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Freeport and the States: Politics of Corporations and Contemporary Colonialism in West Papua

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2021

Veronika Kusumaryati
Veronika Kusumaryati*
Affiliation:
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
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Abstract

Corporations often claim to be economic actors solely interested in capital accumulation. However, historical and anthropological scholarship has argued they have had outsized political roles, especially during high colonialism when transnational corporations such as the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company shaped colonial entities. This article explores the case of American mining company Freeport-McMoRan, which runs the world’s largest gold and copper mine in West Papua, and its entanglement with contemporary imperial and colonial projects in the region. Through the study of the company’s decisive role in the transfer of West Papua from the Dutch to Indonesia during the decolonization period of the 1960s, and in the formation of the postcolonial Indonesian state characterized by its militaristic and capitalistic stances, this article argues that Freeport’s operation in West Papua has been central to shaping U.S. imperial policy in Southeast Asia. The company’s relationship with the U.S. government and its contract of work with the Indonesian government reproduce an older form of state-corporation partnership called a charter, which grants a corporate body privileges associated with exploration, trade, and colonization. Combining a historical study of the political role of corporations across time and an ethnographic study of Freeport’s operation, this article rethinks the anthropological and historical study of transnational corporations and their roles in the contemporary politics of colonialism.

Keywords

colonialismcorporationU.S. imperialismWest PapuaIndonesiaFreeportmining
Type
State-Corporation Alliances
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 881 - 910
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History

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Footnotes

Acknowledgments: My sincerest thanks to Ajantha Subramanian, Karen Strassler, Byron Good, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, the Harvard Political Anthropology Working Group, Cypri Paju Dale, Yosepha Alomang, Benny Shaffer, Andrew Ong, and unnamed interlocutors in West Papua for their insightful criticisms of an earlier version of this article. I would also like to thank Maekara Keopanapay and Faizah Zakaria who helped with the archival research. I want to express my appreciation to David Akin and the anonymous CSSH reviewers for their generous readings and suggestive feedback. Research and writing support for this article was provided by Harvard’s Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship and the Ethnicity, Religion, and Conflict Resolution Fellowship in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

References

1 Leith, Denise, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaiˋi Press, 2003), 66Google Scholar. Moffett died this past January.

2 According to the industry’s publications, Freeport’s mine at Grasberg is the world’s largest gold and third largest copper mine. The company’s annual report shows that the gross revenue from the West Papua mine was US$6.288 billion or about 32 percent of their total revenues in 2018. The company paid $418 million as a direct payment to the Indonesian government (about .04 percent of Indonesia’s GDP). See Freeport-McMoRan, Proven Assets, Fundamental Values (Phoenix: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, 2018); George A. Mealey, Grasberg: Mining the Richest and most Remote Deposit of Copper and Gold in the World, in the Mountains of Irian Jaya, Indonesia (New Orleans: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, 1996); Frik Els, “Mapped: Top 20 Biggest Gold Mines,” Mining, 13 Sept. 2019, https://www.mining.com/featured-article/mapped-top-20-biggest-gold-mines/ (accessed 11 July 2020); Jackson Chen, “Ranked: World’s Top Copper Mines,” Mining, 2 July 2019.

3 Susan Schulman, “The $100b Gold Mine and the West Papuans Who Say They Are Counting the Cost,” Guardian, 1 Nov. 2016; Basten Gokkon, “With Its $3.85b Mine Takeover, Indonesia Inherits a $31b Pollution Problem,” Mongabay, 14 Jan. 2019.

4 Chris Ballard and Glenn Banks, “Resource Wars: The Anthropology of Mining,” Annual Review of Anthropology 32, 1 (2003): 287–313.

5 In the neighboring areas of Bougainville and Ok Tedi (both in Papua New Guinea), indigenous communities are capable of negotiating their contracts. See Glenn Banks and Chris Ballard, The Ok Tedi Settlement: Issues, Outcomes, and Implications, Pacific Policy Papers, no. 27 (Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1997); Alex Golub, Leviathans at the Gold Mine: Creating Indigenous and Corporate Actors in Papua New Guinea (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014); Stuart Kirsch, Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).

6 Melanius A. Pogolamun, Frans Aim, Antonius Kelanangame, Glen Lewandowski, Michael Blowfield, and George J. Aditjondro, Current State of the Amungme People of Southern Irian Jaya: A Highland People Confronting the Modern World (Jayapura: Irian Jaya Development Information Service Center [Irja-DISC], 1984); Chris Ballard and Glenn Banks, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Corporate Strategy at the Freeport Mine in Papua, 2001–2006,” in Budy P. Resosudarmo and Frank Jotzo, eds., Working with Nature Against Poverty: Development, Resources, and the Environment in Eastern Indonesia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), 147–77.

