Papuan independence activists have campaigned for nearly 40 years to split from Indonesia, while a low-level armed rebellion has simmered and human rights groups accuse Indonesia of widespread abuses there.

• Struggle for indigenous autonomy
• Former Dutch colony, rich in copper and gold
• Highest HIV rates in Indonesia

Thousands of indigenous Papuans have been killed in the last four decades as the result of reprisals against a guerrilla movement that began fighting in 1965 for a free Papua in the western half of New Guinea, the world's second-largest island after Greenland. Activists accuse the Indonesian security forces of torturing, detaining and displacing thousands more.

Most Papuans have been committed since 1998 to achieving their goals by peaceful means, and the Indonesian government went some way towards granting nominal autonomy in 2001 - along with a big share of the profits from lucrative copper and gold mines in the province - but frustration is growing because the government has sent out mixed messages and seems to be reneging on its earlier promises.

Episodes of violence and displacement ebb and flow -- most recently in December 2006 and January 2007. But analysts say a major armed movement is unlikely to emerge. They say that Papuan separatists - who argue that as Christians or animists of Melanesian ancestry they are culturally distinct from Indonesian Muslims - are too divided and don't have enough resources or international backing.

Independence supporters have been split by the government's division of the province into two, with successful elections for the governorship of each.

Population	2,220,934(Indonesian Census, 2000)
Proportion of the population of a non-Papuan descent in 1960s	2.5 percent (International Crisis Group)
Proportion of the population of non-Papuan descent in 2000	35 percent (International Crisis Group)