As we wait to assess whether the authority of the United Nations will ultimately be enhanced or diminished by the crisis over Iraq, it is easy to forget the many other parts of the world where its influence has been, and continues to be, crucial, writes David Shanks
The UN has much to be proud of in East Timor, for example, now in its ninth month of independence after 23 years under the Indonesian yoke. But another Indonesian territory - West Papua - has been less fortunate: its subjection to Jakarta has now lasted 40 years. An estimated 30 per cent of the population of West Papua has been wiped out by the Indonesian military and by diseases over the years and now the Papuans "may already be a minority in their own land", a Papuan academic and journalist said in Dublin last week. Octavianus (Octo) Mote, who fled Indonesia after discovering he was on a death list, is now a visiting fellow at Yale University working on a genocide database on Papua.
Massacre in Bali
He expressed the shocking view that the Indonesian military and not an Islamic fundamentalist group may have planned the bomb massacre in Bali last October. "It is hard to believe that in a controlled society like Indonesia's fundamentalists could pull such a thing off," he said. This suspicion is shared by a well-known expert on Indonesia, Prof Benedict Anderson of Cornell University, who points to a certain military group with "a long experience of black operations".
Indeed one of the suspects in the investigation of the atrocity is reported to have said that one of his reasons was anger against the international community, particularly Australia for wresting East Timor from Indonesia. Many of the 180 victims were Australians. This anger reflects that of many senior Indonesian military officers.
In the 1960s it seemed likely that West Papua would become a new-born independent state with the UN as midwife. Since the early 1950s the Netherlands had been grooming its colony for independence. A parliament, flag, and provisional administration had already been agreed. But Indonesia, already free from the Dutch since 1949, came to military blows over its claim to the mineral-rich region.
UN-brokered talks yielded the 1962 New York Agreement, awarding the territory to Indonesia - but subject to the Papuans' agreement six years later in a free and fair consultation. "The Act of Free Choice" of 1969 by 1,022 elders was, however, a sham marked by heavy intimidation. There is plenty of evidence it was often a pistol-to-the head job and "UN supervision" of the process, run by the Indonesian military, was almost invisible.
As Desmond O'Malley remarked recently, "the UN failed in its obligations to assist in the act of self-determination in accordance with international best practices." He was launching a new book on the origins of this tragedy - The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua: The anatomy of betrayal by Dr John Saltford - which draws on recently declassified UN, British and Australian documents.
Killing of US teachers
Today West Papua's struggle is becoming confusingly implicated in the "war on terror" because of an investigation into an ambush of two vehicles resulting in the deaths of two Americans, travelling with an Indonesian colleague. They were teachers employed by the massive US-owned PT Freeport gold and copper mine in West Papua.
The Washington Post reported that before the ambush Indonesian officers, including Gen Endriartono Sutarto, discussed an operation against the mine, which is guarded by the military. The alleged aim was to discredit separatist guerrillas of the Free Papuan Movement (OPM). In response to the report, Indonesia has threatened the Washington Post with a $1 billion lawsuit.
But the case has much wider implications. It threatened President Bush's recent successful move in Congress to have military training programmes for the Indonesian military restored, as a means of drawing Indonesia onside in the "war on terror" and the drive to achieve "regime change" in Iraq.
To reassure doubtful Congress members the administration sent two FBI agents to assist the Indonesian investigation. But their findings may have the opposite effect. Preliminary FBI findings tend to support the Washington Post version of the affair. According to the New York Times, the finding is likely to "muddy relations" between Washington and Jakarta.
Conspiracy theories
In this smoke and mirrors realm conspiracy theories abound. Mr Mote believes that if military involvement in the murder of the Americans is confirmed, the Bush administration will offer a trade-off: Support an attack on Iraq and we will not make a fuss. Lower-ranking "rogue element" soldiers may even be offered up, he speculates. Most Papuans would dread such a "solution" as it would allow the Indonesian military to continue conducting itself with impunity.
Meanwhile, here in Dublin a small band of West Papua Action activists regularly holds vigils at the Netherlands Embassy in Ballsbridge, calling on the Dutch to stop sitting on their hands "as the Indonesian military kill and torture West Papuans" and to "seek a proper act of self-determination as they agreed to at the United Nations 40 years ago".