7 Leith, Politics of Power.

8 See Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Trouble at Freeport: Eyewitness Accounts of West Papuan Resistance to the Freeport-McMoRan Mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia and Indonesian Military Repression: June 1994–February 1995 (Canberra: Australian Council for Overseas Aid, 1995); H.F.M. Münninghoff, Laporan Pelanggaran Hak Asai Terhadap Penduduk Lokal di Wilayah Sekitar Timika, Kabupaten Fak-Fak, Irian Jaya Tahun 1994/1995 (Jayapura: Keuskupan Jayapura, 1995); Benny Giay, “Against Indonesia: West Papuan Strategies of Resistance against Indonesian Political and Cultural Aggression in the 1980s,” in Ingrid Wessel and Georgia Wimhöfer, eds., Violence in Indonesia (Hamburg: Abera, 2001), 129–38; Chris Ballard, “The Signature of Terror: Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport,” in David Bruno and Meredith Wilson, eds., Inscribed Landscape: Marking and Making Place (Honolulu: University of Hawaiˋi Press, 2002), 13–26; Marina Welker, “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the Corporation,” Seattle University Law Review 39, 2 (2016): 397–422; Nabil Ahmed, “Ecocide in West Papua: The Case of the Grasberg Mine,” Candide 11 (2019): 85–110; Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez, “New York Urges US Inquiry in Mining Company’s Indonesia Payment,” New York Times, 28 Jan. 2006.

9 Freeport-McMoRan, Annual Report: Driven by Value (Phoenix: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., 2016), 13.

10 A. R. Soehoed, Sejarah pengembangan pertambangan PT Freeport Indonesia di Provinsi Papua: Tambang dan pengelolaan lingkungannya (Jakarta: Aksara Karunia, 2005); Paharizal and Ismantoro Dwi Yuwono, Freeport: fakta-fakta yang disembunyikan (Yogyakarta: Narasi, 2018); Wasisto Raharjo Jati, ed., Nasionalisme pertambangan di Indonesia: tantangan dan harapan (Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, 2018); Hakim, Chappy, Freeport: Catatan Pribadi (Jakarta: Penerbit Buku Kompas, 2019); Fahmy Radhi, Freeport kembali ke Pangkuan Ibu Pertiwi (Jakarta: Balai Pustaka, 2019).Google Scholar

11 Michael Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Nash, June, We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979);Google Scholar Ferguson, James, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).Google Scholar

12 Welker, Marina, Partridge, Damani J., and Hardin, Rebecca, “Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form,” Current Anthropology 52, S3 (2011): S3–S16, p. S4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Welker, Notes on the Difficulty, 406.

14 Ibid.

15 Welker, Marina, Enacting the Corporation: An American Mining Firm in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014).Google Scholar

16 Ibid.; Rajak, Dinah, In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kirsch, Stuart, Mining Capitalism: The Relationship between Corporations and Their Critics (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 British Petroleum is running one of the largest gas mines in Asia from West Papua, while Korean company Korindo has razed West Papua’s forests to create the world’s largest palm oil plantation. As one of this article’s reviewers suggests, there is a relative lack of concern around BP and other corporations in West Papua. Gas reserves at Tangguh were only discovered in 1994 and explored by BP in 2009. BP has been accused of complicity in human rights violations involving the Indonesian security forces, including in the Wasior incident where four indigenous Papuans were killed, five were disappeared, thirty-nine were tortured, and one was raped. According to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission, the Wasior case constitutes a gross human right abuse. In Papua New Guinea, while the OK Tedi mine has had a great impact on the indigenous communities, the indigenous nationalist discourse of the mine is not as prominent. Perhaps the closest equivalent to Freeport is Rio Tinto’s role in Bougainville. Rio Tinto had a joint venture with Freeport for a 40 percent share of Grasberg’s production. In 2018, Rio Tinto sold these shares to the Indonesia state enterprise Inalum. For the Wasior case, see Amnesty International, Indonesia: Grave Human Rights Violations in Wasior, Papua (London: Amnesty International, 2002), https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/116000/asa210322002en.pdf. For the Bougainville case, see Kristian Lasslett, State Crime on the Margins of Empire (London: Pluto Press, 2014). For the oil palm plantations, see Sophie Chao, “In the Shadow of the Palm: Dispersed Ontologies among Marind, West Papua,” Cultural Anthropology 33, 4 (2018): 621–49.

