Operation Trikora (Indonesian: Operasi Trikora, abbreviation of Tri Komando Rakyat) was a combined Soviet–Indonesian military operation which aimed to seize and annex the Dutch overseas territory of New Guinea in 1961 and 1962. After negotiations, the Netherlands signed the New York Agreement with Indonesia on 15 August 1962, relinquishing control of Western New Guinea to the United Nations.
Background
When the rest of the Dutch East Indies became fully independent as Indonesia in December 1949, the Dutch retained sovereignty over the western part of the island of New Guinea during the Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference with the method of transfer to be discussed over the next 12 months. Instead, the Dutch wanted to retain Dutch New Guinea. Right-wing politicians wanted that the "Dutch flag remain planted in at least one portion of the former colony" and cited the presence of oil around Sorong. Only when it became certain that the Dutch couldn't keep the territory from Indonesia did they consider taking steps to prepare it for independence as a separate country. The Dutch and some West Papuan leaders argued that the territory did not belong to Indonesia because the West Papuans were ethnically and geographically separated from Indonesians, had always been administered separately, and that the West Papuans did not want to be under Indonesian control. From its independence in 1949 until 1961, Indonesia attempted to gain control of Western New Guinea through the United Nations. The vote reached a majority but not the two-thirds needed for adoption. Since the Indonesian National Revolution, Indonesian nationalists had regarded Western New Guinea as an intrinsic part of the Indonesian state. Though Indonesian nationalists contended that Western New Guinea (Irian Barat) belonged to Indonesia and was being illegally occupied by the Dutch, Indonesia had not presented this argument to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A further argument was that the Linggadjati Agreement stated that the Dutch were relinquishing the “whole territory of Netherlands (East) Indie" and West Papua was incorporated in Negara Indonesia Timur or NIT and NIT dissolved into the United States of Indonesia which in turn became the Republic of Indonesia, had also not been tended at the ICJ.
Since 1954, Indonesia had sporadically launched military raids into Western New Guinea. Following the failure of negotiations at the United Nations, the president of Indonesia, Sukarno, escalated pressure on the Netherlands by nationalising Dutch-owned businesses and estates and repatriating Dutch nationals. These actions increased tensions between Indonesia and the Netherlands, and led to a sharp reduction in trade between the two countries. Following a sustained period of harassment of Dutch diplomats in Indonesia, Indonesia formally severed ties with the Netherlands in August 1960. Indonesia also increased its military pressure on Dutch New Guinea by buying weapons from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Over the following years, the Sukarno government became dependent on Soviet military support.
On 26 September 1961, the Netherlands proposed United Nations administration for which the Netherlands would maintain $30 million annual funding, and proposed a United Nations commission to assess conditions, the public's wishes, and possibility of a United Nations plebiscite.
On 19 December 1961, Sukarno decreed the establishment of the People's Triple Command or Tri Komando Rakyat (Trikora) in order to annex what Indonesia called West Irian by 1 January 1963. Trikora's operational command was to be called the Mandala Command for the Liberation of West Irian (Komando Mandala Pembebasan Irian Barat) with Major-General Suharto (the future President of Indonesia) serving as its commander. In preparation for the planned invasion, the Mandala command began making land, air, and sea incursions into West Irian. As a result, Indonesia began a policy of confronting the Dutch over control of Western New Guinea. Sukarno also embarked on a policy of "progressive mobilization" to prepare the nation to carry out his commands.
While the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia sided with the Netherlands' claims to Western New Guinea and were opposed to Indonesian expansionism, they were unwilling to commit military support to the Dutch. The Netherlands was unable to find sufficient international support for its New Guinea policy. By contrast, Sukarno was able to muster the support of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, and the Non-Aligned Movement. In response to Indonesian claims, the Netherlands sped up the process of implementing West Papuan self-rule from 1959 onward. These measures included the establishment of a legislative New Guinea Council in 1960, establishing hospitals, the completion of a shipyard in Manokwari, development of agricultural research sites and plantations; and the creation of the Papuan Volunteer Corps to defend the territory.
Trikora
On 19 December 1961, President Sukarno made a speech in Yogyakarta regarding the liberation of Papua, revolving around "The three principles of Trikora." The three principles of Trikora were:
- Prevent The Netherlands from forming a puppet state in West Papua.
- To fly the Indonesian bicolour (the "red and white") in West Papua.
- Prepare for mass mobilisation that cover all Indonesians to free West Papua from Dutch imperialism
Preparation
Military
Indonesia began seeking weapons from abroad in response to the conflict with the Netherlands. Having failed to secure anything from the United States (Dutch membership in NATO was the possible reason), General Nasution went to Moscow in December 1960 to negotiate what eventually turned out to be a US$2.5 billion arms package with the Soviet government. The subsequent deliveries that arose from this deal led the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) to boast that Indonesia had the strongest air force in the southern hemisphere.
