Triumph of History

On Indonesian Independence Day, reflections on Sukarno's attitude to west Papuan self determination.

On the date of today, in 1962, then President Sukarno gave his yearly Independence Day speech of which the English version received that year the title ‘A Year of Triumph’. The then very recent New York or Bunker Agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands in which Papua was, under certain conditions, handed over to Indonesia explains the title.

It is worth recalling one passage from this speech. Sukarno discusses here the youth of Papua:

They are very important indeed because they, this young generation, are the seedlings for future leaders of the region or seedlings for national leaders. In general, they are against colonialism. But they cannot, on the basis of their own consciousness and conviction, become pro-Republic. Why not? They do not know the Republic … they would like … to appraise with their own eyes what the Republic actually is, with regard both to aims as well as substance. These young men and women of West Irian instinctively want to become part of the Republic, and even want to become part of the Revolution, but they want to arrive at this decision (or another one) on the basis of their own consciousness and their own conviction … I think we should value their standpoint. Let them see for themselves what the Republic is, what the aims of the Republic are, what the Republic contains! … After that, in 1969, we will say to them:

Please, Saudara-saudara, go ahead ! You may choose !

And we are convinced that they will choose to remain within the Republic !

So it is based on this consideration that we accepted also the second principle of the Bunker plan, namely self-determination.

And:

This victory is a Victory of History. Every struggle opposing colonialism will in the end be won by the fighters for independence because the course of History demands victory for the side of independence.

In May 1965 Sukarno dictated to History that it had already triumphed in Papua where people apparently no longer felt a need to choose "on the basis of their own consciousness and their own conviction". The year after then Foreign Minister, Adam Malik, announced that they would go through the motions anyway to seal this triumph of History.

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