Long after Tomas Karma had departed on his continuing quest to convince West Papuans that the model proposed to conduct the plebiscite would provide fair representation, the Reverend Natan Tabuni remained deeply troubled. He ruminated through the night as he considered the ramifications of the proposed, flawed-voting procedures which would undoubtedly deliver the three hundred Papuan tribes into Indonesian arms. Natan accepted that the Papuans would be tempted to take the line of least resistance, having been subjected to partial Indonesian occupation since the betrayal of 1963, when Jakarta mobilised large concentrations of rapacious military personnel to the territory. He had witnessed Indonesia’s denigration of the Papuan people; the degradation by racial discrimination. It was clear to Natan that the Javanese looked down upon the indigenes as being inferior because of their darker skin and lack of civilized attributes. He had seen how the presence of Indonesian troops had placed an unendurable burden on the local economy with military commanders plundering produce creating life threatening shortages of fruit and vegetables, crucial to the local population for their survival.
Natan had learned that the occupying armed forces had mobilised close to ten thousand troops in West Irian, the bulk belonging to the Cenderawasih, Hasanudin, Brawidjaja, Siliwangi and Merdeka Divisions with a support group of Mobile Brigade police. Faced with such formidable forces he accepted that it would simply be a matter of time before the occupying forces mopped up the fractured elements of resistance, as his people had few modern weapons, ammunition or supplies.
He prayed that a groundswell of world opinion would prevent the ongoing brutal repression. However, as Jakarta had never heeded the international community when crushing other secessionist movements in the past, Natan was far from optimistic. When his thoughts returned to what might lay ahead for Papuans, he rested his chin on calloused hands and prayed.
Saddened by what appeared to be inevitable, Natan continued his silent deliberations, sitting alone in the village square whilst others slept, until crowing roosters broke the silence of dawn.
* * * *
Akumuga Mining Site
Makoe Mountain Range
Sitting amongst the high slopes of the Makoe Mountains within the Akumuga Mine complex, Brother Tobias gazed moodily across the improvised school grounds, wondering how the children could maintain their playful activities, in the oxygen-starved outpost.
The missionary unconsciously fiddled with a loose overcoat button until it dangled then fell to the floor. Cursing painful joints as he bent down to recover the chipped, wooden disc the movement exacerbated the headache resulting from a mixture of high mountain air, and the remnants of a bottle of home-brewed arak.
Tobias rose and leaned back in his wobbly, plastic chair now stretched under his oversized frame, his thoughts distracted by a child standing forlornly watching others at play. The image resurrected past events and his mind momentarily tracked back to the fair-skinned child born seven years before. Recollections of the young American dragged from crocodile-infested, muddy reaches along the Asmat shores, reminded Tobias of events that he hoped would remain buried and forgotten.
Michael Rockefeller had been mauled and not expected to survive. Limited medical resources were available to tend to his wounds however, under the attentive eyes of the village women the man gradually recovered.
Several weeks convalescing had passed when, suddenly, approaching Christmas Eve, Michael Rockefeller disappeared without any trace. It was as if he had never existed. Or at least, not in that village.
Neither Tobias nor the villagers were aware of the American’s importance until foreign teams appeared and scoured the mangrove-ringed coastline searching for the missing heir, Michael Rockefeller. Tobias had never understood why Rockefeller had not revealed his identity, arriving at the conclusion that this was withheld, because the wealthy and educated explorer knew that his family name would have no significance, in this distant and unfamiliar corner of the planet.
When one of the village women, who had been in close attendance with the handsome explorer later died giving birth to a light-skinned child with obvious Caucasian features, the elders took the mother’s death as a sign and threatened to sacrifice the newborn.
Tobias remembered moving quickly to remove the child from the village. Previous contact with a highland community that had converted to Christianity drove him to take the infant there, for safety. When he arrived at Natan Tabuni’s doorstep, the baby was close to death. With a surrogate mother identified the child survived its ordeal. Prior to Tobias’ return to the Asmat community, he and Natan had christened the boy, naming him Bennie.
Upon his return, Tobias remained in the Asmat area for a further five years before being assigned to overseeing the spiritual needs of the burgeoning, mining population at the newly-created Akumuga mining village.
* * * *
Mobilisation for the Akumuga Mine had commenced within months of the US-based consortium signing with the Indonesian Government. A one-hundred kilometre road had been carved out of the challenging terrain followed by the construction of a pipeline from the newly-created port facility and airstrip on the southern coast. A township had emerged embracing the port development, aptly named Kampung Mas, which translated literally as “Gold Village”.
The entire landscape became peppered with Indonesian Special Forces KOPASSUS soldiers.
Tobias’ mind glazed back to the scene outside as another helicopter arrived disembarking expatriate engineers. He knew these foreign workers would remain on site for their two-week stint, accommodated in converted containers, before being shuttled back to Kampung Mas, where charter flights connected to home destinations.
Military barracks providing support facilities for the one hundred Indonesian soldiers were strategically placed towards the main gate entrance. Along the outer perimeter shanty-dwellings had already appeared. These were occupied predominantly by prostitutes transported to the site from poverty-stricken environments throughout the Nusa Tenggara Islands, although a small number of local indigenous women from the three Akumuga tribes also worked in the brothel.
The missionary occupied one of the converted container dwellings. The elongated structure partitioned to provide for basic living quarters at one end, whilst the remaining half was presented as a small, makeshift chapel.
Tobias managed himself upright and over to the first aid cabinet. He squinted inside the small cupboard, his brow collapsing into furrows upon discovering the bottle of arak was not in its customary hiding place. Stumbling around the cramped quarters he found the bottle lying in the sink, alarmingly empty, and he cursed aloud, raising an index finger to the heavens then sulked.
* * * *
Australia
Canberra
Director John W. Andersen returned from his one-on-one with the larrikin Prime Minister John Gorton, somewhat relieved that the former RAAF pilot shared his views with respect to the United States and, closer to home, Indonesia.
Andersen opened his briefcase, extracted a file bound with bright red tape signifying the contents’ level of secrecy, and re-read the report he had earlier tabled for the PM. The communication was headed “Secret, AUSTEO (Australian Eyes Only) — Australian Special Forces’ West Irian Cross Border Intrusions”.
Although joint members of the 1947 UK-USA Security Treaty which established an alliance of Anglo-sphere countries for the purpose of sharing intelligence, it was unusual for the Australian intelligence agencies to withhold information from their ally, the United States. The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the equivalent to both the CIA and MI6 were very closely integrated at most levels of the intelligence exchange apparatus. In fact, Andersen encouraged ASIO and ASIS agents to develop even closer relationships with their foreign counterparts, as it was undeniable that both agencies identified ideologically with the CIA’s right-wing elements. Nevertheless, Andersen and his predecessors had gone to extreme measures to protect the integrity of the existence of ASIS which, as of that time, was known only to a limited few, the exclusion including New Zealand until only four years before.