Push for Independence: The West Papuan Nation

The Papuan Island has long been subject to distant rule. In the nineteenth century, it drew rapacious attention from resource hungry European colonisers including Germany, Britain, Japan and The Netherlands. In 1975, the eastern half of the island become the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. The fate of the western half remains disputed. The Dutch ruled Western Papua until 1963, eventually ceding their sovereignty to Indonesia. Since then, the territory has been subject to the distant and occasionally tyrannical rule of the Indonesian Government.
Score of West Papuan continue to exert claims for an independent West Papuan nation. These nationalists are driven by a sense of historical injustice, poor Indonesian governance, a feeling of cultural and racial otherness, human rights abuses and manipulation on the part of the Indonesian security forces.