This important study introduces the history and people of West Papua, tracing the origins of the international conflict surrounding their struggle for self-determination following the Second World War. Based on three decades of exhaustive research and focusing particular attention on the sham referendum of 1969 - which Indonesia dubbed "The Act of Free Choice’, an election rigged to legitimize Indonesian control over West Papua - Drooglever highlights the continuing impact of this injustice on Indonesia’s most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken province.

Pieter Drooglever was the lead researcher on a government-sponsored, 27-year study of the decolonisation of Indonesia at the Institute of Netherlands History at The Hague. He also served as chairman of the historical committee for Indonesian Studies, and was a lecturer in Indonesian History at the University of Nymegen, where he held the L. J. Rogier chair.

Extensively researched and highly informative. Lord Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford, and Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on West Papua

Essential reading for anyone who cares about human rights and democracy. It is my sincere hope that Drooglever’s excellent work will help draw the world’s attention to the plight of a people who have been oppressed, ignored and forgotten for too long. Lembit Opik, MP and member of International Parliamentarians for West Papua

Based on an unrivalled knowledge of the diplomatic records and archives, and combining a great talent for synthesis with a drily witty and compact style, Drooglever sheds new light on aspects of the story … and does so with impressive comprehensiveness. There can be no doubt this work will serve as essential primary reading for anyone seriously interested in this subject in the future. Robert Edward Elson, Professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

An Act of Free Choice is probably the most important book on the plight of the West Papuans that has yet been published. To understand the great wrong that was done - and continues to be done - to the people of West Papua, it is crucial to read this book. I hope that Western politicians, and perhaps even some Indonesian ones, will read it and understand what needs to change. Paul Kingsnorth, author of One No, Many Yeses