REMINDER: History Postgraduate Research Seminar, 3 April 2019

Hello all,

We hope to see you at the History PG Seminar this evening at 5pm in Ellen Wilkinson Conference Room C1.18 for Margot Tudor’s presentation on UN Temporary Executive Authority in West New Guinea in the 1960s.

Best,

Courtney Stickland

PhD Candidate, History
The University of Manchester

courtney.stickland@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Margot Tudor,  ‘Marginalising Papuan Enfranchisement: Examining the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority in West New Guinea, 1962-1963’
This paper demonstrates that the leadership of the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) in West New Guinea pursued a policy of exclusion towards the indigenous population, Papuans, in order to prioritise the stable completion of the mission. The UNTEA mission was the result of an UN-brokered agreement in August 1962 between the Netherlands and Indonesia following a decade of escalating violence and diplomatic tensions. Concerned about the broader geopolitical implications of the conflict, U Thant, Secretary-General of the UN, orchestrated negotiations to mediate their competing claims of sovereignty. The UN general assembly unanimously agreed that installing UNTEA with sovereignty of the territory for nine months was the solution to this decolonisation dilemma. Challenging previous historiography on this conflict, this paper intends to rehistoricise the agency of the UNTEA international staff through examining their interactions with Papuans rather than assuming the dominance of the involved state-actors. Focusing on the decision-making of UNTEA Administrator, Djalal Abdoh, this paper investigates his attempts to recast the indigenous population’s political activities as unreliable and unrepresentative. This contextualises the administration’s policy within the broader institutional geopolitical and organisational pressures experienced by the UN during this period. 

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