The island of New Gunea is divided in two; the eastern part is known as the independent state of Papua New Guinea and the western half belongs to Indonesia and is now called West Papua.
Low level violence and political struggle for a referendum on independence, if not de facto independence from Indonesia has been going on for many years and is largely ignored or forgotten by the rest of the world.
Like so many of the islands in the archipelago the situation is made complicated by the fact that coastal regions were settled by Austronesian people who arrived around a thousand years ago and eventually forced the original inhabitants inland and into the forests and mountains, or to the swamplands.
These original peoples are given the common name Orang Asli in Indonesian/Malay, a term some Westerners mistakenly believe applies to one homogeneous ethnic group. Generally, most of the Orang Asli are too few in number or too powerless to challenge the Indonesian state but in Papua - and some other regions like Timor and Kalimantan - there are large enough populations to be able to demand more autonomy, or even full independence.
Some of you may still remember the war and eventual independence of East Timor.
(For those want to know more about East Timor and like their history in novel form, I recommend you read Timothy Mo's Redundancy of Courage, or if you want a film watch Balibo)
The Indonesians did go some way to placate the ethnic Papuans making it into a province and changing the name from Irian Jaya to West Papua, but these concessions were largely superficial.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that West Papua is home to the world's largest gold mine (pictured above) and the third largest copper mine in the world.
(Look at the picture from space to get a better idea of how big the mine is.)
Indonesia is unlikely to relinquish power in Papua as easily as it did in Timor.
Low pay ($1.50 a day. Remember the songs about a 'dollar a day' from the 1930s? This is 2012.) as well as the alleged abuse of the local population by mining company thugs are also things that help fuel the nationalist movement.
The power of the mining companies to influence reporting and misdirect the media should not be under estimated. So do not take all news reports and documentaries at face value.
I think that is enough. If you want to know more you can find out for yourselves.
The important thing is that people are aware of the situation, and should it explode the Indonesian government will know that this is not just a forgotten part of the world no one cares about but the islanders themselves .
One of the things the victims of oppression and violence everywhere find hardest to take is the indifference of the outside world.
Finally, should anyone be interested in the post-colonialism and the growth of nationalism the book to read is Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism First published in 1983 it became hugely influential and essential reading on most modern politics and history courses.