18 Otto Ondawame, “One People, One Soul: West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM)/Free Papua Movement” (PhD diss., Australian National University, 2000); Benny Giay, Hidup dan Karya John Rumbiak: Gereja, LSM dan Perjuangan HAM dalam tahun 1980-an di Tanah Papua (Jayapura: Penerbit Deiyai, 2011); Benny Giay and Yafet Kambai, Yosepha Alomang: Pergulatan Seorang Perempuan Papua Melawan Penindasan (Jayapura: Elsham Papua, 2003); Markus Haluk, Menggugat Freeport: Suatu Jalan Penyelesaian Konflik (Jakarta: Honai Center, 2014). Compare to Jim Elmslie, Irian Jaya under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development versus West Papuan Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawaiˋi Press, 2002); Amiruddin dan Aderito Jesus de Soares, Perjuangan Amungme: Antara Freeport dan Militer (Jakarta: Elsam, 2003); Eben Kirksey, Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012).

19 Bradley Simpson, ed., Indonesia’s 1969 Takeover of West Papua Not by “Free Choice” (Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2004), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB128/.

20 Quijano, Aníbal, “Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America,” International Sociology 15, 2 (2000): 215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Stoler, Ann Laura, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016).Google Scholar

22 T. B. Tebai, Aku peluru ketujuh (Jayapura: Gerakan Papua Mengajar & Komunitas Sastra Papua, 2017), 75.

23 In addition to Bastian Tebai’s short story, there are a few dozen books, articles, and literary works (songs, poems, short stories, and essays) written by Papuans about Freeport, not to mention political speeches and pamphlets. Some examples include: Haluk, Menggugat Freeport; and Maximus Tipagau, Maximus & Gladiator Papua: Freeport’s Untold Story (Jakarta: Rayyana Komunikasindo, 2016). Chris Ballard has compiled an extensive bibliography on Freeport: http://papuaweb.org/bib/abib/freeport.htm (version of 1998). My dissertation examines Freeport’s imaginings in Papuan songs and other artistic forms, see Veronika Kusumaryati, “Ethnography of a Colonial Present: History, Experience, and Political Consciousness in West Papua” (PhD diss, Harvard University, 2018).

24 Kirsch, Reverse Anthropology.

25 For the history of West Papua, see Dirk Vlasblom, Papoea: Een Geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Mets & Schilt, 2004); Pieter Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice: Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua (Oxford: One World, 2009); Christian Lambert Maria Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonisation and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002).

26 A. H. Colijn, “The Carstensz Massif,” Alpine Journal 49 (1936): 177–89, https://www.alpinejournal.org.uk/Contents/Contents_1937_files/AJ49%20177.189%20Colijn%20Carstensz%20Massif.pdf (accessed 21 July 2020); Ballard, C., Vink, S., and Ploeg, A., Race to the Snow: Photography and the Exploration of Dutch New Guinea, 1907–1936 (Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 2001).Google Scholar

27 Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij and Standard Oil each held 40 percent of the shares, and the Far Pacific 20 percent. See Penders, West New Guinea Debacle; Robert James Forbes and Denis R. O’Beirne, The Technical Development of the Royal Dutch/Shell: 1890–1940 (Leiden: Brill Archive, 1957); W. A. Visser and J. J. Hermes, Geological Results of the Exploration of Oil in Netherlands New Guinea: Carried Out by the Nederlandsche Nieuw Guinee Petroleum Maatschappij, 1935–1960 (s’Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, 1962). The history of Standard Oil can be accessed through https://www.britannica.com/topic/Standard-Oil-Company-and-Trust. Archives of the company can be accessed through https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00352/cah-00352.html. Through various highly complex corporate transfers and investments, Standard Oil has become ExxonMobil.

28 The East Borneo Company was established in Den Haag in 1897. On the history of the company, see Th.Lindblad, “Strak Beleid en Batig Slot: De Oost-Borneo Maatschappij 1888–1940,” Economisch-en Sociaal-Historisch Ja Arboek (1985): 182–211; Magenda, Burhan Djabier, East Kalimantan: The Decline of a Commercial Aristocracy (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2010), 25–26.Google Scholar

29 See Algemeen Rijksarchief, Ministerie van Koloniën en opvolgers (1859–) 1945–1963 (–1979), National Archives of the Netherlands. See also Simpson, Bradley, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008), 231.Google Scholar

30 Poulgrain, Greg, The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesia Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles (Petaling Jaya, Malaysia: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2015).Google Scholar

31 See the Netherlands Ministry of Home Affairs, Report on Netherlands New Guinea for the Year 1961 (Amsterdam: Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken and Ministerie van Zaken Overzee, 1962). See also telegram 390A, Jakarta to U.S. State Department, 13 Apr. 1966, 2–3; Classified Central Subject Files, 1963–1969 (CCSF, 1963-1969); Record Group 84: Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, 1788–ca. 1991 (RG 84); National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD (NACP hereafter).

