West Papua is the western part of the Island of New Guinea. Directly adjacent to the independent state of Papua New Guinea and became part of Indonesia after going through a discredited process known as the West Papua Act Of Free Choice in 1969.
What’s the West Papua Act of Free Choice?
The Determination of the People’s Opinion (Pepera; English: Determination of the People’s Opinion or known as the Act of Free Choice; Indonesian: Action of Free Choice) was a general election held on July 14–August 2, 1969, to determine the status of the western part of the Island. Papua either belongs to the Netherlands or Indonesia. 1,025 men and women selected by the Indonesian military by acclamation chose to join Indonesia.
The United Nations recognized General Assembly Resolution 2504 (XXIV) results. Various parties are still questioning the validity of the results until now. The name West Papua Act Of Free Choice is often called (Act of Free Choice) in English and is often twisted by Australian news stations to become “Act of No Choice.”
Stages of the Act
As part of the New York agreement, before the end of 1969, Indonesia was obliged to hold a Popular Opinion in West Irian. In early 1969, the Indonesian government began to organize the Act of Free Choice. The Pepera was carried out in 3 stages, as follows,
- It started the first stage on March 24, 1969. At this stage, consultations were held with the district council in Jayapura regarding the procedures for implementing the Pepera.
- The second stage was the election of the Pepera Deliberative Council, which ended in June 1969.
- The third stage was carried out by the Pepera from the Merauke district and ended on August 4, 1969, in Jayapura.
The UN envoy, the Australian envoy, and the Dutch envoy witness the implementation of the West Papua Act Of Free Choice. It turned out that the results of the Act of Free Choice showed that the people of West Irian wanted to join the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.
The results of the Act of Free Choice were brought to the UN general assembly, and on November 19, 1969, the UN general assembly accepted and approved the results of the Pepera.
The Dutch towards West Papua Act Of Free Choice
Act of Free Choice then ceded West Papua to the UN interim authority, which remained for only seven months before handing control to Indonesia in May 1963. Subsequently, the UN failed to respond to Indonesia’s repressive policies nor to protect the rights of the Papuan people as guaranteed by the New York Agreement.
During the Act of Free Election in 1969, 1,025 Papuans were chosen arbitrarily out of a population of over 800,000. They were subsequently coerced and terrorized into casting their vote for Indonesian integration on behalf of their nation. The UN has controversially supported and allowed this to happen without objection.
West Papua Conflict Resolution Act of Free Choice
After West Papua’s integration into Indonesia, West Papua was later renamed ‘Irian Jaya’ in 1973 by President Soeharto. But as Keith Suter explains, what happened to West Papua after the referendum stimulated the formation of the Free Papua Movement in 1963 to oppose Indonesian hegemony in Papua.
It is due to various factors:
- Firstly, the Papuan people feel they do not have the same identity as Indonesia.
- Secondly, the Indonesian central government issued a policy that forced indigenous people or indigenous Papuans to adopt Indonesian cultural values, which triggered sentiments anti-Indonesian in the whole Papua region,
- Thirdly, Indonesia makes Papua the destination of the transmigration program. This step is considered a threat to customary land ownership in Papua, which is considered very sacred and valued by the people of West Papua.
Papua has been home to 770,000 Indonesians since Indonesia’s transmigration program began in 1937, transferring the population from West Papua.
On August 15, 1962, in front of the United Nations Secretary-General, the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands reached an agreement that ended the West Papua Act of Free Choice conflict.
In 1963, Indonesia took over the western half of the Island of Papua. However, Ian Martin stated that Indonesia manipulated the UN during the West Papuan self-determination process in 1964.
