West Papua Information Kit

Sydney Morning Herald

1961 April 6th

Dutch "Could Not Stand Alone" In N.G. Invasion
From special correspondents and A.A.P. - Reuter
HOLLANDIA, Wednesday. - The Dutch Secretary for Home Affairs, Dr T H Bot, said yesterday that if New Guinea was invaded by a force of more than 1,000 "we could not be expected to stand alone." according to American Associated Press.
Dr Bot was being questioned on a statement he was reported as making earlier, that Holland would expect military support from Australia, Britain, and the United States if Indonesia invaded West New Guinea.
According to American Associated Press, Dr Bot said at the questioning: "How could I speak for those othe countries?"
The news agency quoted Dr Bot as saying that Holland was prepared for trouble from Indonesia.
He added: "We don't expect any trouble right now, but if trouble came, you could not expect Holland to handle it alone, could you?"
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1961 April 6th

NEW COUNCIL FOR WEST N.G. BEGINS SESSION
From special correspondents and A.A.P. - Reuter
HOLLANDIA, Wednesday. - The West New Guinea Council, with 23 native members out of 28, began its life today.
The Council has 16 elected members - only three of them Dutch - and 12 appointed members - two Dutch.
Twenty-two of the natives are from various parts of New Guinea. The other was born in Indonesia but has been in the Administration for 20 years.
The chairman Mr Sollewyn Gelpke, is a Durchman with 15 years of experience in the Administration.
The Dutch State Secretary for Home Affairs Dr T. Bot. ask the Council to make its wishes on self-determination known within a year.
He said in a speech to the Council that Holland would continue to give material and financial help to the Territory so it could achieve independence speedily.
Policy "Directly Influenced"
He said the development towards independence should take place against the Dutch Government's 10-year plan for the Territory.
The 10-year extent of the plan was not an arbitrary attempt to set a limit on the attainment of self-government, he said.
Dr Bot said the inauguration of the Council marked irrefutably the end, even on the highest administrative level, of a chiefly Netherlands official administration of New Guinea.
Government policy would be directly influenced by the institution of the Council he said.
A native member, Mr Nicholas Jouwa, told the Governor, Dr P. J. Platteel, who formally open the Council, that the people of West New Guinea must be given their own voice in the United Nations.
Mr Jouwe said he was disappointed that the United States did not send a representative to the inaugural meeting.
"Certain international political quarters regard the presense of the Dutch as a continuation of colonialism," he said.
U.S. Absence Attacked
"We Papuans now possess proof positive that this is not the case and we are pleased that other countries today are in a position to satisfy themselves of this fact.
"We hope to be in a position in the near future to personally convince the United States."
In New York today, the "New York Times" reported that the Dutch Foreign Minister, Mr J. Luns. said that the U.S. absence from the inaugural meeting was the latest example of American disregard for the Netherlands.
Mr Luns said the United States had accepted the invitation, then withdrawn.
State Department officials in Washington said the United States had not attended "for our own good and valid reasons."
The American decision not to be represented had nothing to do with alleged pressure from Indonesia they said.
Delegations from Australia, New Zealand, Britain and France attended today's inaugural meeting which was held in the Council's temporary quarters in the centre of Hollandia's business section.
The Australian delegation included:
·The President of the Senate, Sir Alister McMullin, who wore his gown and full bottomed wig to the ceremony.
·The Minister for Territories, Mr P M C Hasluck.
·The Administrator of Papua New Guinea, Brigadier D M Cleland.
·Six members of the new Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council, which will be opened officially on April 10.
Crowds of chattering gaily dressed people crowded the newly paved square opposite the Council chambers to watch delegates arrive.
In the audience flaxen-haired Dutch girls mingled with dark-visaged Papuans and people of East Indian origin.
A highlight of the celebrations was a fire-walking ceremony by natives from Biak, 450 miles from Hollandia.
The natives said the firewalking signified a young man had reached full manhood - symbolic of their country reaching representative Government.