32 Drooglever, Act of Free Choice, 291.

33 Lijphart, Arend, The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 48–51.Google Scholar

34 See A. H. Colijn, Naar de eeuwige sneeuw van tropisch Nederland: de bestijging van het Carstenszgebergte in Nederlandsch Nieuw Guinee (Amsterdam: Scheltens & Giltay, 1937). Jean Jacques Dozy also published several journal articles about his discovery. See Dozy, J. J., Geologische kaart van het Nassau-Gebergte: Voorzoover bezocht door de Expeditie Colijn 1936 (Den Haag: s.n., 1937);Google Scholar Dozy, J. J., Erdman, D. A., Jong, W. J., Krol, G. L., and Schouten, C., C, “Geological Results of the Carstensz Expedition 1936,” Leidse Geologische Mededelingen 11, 1 (1939): 68–131.Google Scholar

35 See R. W. Van Bemmelen, Verslag van een petrografisch onderzoek der gesteente-collectie van het Boven Digoel gebied, verzameld tijdens de derde expeditie der N. V. mijnbouw maatschappij Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea (1938–1939) (Batavia: Kolff, 1949); Audretsch, F. C. and Stichting, Geologische, Economic Geological Investigation of NE Vogelkop (Western New Guniea): Carried out by the “Foundation Geological Investigation Netherlands New Guinea” 1959–1962 (Haarlem: Staatsdr, 1966)Google Scholar; Algemeen Rijksarchief, National Archives of the Netherlands.

36 See letter from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to American Embassy in the Hague, 12 Apr. 1961, Algemeen Rijksarchief, National Archives of the Netherlands. Freeport’s geologists had visited the Ertsberg in 1960 with the approval of the Dutch colonial government.

37 In their report to the United Nations, the Dutch government wrote, “In 1961, the Office of Mines performed the following work … c. the plain south of the Carstensz Mountains was investigated for alluvial ore deposits. The area proved to be without ore.” See Netherlands Ministry of Home Affairs, Report, 45.

38 Record Group 263, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency; Published Maps series; map number 11779, Netherlands New Guinea, NACP.

39 For Guggenheim’s interest, see telegram 1352, U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to State Department, 4 May 1966, INCO-COPPER. For Freeport’s interest, see telegram 980A, U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to State Department, 29 Mar. 1966; transmittal slip from U.S. embassy in Jakarta to State Department, 6 Apr. 1966, which includes Freeport’s letter to Major General Ibnu Sutowo, the Indonesian Minister of Mines, Oil and Gas; and “Memorandum: Interest of Freeport Sulphur Company in the Development of a Copper Prospect in West Irian, Indonesia,” 5 Apr. 1966; aerogram, Department of State, n.d., 14 Apr. 1966; CCSF 1963–1969; RG 84; NACP. On French interests, see Julius Tahija, Julius Tahija, Entrepreneurs of Asia: Horizon Beyond (Singapore: Times Books International, 1995), 158.

40 Memorandum of Conversation, U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, “Freeport Sulphur Copper Venture,” 15 June 1966; and Memorandum of Conversation between Ali Budiardjo, S.H. (business consultant) and Paul D. McCusker (Economic Counselor, American Embassy), 19 May 1966, “Freeport Sulphur Interest in Copper Mining in West Irian.” See telegram 500, U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to State Department, 25 Aug. 1966; CCSF 1963–1969; RG 84; NACP.

41 See Komando Operasi Tertinggi, Ekspedisi Tjenderawasih: Album Kenang-Kenangan Kisah Pendakian Puntjak Sukarno (Jakarta: KOTI, 1964); Kyoto University Biological Society, ニューギニア中央高地―京都大学西イリアン学術探検隊報告 1963–1964 [New Guinea Central Highlands—Kyoto University West Irian Academic Expedition report 1963–1964] (Kyoto: Asahi Shimbun, 1977).

42 Memorandum of Conversation, ibid., 1.

43 Article XVIII, “New York Agreement: Agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands Concerning West New Guinea (New York Agreement),” signed at the United Nations Headquarters, New York, 15 Aug. 1962.

44 The involvement of the United States in one of world’s bloodiest massacres and the overthrow of Sukarno has been subject to much discussion. See Peter Dale Scott, “The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965–1967,” Pacific Affairs 58, 2 (1985): 239–64.

45 See Danilyn Rutherford, Living in the Stone Age: Reflections on the Origins of a Colonial Fantasy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 1–3; Benny Giay, “Orang Papua Mesti Ambil Alih Kendali,” Jurnal Wacana 21, 38 (2020): 277–78; D. Webster, “Race, Identity and Diplomacy in the Papua Decolonization Struggle, 1949–1962,” in Philip Muehlenbeck, ed., Race, Ethnicity and the Cold War: A Global Perspective (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2012), 91–117; David Webster, “Self-Determination Abandoned: The Road to the New York Agreement on West New Guinea (Papua), 1960–62,” Indonesia 95, 1 (2013): 9–24.