The United States did not support the surrender of West Papua to Indonesia, since the Bureau of European Affairs considered it an act of trading one occupying power for another. However, in April 1961, Robert Komer and McGeorge Bundy began to prepare plans for the United Nations to give the impression that surrender to Indonesia was legal. Although reluctantly, President John F. Kennedy finally supported these plans, fearing that, without US support, the Indonesians would become further entrenched into the Soviet-bloc.
Indonesia bought various kinds of military equipment, including 41 Mi-4 and nine Mi-6 helicopters, 30 MiG-15, 49 MiG-17, ten MiG-19 and 20 MiG-21 fighter jets, 12 Whiskey-class submarines, 12 Komar-class missile boats, and one ex-Soviet Navy Sverdlov-class cruiser which was renamed the KRI Irian. Among bombers it bought from the Soviet Union were 22 Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers, 14 Tu-16 long-range medium bombers, and 12 maritime versions of Tu-16 aircraft equipped to launch the AS-1 Kennel anti-ship missiles. The transport aircraft it acquired included 26 IL-14 and Avia-14 light transport aircraft, six Antonov An-12 heavy transports, and ten C-130 Hercules tactical transport aircraft.
Airbases
To achieve air superiority, the first preparations undertaken by the Indonesian Air Force (AURI) were to repair war-damaged airbases, which would be used for infiltration and conventional operations on the West Irian mainland. Air bases and landing strips which were common along the borders of Maluku and West Irian, were relics of imperial Japanese presence. Such airbases and landing strips were last used in 1945, and had since fallen into disrepair.
Soviet involvement
Soviet support of Indonesia played a crucial role in ending the conflict over New Guinea. Owing to the support of Soviet submarines and bombers, Indonesian military forces could confidently launch attacks on Dutch troops. In response to the Soviet presence, the United States put pressure on the Netherlands to relinquish control of West Papua. At the height of the Cold War, it was strategically critical that Indonesia remain outside the Soviet sphere of influence, which made the US willing to take action to ensure a neutral or friendly relationship with Indonesia. By enforcing the transfer of New Guinea, the US could keep the Sukarno regime friendly. As the US relinquished support, the Dutch eventually gave way to US pressure and the threat of an extended conflict in New Guinea.
The Soviet support was secret – the "volunteers" wore Indonesian uniforms. However, according to Khrushchev's memoirs, Indonesian Foreign Minister Soebandrio let the Soviet willingness to actively provide military support leak to Howard P. Jones, the US ambassador in Jakarta. Admiral Sudomo revealed in a newspaper article in 2005 that six Soviet submarines supported the amphibious operations while stationed in Bitang, East Sulawesi, tasked to attack the Dutch fleet in Manokwari. Submarine commander Rudolf Ryzhikov recalled in a Russian article he received orders on 29 July from Admiral Sergey Gorshkov to patrol a combat zone west of New Guinea and sink any shipping after midnight on 5 August. Naval officer and Historian Matthijs Ooms has shown in his masterpaper that the Dutch naval intelligence service, MARID (Marine Inlichtingendienst), received information in the summer of 1962 that Soviet crews were manning Indonesian submarines and Tupolev bombers. In his memoirs, Khrushchev freely admitted that during the West New Guinea crisis Soviet personnel had been commanding Indonesian submarines and piloting Tu-16s.
Diplomacy
In the buildup to the conflict, Indonesia approached key regional players including India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, United Kingdom, West-Germany, and France to ensure that they would not support the Netherlands in a potential Dutch-Indonesian conflict. In the United Nations General Assembly in 1961, the UN Secretary General U Thant asked Ellsworth Bunker, a US diplomat, to submit proposals addressing the problem of the status of West Irian. Bunker proposed that the Netherlands cede West Irian to Indonesia through the United Nations within a period of 2 years.
Economy
On 27 December 1958, President Sukarno issued Law No. 86 of 1958 concerning the nationalization of all Dutch companies in Indonesia.
Nationalized companies included:
- Plantation companies
- Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij
- Electricity companies
- Petroleum companies
- Hospital (CBZ) becomes RSCM
While other policies were implemented, including:
- Moving the Indonesian tobacco auction market to Bremen, West Germany
- Dutch workers strike in Indonesia
- Prohibiting KLM (a Dutch airline) from entering Indonesian airspace
- Prohibiting the screening of Dutch films
General strategy
In accordance with the development of the Trikora situation, instructions were given by the Commander in Chief of the Highest Commodity of Liberation of West Irian No. 1 to Major General Suharto, Commanding General of the Mandala Command, which were the following:
- Plan, prepare, and conduct military operations with the aim of unification of West Papua as part of the territory of Indonesia.
- Developing the situation in West Papua in accordance with the struggle in the field of diplomacy and in the shortest possible time in this region creating de facto regions of Indonesian control.
Strategies developed by the CGMC to carry out these instructions included the following:
- Infiltration (until the end 1962), namely by deploying infantry units around certain targets to create a strong de facto free area that is resistant to destruction by the enemy and to develop territorial control by unifying the local populace.
- Exploitation (early 1963), namely carrying out an open attack on enemy forces and occupying all important enemy defense posts.
- Consolidation (early 1964), namely by demonstrating the power and absolute sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia throughout West Papua