1962 Aug 1st

[Front Page SYDNEY MORNING HERALD]
Agreement on West N.G. reported:
"HAND OVER NEXT MAY"
WASHINGTON, July 31 (A.A.P.-Reuter).- Dutch and Indonesian negotiators have reached agreement on "all essential points" for the transfer of the administration of West New Guinea, diplomatic sources said today.
The agreement, it is understood, will give Indonesia control of West New Guinea by May 30 next year.
The diplomatic sources expect that the two nations will now draw up a treaty at U.N. headquarters in New York. Probably they will sign it by August 15.
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1962 Aug 2nd

Indonesia likely to control West N.G. Next May

1962 Aug 2nd

Appeasement and what comes after it
It is strange that no warning of history, no shadow of Nemesis, seems to have touched those who now hail the success of appeasement and "acclaimed" surrender to armed aggression as a triumph of international statesmanship. The preliminary agreement on West New Guinea was negotiated while one of the parties to it was subject to armed attack by the other and threatened with full scale war yet it was negotiated under the aegis of the United Nations and with the blessings of the United States. Not for the first time in our generation the shameful slogan of "peace at any price" has been used to justify the betrayal of principles.
Sorry Episode
From this sorry episode only the Dutch emerge with honour. They stood not just as defenders of their territory and its simple people but as defenders of the principle that force shall not be the arbiter in international disputes. Yet they found none to stand by them, The United Nations denied its Charter - and refused to intervene, Holland's great ally, the United States, exerted every pressure on her to bow to agression. The Australian Government, with the threat of aggressive war on the northern approaches and the national security deeply involved, made haste to cry it was no affair of Australia's.
Just how much it is Australia's affair, just how for removed from reality the cowardly ostrichism preached and practised by Mr Menzies and Sir Gurfield Barwick has been, must now appear. There is little reason to suppose that the prelimilnary surrender to military blackmail will not be made a formal capitalation within a fortnight. There is less reason to put any faith in the United Nations pledge to ensure that the Papuans are given after years of Indonesian rule - the right to determine their own political future. It is hypocrisy, to pretend that such a pledge can be redeemed or that the Indonesians have any intention of allowing it to be redeemed. Why indeed should they? They have demonstrated to the world and to themselves that the Charter of the United Nations is just another scrap of paper.
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1962 Aug 4th

Letters to the Editor
Transfer of W. New Guinea
Problem in making for Australia
SIR, When the Minister for External Affairs "hopes that the final settlement of the West New Guinea problem will accord with the principles of the United Nations" one is entitled to wonder what on earth he is talking about.
The Minister may view with equanimity, even gratification, the outcome of this sordid affair, but others may not consider that Australia's contribution to this action, the handing over of the West New Guinea peoples to the mercies of an alien Indonesian rabble - is a matter for self-congratulation, even though the principal broker has been the United States.
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1962 Aug 12th

PAPUANS, protesting against the proposed transfer of Dutch New Guinea to Indonesia, demonstrate outside the New Guinea Council building in Hollandia on Friday.
About 1,000 marchers, carrying anti-Indonesian banners and chanting "Down with Soekarno" took part in the mass rally - one of five in New Guinea.
The rally was orderly and there were no incidents.

1962 Aug 17th

Holland, Indonesia sign agreement on West New Guinea
13-year dispute ends at U.N.
New York, August 16 (A.A.P.). - Holland and Indonesia last night signed the formal agreement to transfer West New Guinea to Indonesia after May 1 next year.
The agreement provides for a cease-fire at 10.1 a.m. on Saturday (Sydney time) and for an immediate resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries involved in the 13-year-old dispute.
In Holland, the reaction was bitter and many officials described the final agreement as worse than they had expected.
The Dutch Prime Minister, Dr J de Quay, said Holland had agreed to sign the treaty because it could not count on its allies, but he did not name them.
Papuan leaders in Merauke, Fak Fak and Sorong said they feared a "fierce and terrible" reaction when Papuans saw Indonesian troops moving in.
In Canberra, the External Affairs Minister, Sir Garfield Barwick, denied that Australia had placed pressure on Holland to sign the treaty (see page 3).
LEAFLETS IN JUNGLE
Indonesia today plans air missions over the jungles of West New Guinea to inform its troops of the cease-fire.
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1962 Aug 18th

Natives fear Indonesian rule
8,000 Seek Asylum in Aust. N. Guinea
Eight thousand natives in the Sentani district of West New Guinea, near Hollandia, have asked for permission to move to Australian New Guinea.
They say they they do not want to accept Indonesian administration following Wednesday's Dutch-Indonesian agreement on the territory.
Bitterness at U.S.
The Dutch news agency said last night that the chairman of the Sentani District Council, Mr Joku had handed the request to the Australian officer in West New Guinea Mr P Mellison.
In Canberra last night a spokesman for the Department of External Affairs said the request had not yet been received.
The "Herald's" Canberra correspondent says that size of the first application for asylum in Papua-New Guinea will be an embarrassment to the Commonwealth Government.
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1962 Aug 18th