46 Robert W. Komer, recorded interview by Elizabeth Farmer, 3 Sept. 1964, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program, 5.

47 J. Herman van Roijen, recorded interview by Joseph E. O’Connor, 28 Oct. 1966, John F. Kennedy Library Oral History Program, 3. See also Rutherford, Living in the Stone Age; Kirksey, Freedom, 35–37.

48 A. Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 24.

49 Scott, United States, 257. I borrow the term “October coup” from Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey to refer to a series of political changes that began in late September and early October 1965. It started with the killing of six Indonesian army generals and was followed by the rise of General Suharto, who led the massacre against alleged members of the Indonesian Communist Party and other left-wing organizations. This coup has been extensively studied: see, among others, Benedict R. O’G. Anderson and Ruth McVey, A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965 Coup in Indonesia (Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2009); and John Roosa, Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s Coup D’état in Indonesia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006).

50 A certain segment of Indonesian intellectuals accuses Freeport of financing the anti-Communist purge: see Noorca Massardi, September (Solo: Tiga Serangkai, 2006), 373; see also Forbes Wilson, The Conquest of Copper Mountain: A Vivid, Personal Account of the Discovery and Development of a Spectacular Outcrop of Ore in the Remote Peaks of Irian Jaya, Indonesia (New York: Atheneum, 1981), 155; telegram 933 from Jakarta to Department of State, 25 Aug. 1966; Central Files, 1964–1966, INCO Mining, Indonesia; RG 59, NACP. Suharto himself had never been to West Papua. Wilson also fails to mention that Freeport had run a nickel mine in Indonesia (Pomaala, Sulawesi) during World War II. See Irwandy Arif, Nikel Indonesia (Jakarta: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2018), 5.

51 Webster mentions Silas Papare’s meeting with the American Ambassador in December 1961 (2012, 13). See U.S. Embassy in Jakarta to Department of S, 15 Dec. 1961, box 205, Committee Self-Determination New Guinee to U Thant, 20 Nov. 1962, United Nations Archives, S-0279-0025-0004, John F. Kennedy Library. Richard Chauvel notes a meeting that Ambassador Bunker and Nicolaas Jouwe conducted in June 1962; see his “Papuan Political Imaginings of the 1960s: International Conflict and Local Nationalisms,” in P. J. Drooglever, ed., Papers Presented at the Seminar on the Act of Free Choice (The Hague: Institute of Netherlands History, 2008), 39–58. For the 1965 meeting, see Memorandum of conversation between Nicolaas Jouwe and U.S. Embassy officials, 14 Sept. 1965; Aerogram from American embassy Djakarta to Department of State, 25 Aug. 1967, “Conversation w/a Papuan Nationalist” (withheld); RG Pol. 18 West Irian; Memorandum of conversation, Department of State, A-221, 12 Dec. 1967 (enclosed to aerogram A-221, 18 Oct. 1967); CCSF 1963–1969; RG 84; NACP.

52 See incoming telegram Department of State, 27 Apr. 1967; RG Pol. 19; incoming telegram, Department of State, 5595, 19 May 1967; and aerogram Department of State, A-221, 18 Oct. 1967, CCSF 1963–1969; RG 84; NACP. The latter document even mentions, “His most interesting observation was that ‘99%’ of the Papuan population favors independence from Indonesia.” See aerogram Department of State, A-570, 10 May 1968; aerogram Department of State A-641, 18 June 1968; Intelligence Note, U.S. Department of State, Director of Intelligence and Research, 632, 9 Aug. 1968; telegram Department of State 366, 10 Aug. 1968; telegram Department of State, 2381, 22 Apr. 1969; telegram Department of State, 2827, 8 May 1969, CCSF 1963–1969; RG 84; NACP.

53 Telegram 366, Department of State, 20 Aug. 1968, “The Stakes in West Irian’s Act of Free Choice,” CCSF 1963-1969; RG 84; NACP.

54 Memorandum from Henry Kissinger to the President, subject: Djakarta Visit: Your Meetings with President Suharto, 18 July 1969, E.O. 12956, 7; and “Indonesia, Talking Points,” NCV/II-7, received 20 July 1969, 9, National Security Files (Nixon Administration), 1968–1975, Richard Nixon Library.

