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FACTBOX: West Papua (Irian Jaya)
(CNN) -- The western half of the island of New Guinea -- the world's largest tropical island -- constitutes the Indonesian province of West Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya. The interior is rugged and densely forested. Its more than 1.6 million people live mostly along the coast, leaving large swaths of the province's 163,000 square miles (423,800 square kilometers) sparsely populated. New Guinea's eastern half, Papua New Guinea, became an independent state in 1975. The Dutch-controlled western half declared independence in 1961 but became part of Indonesia two years later. The United Nations recognized Indonesia's claim to the territory in 1969 when 1,000 ethnic Papuan delegates -- representing a population of 800,000 -- voted to become Indonesia's 26th province, and its largest, embracing 22 percent of Indonesia's territory. The government wants to maintain a firm hold on West Papua. It has relocated at least 200,000 people from Java to "transmigration" camps in the vast province, and another 50,000 have moved there voluntarily. West Papua has abundant natural resources, many of them still untapped, that include spices, copra, timber, crude oil, uranium, and the world's largest concentrations of gold and copper. West Papua's indigenous population is mostly Melanesian and Christian, ethnically and culturally different from Indonesia's predominantly Muslim majority. Resentment toward the government boiled over in the 1970s and 1980s, and thousands of separatist Papuans were killed during clashes with the Indonesian army. Some guerrillas, part of the Free Papua Movement, still operate in the region along West Papua's border with Papua New Guinea. In June 2000, a Papua People's Congress recommended independence from Indonesia, contending West Papua has never legally been part of Indonesia. Indonesian government responded that the congress does not represent the wishes of a majority of the province and that the congress excluded anti-independence voices. According to Elsham, a human rights group based in Jayapura, the provincial capital formerly known as Hollandia, four people were killed, 81 detained and 165 injured by police and militias during the period from late 1999 to mid-2000. Pro-independence leader Theys Eluay was found dead in November 2001, which prompted riots and calls for independence. Seven Indonesian soldiers are facing courts martial for the killing of Eluay. In August 2002, unidentified gunmen ambushed a group of American teachers near a giant U.S.-owned gold and copper mine in central Papua. Two U.S. teachers and an Indonesian were killed and eight Americans were injured. No one has been arrested in the shootings.
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