No R.S.L. Protest on N.G.
The State president of the R.S.L., Mr W Yeo, yesterday told the State Congress of the League that nothing could be gained by carrying a resolution protesting against the Indonesia takeover in West New Guinea.
The mover proposed a resolution of protest against the transfer of West New Guinea from Holland to Indonesia, which will take place next May.
After Mr Yeo had spoken against it, the mover did not proceed with his motion.
Mr Yeo said later "Congress decided that as the signing over of West New Guinea was now a fait accompli, it was not worthwhile making any protest at present."
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1962 Aug 21st

Letters to the Editor
"Jingoism" and New Guinea
Sir, - I am an ex-Serviceman, and neither a pacifist nor a Communist, but my reading of contemporary events in South-East Asia and New Guinea leads me to conclusions vastly different from those expressed in recent "Herald" editorials.
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John Child, Gladesville.
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Sir, - Thank you, indeed, for your very powerful and moving editorial, "Aggression Proclaimed Respectable." One feels ashamed that Holland was thus forced into the position of allowing her West New Guinea people to be now governed by Indonesia.
What hope, after Indonesian rule, even if it is written on United Nations paper, will they have of choosing their ultimate freedom? They have, indeed, been thrown to the wolves and the Communist front thus brought on to Australia's very doorstep.
One feels proud that the "Herald" has championed the cause of these West Papuans and shown to the world the pathetic weakness of the Australian Government.
(Canon) G.G. O'KEEFFE.
Double Bay.
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Sir, - With the conclusion of the Indonesian-Dutch agreements on West New Guinea, Australia's prestige falls to an all-time low. Or rather the prestige of our leaders - for none seem to raise a voice in protest.
A world which once looked upon the Atlantic Charter - with all its legal weakness - as a new path for human endeavour to follow should stand aghast at this cowardly betrayal of the Papuan people who live in the western end of New Guinea, particularly when United Nations pundits are screaming their heads off for immediate self-government and independence for the same race in eastern New Guinea. Free one lot; enslave the other!
Surely, soon the people of the United States will squirm when they learn to what depths their political leaders have fallen by this betrayal, not only of the simple Papuans but of the high principles the American people initiated when they asked that colonisation of any race by another should vanish from the earth.
RALPH RANDELL.
Vaucluse.
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Sir, - As a fourth generation Australian, I have always been very proud that this nation has never in the past been intimidate by any country, either Asiatic or Western, that cared to rattle the sabre. It is this background that our great tradition of Anzac has come from.
What is the position now that the Government has been frightened by threats of war by an Asiatic Power to forsake an ally and friend of this country, namely the Dutch?
It is so contrary to the past tradition of the Anzac spirit, which has done so much to form the Australian way of life!
E. J. PERKS
North Sydney
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1962 Aug 21st

1962 Aug 21st

New Guinea statement Big Test for Barwick
by our political correspondent
The decreasing number of shout-hearted Liberal and Country Party back benchers who still feel there is a faint hope the Government will survive another election must be waiting for the promised statement on West New Guinea by the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Garfield Barwick, with acute apprehension.
Up to date, Sir Garfield has given little indication of awareness that the fate of Dutch New Guinea is viewed by hundreds of thousands of Australians with most serious concern. At no stage has this comparatively inexperienced Minister seemed to realise that the enforced settlement of the Dutch-Indonesian dispute will result in a dangerous degree of isolation for Australia.
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1962 Aug 22nd