55 Kissinger met Nelson Rockefeller in 1955 and was invited to the Special Studies Project, a study funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to “define the major problems and opportunities facing the U.S. and clarify national purposes and objectives, and to develop principles which could serve as the basis of future national policy.” See Rockefeller Brothers Fund Archive, https://www.rbf.org/75/special-studies-project.

56 Freeport Indonesia celebration [includes correspondence], 1992, Henry A. Kissinger Papers, part II (MS 1981), Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

57 See Terry J. Allen, “With Friends Like These; Kissinger Does Indonesia,” These Times Chicago, 17 Apr. 2000; Associated Press, “Indonesia Pres Appoints Henry Kissinger as Adviser,” 28 Feb. 2000; Jakarta Post, “Kissinger Calls on RI to Honor Freeport Deal,” 29 Feb. 2000; Kompas, “Mengirim Komnas HAM ke Freeport, Pemerintah meminta konsesi dari Freeport,” 3 Mar. 2000.

58 Jakarta Post, ibid.

59 Leslie H. Gelb, “Kissinger Means Business,” New York Times, 20 Apr. 1986, http://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/20/magazine/kissinger-means-business.html.

60 West Papua Advocacy Team, Open Letter to Westmont College on Kissinger and West Papua (2013), http://www.etan.org/news/2013/10kissinger.htm (accessed 20 Oct. 2020).

61 A reading of the company’s annual reports from 1959–1973 shows that the Papuan mine was not discussed until 1967, but then without mentioning West Papua’s political status. See Freeport Minerals Company, Annual Reports (1959–1973), no. 3, Freeport Minerals Company to Frier Industries, Inc.

62 Since 1965, Freeport officials have forged a powerful connection with the White House. Leith reports that during the most critical period in the company’s history in West Papua, at least five prominent figures from the company had a secure connection with the White House. See Leith Politics of Power, 59. Simpson wrote about the negotiations between Freeport and U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. and in Jakarta; Economists with Guns, 231–48.

63 See UN Resolution 2504 in 1969, which was adopted by the General Assembly during its 24th session, 16 Sept.–17 Dec. 1969.

64 Wilson, Conquest.

65 Anna Tsing, “Inside the Economy of Appearances,” Public Culture 12, 1 (2000): 115–44; PricewaterhouseCooper Indonesia, Mining in Indonesia: Investment and Taxation Guide (Jakarta: PricewaterhouseCooper Indonesia, 2016).

66 The 2009 Indonesian mining law (UU No. 4/2009) limits mine concessions to under 25,000 hectares (or 61,776.345 acres). The CoW is also more generous to a company than production sharing contracts, which were used by the oil industry.

67 Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (London: Verso, 2016), 3.

68 William Robert Scott, The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910–1912); L. H. Roper and Bertrand van Ruymbeke, eds., Constructing Early Modern Empires: Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500–1750 (Leiden: Brill, 2007); Pepjin Brandon, “Between Company and State: The Dutch East and West India Companies as Brokers between War and Profit,” in Grietje Baars and Andrâe Spicer, eds., The Corporation: A Critical, Multi-Disciplinary Handbook (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 215–25.

69 Tony Webster, “British and Dutch Chartered Companies,” Oxford Bibliographies of Atlantic History (2011), DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199730414-0099.

70 Ballard and Banks, Between a Rock, 153.

71 Tom Beanal, an Amungme leader, claims that about a thousand Amungme lived in the concession area in the late 1960s. West Papua’s population was about seven hundred thousand in 1969. See August Kafiar, Agus Sumule, and Enos Rumbiak, Peranan PT Freeport Indonesian Company dalam Pembangunan Masyarakat dan Daerah Irian Jaya (Timika: Freeport Indonesia, 1997); August Kafiar and Tom Beanal, PT Freeport Indonesia dan Masyarakat Adat Suku Amungme (Timika: Forum Lorentz, 2000).

72 Missionaries have documented the connection between the Amungme, Damal, and Lani in and surrounding the mine area. See Misael Kammerer, “Expeditie van Pater Misael Kammerer,” Sint Antonius 54, 6 (1952): 176–86. For Amungme sources, see Tom Beanal, Amungme: Magaboarat negel jombei-peibei (Jakarta: Indonesian Forum for Environment, 1997); Moses Kilangin, Moses Kilangin “uru me ki” (Jayapura: Tabura, 2009).

73 Mampioper, Arnold, Amungme Manusia Utama Dari Nemangkawi Pegunungan Carstensz (Timika: Freeport Indonesia, 2000).Google Scholar

74 Carolyn Diane Turinsky Cook, “The Amung Way: The Subsistence Strategies, the Knowledge and the Dilemma of the Tsinga Valley People in Irian Jaya, Indonesia” (PhD diss., University of Hawaiˋi, 1995), 70.

