Jakarta – Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday reassured President Abdurrahman Wahid that Australia respects Indonesia's territorial integrity, and agreed to patch up diploma

Peter Hartcher – Australia came perilously close to war with Indonesia last year. Australian policy planners know that we could easily veer towards a collision once more.

Andrew Kilvert, Jayapura – Violence has broken out between militias supporting independence and autonomy in the easternmost Indonesian province of West Papua.

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has warned the military against using violence in dealing with calls for independence in West Papua, while one of his top officials yest

Chris McCal, Jakarta – Jakarta yesterday rejected a formal demand for independence by a West Papuan congress, slamming the meeting as invalid and its declaration as possibly illegal.

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday warned of a military crackdown in Papua after a landmark congress in the far-eastern province declared it wa

Andrew Kilvert and agencies, Jayapura – West Papua yesterday announced the formation of a government and declared independence from Jakarta, as Indonesian soldiers and riot police conti

Jakarta – The US Embassy in Jakarta said Monday that Washington didn't support "independence for Papua or any other part of Indonesia."

Neles Tebay, Jayapura – Defying warnings from Jakarta, the Papuan Congress ended on Sunday with a declaration that West Papua, or Irian Jaya as the territory is still officially called,

Lindsay Murdoch and Andrew Kilvert – A Jakarta-based organisation with criminal connections and links to Indonesia's military and Golkar, the former ruling party, is secretly funding pa

Reuters in Jakarta – A landmark congress discussing the future of Indonesia's Irian Jaya province is set to close on Saturday with an affirmation of the right to independence but withou

Jayapura – Speaker after speaker at a landmark conference on the future of Indonesia's West Papua province called for independence yesterday as alarm bells over a possible new East Timo

Mark Abberton, Sydney – Representatives of the West Papuan freedom movement, meeting at a conference here on April 19, expressed hope about new openings for greater unity and organisati

Jakarta – A tribal war between two villages in the remote mountains of West Papua has left more than 100 people dead in the past year, the official Antara news agency reported Monday.

Alastair McLeod, Jayapura – West Papuans have emerged from the far west town of Fak Fak with reports of East Timorese style militia threatening and attacking the local people.

Jakarta – As a compromise to the intense calls for independence, resource-rich Irian Jaya is offering to remain within Indonesia if it retains a bigger portion of its own wealth, an ini

Jakarta – An armed mob yesterday torched a market in Jayapura, the capital of Indonesia's eastern province of Irian Jaya, after a youth was stabbed by migrant traders, police said.

Jayapura – Local police have officially named nine leading Irianese figures here as suspects for allegedly plotting against the state. Irian Jaya Police chief of detectives Col.

Mark Abberton – Five hundred people participated in a four-day congress beginning February 23 in Sentani, in Indonesian- controlled West Papua, to discuss efforts to build a unified lea

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has asked the Indonesian Government to investigate findings that its armed forces lured villagers to their

Jakarta - Warning shots were fired on Thursday as mobs attempted to prevent police from clearing barricades from the streets in a town in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya,

Jayapura – One man was killed when police opened fire on mobs attacking a Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police headquarters in the easternmost province of Irian Jaya, police said on Tuesday.

Jakarta – Indonesian police fired warning shots in eastern Irian Jaya province on Wednesday to disperse an angry mob which attacked a police headquarters after the death of a pro-indepe

Mark Abberton – Following the downfall of the Suharto and Habibie governments, the election of the "reform" president, Abdurrahman Wahid, and the withdrawal of Indonesian troops from Ea

Jody Betzien, Melbourne – Two human rights workers from West Papua visited Melbourne last week to draw attention to the training of pro-Indonesian militia and arbitrary killings in the

Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Indonesia's fledgling civilian Government has come under renewed pressure from separatists in the far-flung province of Papua as a military crackdown reignite

Jakarta – Nine policemen were injured and three residents suffered gunshot wounds when police opened fire during a riot in a town in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya, a re

Jakarta – The life expectancy of the Irianese is about 40 years, the shortest among ethnic groups in Indonesia, due to malnutrition and a poor health service, a senior local official sa

Jakarta – State-run Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) went off the air in the Irian Jaya town of Fakfak on Saturday after its office was ransacked in rioting the previous day, a staff memb

Tim Murphy – Students from West Papua occupied the Dutch embassy in Jakarta on January 17.

Andrew Kilvert – Military authorities and political enforcers associated with the former Soeharto regime appear to be building up East Timor-style militias in the contested province of

Jakarta – Thousands of people attended a ceremony to hoist the separatist Free West Papua flag in a town in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya, a report said here Tuesday.

Reuters in Jakarta – Separatist leader Thom Beanal says Indonesia's eastern Irian Jaya province could be independent by 2003 but freedom may have a bloody price, as it did in East Timor

Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has arrived in the remote eastern province of Irian Jaya, were calls for independence have been rising, to watch the first local sunrise

Jayapura – A House of Representatives delegation said here on Saturday no foreign country would recognize an independent Irian Jaya.

Linda Kaucher – Indonesian military forces shot protesters trying to prevent them lowering the West Papuan independence flag in the south coast town of Timika on December 1.

Andrew Kilvert, Timika – Tensions remained high in this isolated mining town on the Irian Jaya south coast yesterday, a day after Indonesian troops opened fire on unarmed pro-independen

Jayapura – A day after dozens of people were injured in a clash between police and demonstrators, hundreds of protesters demanding independence for Irian Jaya rallied Friday at the site

Associated Press in Jayapura – Dozens were injured on Thursday when Indonesian security forces at a remote mining town fired on about 2,000 demonstrators who demanded independence for I

Jakarta – Hundreds of thousands of pro-independence supporters Wednesday joined peaceful demonstrations across Irian Jaya on the anniversary of the separatist movement as activists defi

Thousands of pro-independence West Papuans held a "birthday celebration" for leader Theys Eluay in the Sentani subdistrict of the capital, Jayapura, on November 12.

Karen Polglaze, Jakarta – Rex Rumakiek knew the ballot would be rigged when the Indonesian administrators abolished the local parliament after it had approved a one man, one vote system

Jakarta – Some 200 people seeking independence for Irian Jaya marched into the parliament complex Thursday as President Abdurrahman Wahid renewed his support for a referendum in Aceh pr

Jakarta – Security forces broke up a peaceful protest by thousands of residents in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province, reports said Tuesday.

Jakarta – Some 3,000 residents in the remote Indonesian province of Irian Jaya went on the rampage Friday, demanding the recovery of the bodies of some 300 victims of a boat tragedy, po

Jakarta – The Indonesian military has issued a "full alert" security status in Jayapura, the capital of Indonesia's remote eastern Irian Jaya province, as it enters third day Saturday o

Jakarta – A second day of clashes between local tribesmen and migrants in the mining town of Timika in Indonesia's remote Irian Jaya province killed four people, raising the death toll

Jakarta – Angry mobs paralyzed downtown Manokwari in Indonesia's remote Irian Java province on Saturday, a day after police shot dead one man and wounded two others during an outbreak o

Jakarta – Scores of students in the easternmost Indonesian province of Irian Jaya have protested over the alleged involvement of British elite troops in a violent hostage-rescue operati

Antony Balmain – As East Timor prepares to vote in a United Nations ballot to decide its future, documents show Australia played an active and secret role to ensure Irian Jaya became a