1962 Aug 22nd Church

"Explosive Situation" seen in New Guinea Settlement
The Bishop Armidale, the Rt. Rev. J. S. Moyes, yesterday said that with the West New Guinea settlement, Australians were in an explosive situation which could affect areas and peoples beyond the limits of West New Guinea.
...
"There are serious and far-reaching moral issues involved in the future of West New Guinea, and that is my concern.
"It should be made clear to Australians that the agreement signed between the Netherlands and Indonesia was not negotiated under United Nations auspices, but with Mr Ellsworth Bunker of the United States, as chairman and mediator.
"Neither partyy acted specifically at the behest of the United Nations. The agreement still has to come before the Assembly for discussion.
"As far as the majority of the members of the United Nations are concerned, it seems to me that their view was expressed some eight months ago on a motion brought forward by the Brazzaville powers, namely that the United Nations should then send a 'Presence' into New Guinea to assume control of the administration. The voting was a few short of 75 per cent required to make this mandatory.
"The matter was never discussed in the Security Council for the reason that the veto would have prevented any decision being reached.
"Three facts to Remember"
"We Australians should remember and think upon three facts about the attitude of President Soekarno of Indonesia.
"First, despite repeated assurances to the contrary, he did send armed forces against New Guinea, and as recently as three days before the agreement was signed.
"Second, apart from his own immediate minority political party, the only political party which is lawful in Indonesia is the Communist Party, which is the next largest (after Russia and China) in the world.
"Third, the leaders of all other political parties in Indonesia are or have been in recent times imprisioned. They include such distingulished men as Dr Sjahrir and Dr Rurn.
Questions for Government
"Finally there are positive steps which, as citizens, we might well ask our Government to take, for we are in the midst not of a quietly argued case in Court, but of an explosive situation which can affect areas and peoples beyond the limits of West New Guinea.
"(1) Will the Government give a clear and unequivocal undertaking that it will grant asylum without question to political refugees from West New Guinea?
"(2) Will it instruct our representative in the United Nations to press for the concrete guarantees that there will be a genuinely free vote of the indigenous population in 1969, pressing indeed to the point of insisting that there be an effective 'Presence' of the United Nations in West New Guinea up to and including that time?
"(3) Will the Government consider that it might be absurd to talk of independence of one part of New Guinea and not the other, and, therefore, set their minds and hands to devising and putting to the United Nations a scheme for the unification and independence of the whole island?

1962 Aug 22nd

1962 Aug 22nd

1962 Aug 22nd

Report to Parliament
Barwick Speech - from P.1
course of the discussions had not been smooth. At one point it appeared likely that the Indonesian representatives might return to Djakarta, causing a suspension of the negotions, if not worse.
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'Improvisation, Capitulation,' says Whitlam
CANBERRA, Tuesday.- The Federal Government has pursued a policy of improvisation, procrastination and capitulation on West New Guinea, the Acting Leader of the Opposition, Mr E G Whitlam, said in the House of Representatives today.
  "We want to see that from now on there is a policy of principle and co-operation," he said.
  Mr Whitlam was replying to the statement on West New Guinea made by the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Garfield Barwick.
  Mr Whitlam said Indonesia regarded itself as the "successor State" to the Dutch in the East Indies. "But many islands in the Pacific are administered by different countries," he said. "Some islands are the cause of dispute between different countries. It is the duty of the Australian Government, without further delay, to see that orderly processes are evolved for following our international principles and for ensuring peace in this area."

"Serious Gaps" in Speech
  Mr Whitlam said there were serious gaps in Sir Garfield's speech, in references to the past and future.
  In the past 12 years, the Australian Government had several times set out its obligations and expressed its interest in this problem in more forthrights terms than now.
  The first Minister for External Affairs in the Menzies Government, Sir Percy Spender, had said on June 8 1959, that should discussions between Holland and Indonesia tend towards any arrangement which would alter the status of West New Guinea, the matter was no longer one merely for those two parties.
  Sir Percy's successor now Lord Casey, had said Australia had a right to a voice in any discussions which would change the status of the Territory.
  "Such was then the official attitude of the Government - not that we were parties principal as the Minister now disowns, but that we had a very real interest in the matter," Mr Whitlam said.
  The Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, had said after the visit of the Indonesian Defence Minister, General Nasution, that Australia's principal concern was the matter of self-determination. Sir Garfield had said this again last March.
  The principle of self-determination had been placed in a "very subsiding spot" in statements which Australia's representatives had made in the U.N. General Assembly since 1954.
  However, Mr Menzies, in 1959 and Sir Garfield last March had stressed that self-determination was Australia's principal concern.
  The Government had never adhered to this principle, because Mr Menzies and Sir Garfield had said Australia would waive the principle of self-determination if the two parties came to a peaceful agreement or if the World Court gave a judgment on the case.
  Mr Holt: Read out your leader's declaration of war.
  Mr Whitlam: I should have thought the Treasurer had made a sufficient hash of his own portfolio without coming into External Affairs as well.

