States.
The writer details the operation of a “Third Force” in a chain of political intrigues and manipulation over a half century: the US company, sometimes officers of the US government, and at all times an early player since the first discovery, Allen Dulles, who came to head-up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Dulles as the lawyer for Standard Oil had already got a petroleum concession in Netherlands New Guinea before 1936, through forming a joint US-Dutch company with majority US interest.
Heyday of CIA operations
In the 1950s heyday of CIA undercover operations across the “Third World”, Dulles is depicted here manipulating political events in Indonesia, whether spreading disinformation, concealing information from governments, even setting up mysterious, destabilising armed skirmishes.
The objective given is always the same, to secure ownership of resources and a free hand for American commercial interests. At one point covert government help would be provided through some disingenuous work by Henry Kissinger as Secretary of State to Richard Nixon, and the always interventionist US Ambassador Marshall Green.
For people of West New Guinea the intriguing saga has been a catastrophe, seeing their rights, interests, existence and even human identity denied and ignored in the struggles over wealth and power.
The story is in two phases:
In wartime the occupying Japanese encouraged the Indonesian independence movement, as a block against any return to influence by European colonial powers, and naturally wanted Papuan resources themselves.
A Japanese intelligence operative, Nishijima Shigetada, familiar with the region, is given a key role. He had found out about the gold, and persuaded the Indonesian nationalists to include West New Guinea in their demands for a republic — the better to get the trove out of the hands of “colonial monopolies”.
The second phase of developments saw an ugly turn of events with the 1965 military coup in Indonesia, marked by large scale massacre across the country and coming to power of Suharto as President in 1967.
The new regime determined to build on the campaign by its predecessor, President Sukarno, to take over West New Guinea. In the calculus of Cold War rivalries, President John Kennedy had sought to keep him “on side” and the Russians provided guns and aid, in part to best their Chinese rivals.
Dutch gave in
The outcome was that the Dutch who had stayed on in the territory gave in to pressure and pulled out by the end of 1963. It was nominally then put under United Nations trusteeship until an “act of free choice” on independence.
But Indonesian forces moved in, violently put down any Papuan resistance, promulgated theories of an Indonesia Raya, a lost island empire to which all of New Guinea had belonged, and declared the decision on independence would be an issue of “staying” with Indonesia. Neither Kennedy nor Sukarno, who had planned to meet in 1964, is believed to have known about the gold in Papua.
Dr Poulgrain recounts the narrative of bullying and deception, including the sidelining of senior UN representatives, whereby the “act of free choice” became notoriously a series of managed gatherings, no plebiscite of the people ever countenanced. He argues that the “Third Party”, having helped to remove the Dutch, then moved in favour of its own preferred candidate, Suharto, no nationalist from the independence movement, a self-declared friend of US commerce and advocate for untrammelled investment:
“It could be argued that the fiery nationalism so characteristic of Sukarno, the tool that won him the right to enter the harbour of Soekarnopura (Jayapura) on board the Soviet warship renamed Irian, proved to be his own undoing. Under the mantle of Sukarno’s presidency, Indonesia ousted the Dutch from New Guinea, the goal of both Nishijima and the ‘Third Party’, finally bringing an end to the European colonial presence there.
“Only 30 months later, Sukarno was facing his own political demise …”
In case the reader considers this might all be a well-worn path, it should be emphasised there is new material and insight into the origins and enactment of cruelty, appropriation and dishonesty that became the pattern in Suharto’s New Order Indonesia and its captive provinces in West New Guinea.
It is a work of thoroughness and industry, especially where covert activity and actual conspiracy appears; extensive documentation has been provided making the case strong. Much of it is original material, such as diplomatic messaging obtained through libraries, and records of interviews or correspondence with leading figures, viz Nishijima or the former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
Well defended
The thesis of the book is consistently propounded and well defended:
“This book is about the ownership of the immense wealth of natural resources in Western New Guinea”.
The colonised inhabitants did not get that ownership or any just share of it, with bad consequences for their culture and welfare. It was a bad beginning in 1963 with Indonesia in a dominating frame of mind:
“Papuan culture is the antithesis of life in Java.”
Where the Dutch colonisers are characterised as a very small population hardly penetrating the hinterland, the Indonesians who took over from them have been aggressive with their industry building, immigration and military occupation.
Papuans today make up barely half the population of 5.4-million, steadily outstripped by arrivals. Population growth in the comparable country, Papua New Guinea, since independence in 1975 has been much stronger, now pushing towards 11-million.
- Curse of Gold, by Greg Poulgrain (Jakarta, Kompas, 2026). ISBN 978, ISBN 978 (PDF)
Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz
