THROUGHOUT the hostage drama, the OPM demanded recognition of an independent West Papua state and did not ask for any ransom money, writes David Shanks.
Supporters of independence deny that a 1969 "Act of Free Choice" was a genuine expression of self determination. With an alleged 850,000 "transmigrants" in the Melanesian territory, they say that a similar number of Papuans will soon be a minority in their own land. Like the resistance movement in East Timor, they say a new referendum should exclude settlers from other overcrowded islands.
The question of Irian Jaya, now firmly considered by Indonesia as its 26th province, was held over after Indonesia independence from the Netherlands in 1950. Because of its enormous mineral wealth today its US owned Freeport copper and gold mine is the world's biggest single mining operation - it became the object of protracted negotiations culminating in the 1962-3 New York Agreement.
That agreement provided for the 1969 "Act of Free Choice" by 1,025 Papuans hand picked by Indonesia, critics say. The six year process was described as a "fraud" by the then Agence France Presse correspondent, Brian May, who covered it. He reported widespread intimidation of the people and threats to the lives of voters by army officers.
Important oil and copper discoveries were made as long ago as the 1920s. When Gen Douglas MacArthur arrived to liberate the territory from the Japanese in 1944 he brought a geological team.
The 1962-63 agreement was between the Netherlands, Indonesia and the US, witch sided with Indonesia and against the Dutch colonists' sudden support for the independence option.
Independence supporters hold that the UN General Assembly, in approving the integration, ignored its own Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples which had upheld "the need to pay regard to the freely expressed will of the people".
The transmigration policy in Irian Jaya has been criticised by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, whose resolution was spiritedly attacked earlier this month by Indonesia.
A report on the Indonesian reaction to the committee's questioning of the 1969 act in the Jakarta Post said. Dublin has had a history of being sympathetic towards various separatist movements in Indonesia.
The Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, crossed swords on the East Timor issue last year with his Indonesian counterpart, Mr Ali Alatas, who said that remarks by Mr Spring were tantamount to a declaration of war".