Threat of Force
  Mr Whitlam said that in February 1959, a communique issued by the Indonesian Foreign Minister and Lord Casey, then Australian Minister for External Affairs stated that there should be no recourse to armed force whether of major or minor operation to give effect to Indonesia's territorial claims.
  The communique said that any negotiations between Indonesia and Holland should be voluntary and free of any threat or duress.
  Mr Whitlam said there was no question that the agreement reached last week between Indonesia and Holland was arrived at after armed infiltration and the threat of force.

Earlier Proposition
  The Dutch had said, in effect, that there had been duress on them to make the agreement and that they could not count on the support of their allies.
  In 1957 the United Nations had considered a resolution which would have asked Indonesia and Holland to pursue their efforts to solve their dispute in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter.
  "Sir Garfield said this matter could not have been satisfactorily dealt with in the Security Council or the General Assebly," said Mr Whitlam.
  Sir Garfield now supported the attitude that this dispute should have been dealth with by face to face negotiations between Indonesia and Holland, with some third party exercising his good office on behalf of the United Nations, said Mr Whitlam.
  This was the proposition put before the United Nations in 1954, 1956 and 1957 and which was opposed on each occasion by the Australian Government.
  Mr Whitlam said: "On every occasion, there was a majority of votes in the General Assembly and in the political committee in favour of the United Nations dealing with this matter. But the necessary two-thirds majority was not obtained inthe General Assembly.
  "The proposals failed largely because the Australian Government was fore-most in seeing that the United Nations did not deal with the matter.
  "If the Australian Government had co-operated then in the exercise by the United Nations of its good offices, the matter could have been settled with closer regard for the principle of self-determination, to which all members of the United Nations are bound, and without the deplorable resort to force and the breach of undertakings in our neighbourhood in the last year."
  Sir Garfield had left serious gaps in the history of the dispute.
  Immediately Mr Whitlam finished speaking Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes (Lib., Vic.) asked the Speaker, Sir John McLeay if the West New Guinea statement could be debated during the Budget debate.
  Sir John ruled that there could be some reference to West New Guinea in the Budget debate.
  Mr Whitlam: We want a full opportunity to debate that statement.

1962 Aug 22nd

'Sound Basis Of Goodwill' In South-east Asia
CANBERRA, Tuesday. - Australia had a sound basis of goodwill in South-east Asia, though the struggle against Communism there would be long, hard and often unrewarding, the Minister for External Affairs, Sir Garfield Barwick, said today.
Sir Garfield was reporting to the House of Representatives on his tour of South-East Asian countries during the parliamentary recess between May and July.
He visited Vietnam, Formosa, South Korea, Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaya, and Indonesia.
He discussed his visit to Indonesia in a separate statement today on the West New Guinea dispute.
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1962 Aug 23rd

'Regret' at events in West N.G.
CANBERRA, Wednesday. - The settlement of the West New Guinea dispute showed a "fall in standards of international morality," Mr P E Lucock (C.P., NSW) told the House of Representatives tonight.
Mr Lucock, who is chairman of Committees in the House, accused the United States of failing to realise the danger of appeasement, and said Australia should stand firm on the conviction that aggression, could not pay.
Holland and Indonesia last week signed an agreement to transfer West New Guinea to Indonesia after May 1963.
Speaking in the Budget debate, Mr Lucock said he regretted what had happened in West New Guinea in recent months.
He said that, seven years ago, a mistake had been made in not presenting to the United Nations a stronger case for the indigenous people of West New Guinea.
"I am not going to refer to the rights and wrongs of the Indonesian or Dutch case." he said.
"One thing of disturbing importance is that recently we have seen the standard of international morality again forgotten or lowered.
Lowering of Standards
"The agreement between Holland and Indonesia was signed while there were still Indonesian troops in West New Guinea.
"I Feel that is, unfortunately, evidence of the lowering of standards of international morality.
"In the 1930s we saw a parallel and we know what happened in 1939.
"I don't want to see this pattern followed again."
No voice has been raised in the United Nations against Indonesian aggression in Dutch New Guinea.
The Federal Opposition could take no comfort from this, because it had contributed in no small way to this attitude in the United Nations.
"The time has come when we must stand firm on the conviction that aggression, no matter who uses it, cannot pay," said Mr Lucock.
"I believe the United Nations has a great deal to learn in regard to the international situation.
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