75 Interview, BP, Jayapura, 12 Dec. 2016. See also Beni Wenior Pakage, Umeki, Anakletus Tuan Jendral Kelly Kwalik (Jakara: Penerbit Sinar Harapan, 2013).Google Scholar

76 Amiruddin and Soares, Perjuangan Amungme, 63.

77 For the history of the National Liberation Army of West Papua, see Ondawame, One People; Djopari, J.R.G., Pemberontakan organisasi papua merdeka (Jakarta: Grasindo, 1993).Google Scholar

78 The Victoria Headquarter was established by the armed wing of the Committee for the Preparation of West Papua’s independence, an underground political network established after Indonesia’s arrival in 1963. From 1968 until 1976, all military activities associated with the West Papuan liberation movements centered on this headquarter. See Djopari, Pemberontakan; Ondawame, One People; Osborne, Robin, Indonesia’s Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990).Google Scholar

79 The company lost about US$11 million per week during that insurgency. Ondawame reported that in preparation for the attack, more than five thousand warriors from the Amungme, Nduga, Moni, Mee, Sempan, Nakai, and Asmat ethnic groups participated in basic military training from 1976 to 1977. See Ondawame, One People, 152–55; Pakage, Umeki.

80 I refer to this figure as the total casualties during the 1977–1978 Indonesian military operations. There is no official record of the number of people killed during this period. A Yale report suggests that during the operation in Agimuga on 22 July 1977, two villages with about two thousand Amungme were strafed and bombed. See Carmel Budiardjo, West Papua: The Obliteration of a People (Surrey: TAPOL, 1988), 119–224; Elizabeth Brundige, Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control (New Haven: Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School, 2004); Osborne, Indonesia’s Secret Wars, 69. In 1981, Eliezer Bonay, a former governor of West Papua, mentioned that three thousand Papuans died. Reverend Obet Komba reported nine thousand casualties in Jayawijaya (not including the mining site and Paniai, which also suffered). He estimates two thousand more were killed in the Starry Mountain area. See Vlasblom, Papoea, 537. The Asian Human Rights Commission conducted research in 2013 and reported in detail that casualties in Jayawijaya and Paniai (thus excluding the mine site and Agimuga) were 4,146 Papuans. For the comprehensive list of the victims, see Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Human Rights and Peace for Papua, The Neglected Genocide: Human Rights Abuses against Papuans in the Central Highlands, 1977–1978 (Hongkong: Asian Human Rights Commission, 2013).

81 Pratap Chatterjee, “The Mining Menace of Freeport-McMoRan,” Multinational Monitor 17, 4 (1996), https://www.etan.org/news/kissinger/themine.htm (last accessed 21 July 2021).

82 Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Trouble at Freeport; Moenninghoff, Laporan.

83 U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit: Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan, 29 Nov 1999; Peter Waldman, “A Chief Bemoans Project’s Impacts on His People,” Wall Street Journal Asia, 30 Sept. 1998: 8; A. Abrash, “The Amungme, Kamoro & Freeport: How Indigenous Papuans Have Resisted the World’s Largest Gold and Copper Mine,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, 30 Apr. 2001: 25–38; Jean Wu, “Pursuing International Environmental Tort Claims under the ATCA: Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan,” Ecology Law Quarterly 28, 2 (2001): 487–508; Adérito De Soares, “The Impact of Corporate Strategy on Community Dynamics: A Case Study of the Freeport Mining Company in West Papua, Indonesia,” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 11, 1–2 (2004): 115–42; Cypri Jehan Paju Dale, “Development as Self-Determination: Anti-Colonial Struggles, Endogenous Transformation, and the Role of Christianity in West Papua” (PhD diss., Universität Bern, 2018).

84 Leith, Politics of Power, 200–2.

85 George Junus Aditjondro, A Collection of Papers on Irian Jaya, Indonesia (Jayapura: Irian Jaya Development Information Service Center, 1983); Widjaja, Muridan, “Peran Militer dalam Konflik Freeport versus Amungme: Dwifungsi Militer Orde Baru di Papua,” Antropologi Indonesia 1 (2000): 452–61.Google Scholar

86 Graham, Stephen, Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (New York: Verso, 2009).Google Scholar

87 West Papua itself has the highest concentration of security forces in the country, with a per capita ratio of population and security forces of 99:1, compared to the rest of the country, which is 296:1. Supriatma estimates there are 36,254 security forces personnel in West Papua: 21,400 military (or Tentara Nasional Indonesia; TNI) personnel (18,950 army, 1,050 navy, and 1,400 air force) and up to 14,584 Indonesian police. See Antonius Made Tony Supriatma, “TNI/Polri in West Papua: How Security Reforms Work in the Conflict Regions,” Indonesia 95, 1 (2013): 93–124; Antonius Made Tony Supriatma, “Indonesian Security Forces in West Papua,” Asia Pacific Solidarity Network, Dec. 2014. In my count for the year 2020, more than twelve thousand security forces have been deployed to West Papua. Even though many deployments are for border security purposes, those soldiers are transferred through Freeport’s dock (which is not near the border). See Bayu Adi Wicaksono, “Lagi, TNI kerahkan ratusan pasukan elit raider ke Papua,” Viva, 24 Sept. 2020, https://www.viva.co.id/militer/militer-indonesia/1305279-lagi-tni-kerahkan-ratusan-pasukan-elit-raider-ke-papua (accessed 10 Jan. 2021).

88 Freeport-McMoRan, Annual Report 2006: Underlying Value (New Orleans: Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., 2006), 31.

89 PT Freeport Indonesia, Security Risk Management Department, Cost Report Annex A-VMSA Military Group, Periode Mei 2011, item 5, Cost Report Military Group, Mei 2011. The New York Times reported that from 1998–2004 Freeport paid at least US$20 million to Indonesian military officials. See Raymond Bonner and Jane Perlez, “New York Urges US Inquiry in Mining Company’s Indonesia Payment,” New York Times, 28 Jan. 2006.

90 The details of the spending: the accommodation cost for the security forces in 2008 was about one billion rupiah (or about US$84,000). In June 2009, a weekly transaction for the security forces was about US$247,000. The cost of “smoke” (smokos, a euphemism for bribery) and meals for police from January–December 2009 was US $16,000. Phone card support for the same period amounted to US$6,000. During the first half of 2011, the cost for the security forces (both military and police) was about US$3,390,000 per month. For more recent transactions involving the Indonesian military, see the blogging platform http://freeportleaks.wordpress.com/.

91 See Muhammad Tahir, “Security Freeport Tahan 24 Security Baru dari Jakarta,” Harian Papua, 15 May 2014.

92 Freeport-McMoRan, Underlying Values: 2006 Working toward Sustainable Development Report, 30–31.

93 See Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (London: Penguin, 2013); Ross Clarke, A Matter of Complicity? Exxon Mobil on Trial for Its Role in Human Rights Violations in Aceh (New York: International Center for Transitional Justice, 2008). ExxonMobil knew of the human rights atrocities committed by the Indonesian Army when soldiers were guarding the gas fields in Aceh, and the corporation paid about $294 per month for each soldier in early 2001 (Coll, Private Empire, 101). The interrogations of rebel forces by the military took place near or on Mobil property in posts like A13 and the Rancong Camp in the 1990s, where many people disappeared (ibid., 103). In 1998, seventeen Indonesian human rights groups wrote that Mobil Oil “provided crucial logistic support to the army, including earth-moving equipment that was used to dig mass graves” (ibid., 104). In light of these human rights violations, the Clinton administration suspended aid and training contacts to the Indonesian Army, yet Mobil still paid the Indonesian soldiers because of its position as a subsidiary partner with an Indonesian state oil company in Aceh (ibid., 105).

94 This is partly due to the Timika’s great airport, seaport, and other facilities built by the mine. As a whole, military operations in West Papua constitute the longest military operation by Indonesian security forces. During the 1960s, they carried out thirty-six military operations, mainly against Dutch forces. In the 1970s until the 1980s, the military carried out twenty-six operations against the West Papua National Liberation Army, which extended over nine years. See Evan Laksmana, Iis Gindarsah, and Curie Maharani, 75 Tahun TNI (Jakarta: CSIS Indonesia, 2020), 241–61. Two military operations are currently ongoing in Ndugama and Intan Jaya, both areas close to the mine.

95 For the history of a production sharing contract in Indonesia, see Tengku Nathan Machmud, The Indonesian Production Sharing Contract: An Investor’s Perspective (The Hague: Kluwer Law Intern, 2000).

96 Stern, Philip J., The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation of the British Empire in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), vii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

97 Stoler, Ann Laura, Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98 Stoler, Duress.

99 Quijano, Coloniality of Power.

100 Herzfeld, Michael, “The Crypto-Colonial Dilemmas of Rattanakosin Island,” Journal of the Siam Society 100 (2012)Google Scholar: 209–23; and “The Absent Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism,” South Atlantic Quarterly 101 (2002): 899–926.

101 Compare with Brandon, Pepijn, War, Capital, and the Dutch State (1588–1795) (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 313.Google Scholar

102 Carole McGranahan and John F. Collins, eds., Ethnographies of U.S. Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018), 2.

103 Ibid., 9.

104 Stern, Company-State, 14.

105 Stoler, Haunted by Empire, 9.