MARK COLVIN: As president Obama shifts his country's strategic focus towards our region; US eyes may eventually fall on the situation in West Papua.
Unlike Papua New Guinea, the western part of our nearest neighbour has never had independence. Instead, it shifted in the sixties from Dutch colonial rule to become the property of Indonesia.
But West Papuans themselves have never been happy about that, although they've never managed to establish a high profile in the world's eyes.
That's partly because it's hard for independent journalists to get into West Papua, let alone report freely.
One who has was the British reporter William Lloyd-George.
He told me about the trip this afternoon.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: We got off the plane and we were straight on a boat and then it was a few hours along the coast and then we camped out overnight in the jungle and then trekked, quite a gruelling trek, it was boiling hot and then across a few mountains to where they are.
MARK COLVIN: So pretty isolated; pretty deep in the jungle?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Yeah. Two days away from the capital.
MARK COLVIN: And what did you find there?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: They had a training ground, which was mainly just made out of material from the jungle and there was about 100 or 200 rebels and I think that they'd been there for a couple of months; they move around quite a lot, so it was quite a basic camp.
MARK COLVIN: What kind of equipment do they have; I mean how advanced is it?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Not the best equipment; it's sort of a few old M16s, a few old M16s, but most of them were just carrying bows and arrows and spears.
MARK COLVIN: And what do they do?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: It's quite hard to tell what most of them are doing. I think the majority of the guys we met, most of them were under cover so that they sort of work in the villages and are trying to keep the network together. And then a few of them will go up to the highlands and in the highlands they have special military operations; but I think that they're not as often as other rebel armies would be carrying out.
MARK COLVIN: Who commands them?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: The guy we met was a guy called Richard Yueni (phonetic) who's an old guy like 69 but they're very fractured, so they have different commanders across the island who are very autonomous. I think most of them actually don't even talk to each other. So they all have their own little operations going and there's been efforts to unite them but it's not clear how far they've got with that.
MARK COLVIN: And when you talked to the general what did he say, what were his demands?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: The main demand was that they have a referendum again, which allows the Papuan population to vote for independence in a way which is free and without harassment or controlled by the Indonesians.
MARK COLVIN: Remind people of what happened in the original referendum which was in 1969.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: They promised the UN and Holland and other international countries involved that they would hold a referendum. In the end they only had 1025 people.
MARK COLVIN: They were essentially hand-picked 1000 or so.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes.
MARK COLVIN: Out of how many?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: I'm not sure, it's a couple of million the population of West Papua.
MARK COLVIN: And this was called an act of free choice at the time?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: And called an act of un-free choice by Papuan activists.
MARK COLVIN: In the time between then and now - 1969 to 2011, a very large number of Indonesians have been migrated in there, as they transmigrasi; what's the balance of the population now?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: I think it's gone down to 50 per cent. So 50 per cent of the population are actually non-Papuans now and I think 30 years ago it was about 2 per cent, 3 per cent. So there's obviously a massive concerns that the Papuan people will slowly die out.
MARK COLVIN: What are the conditions like for Papuan people in the towns?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: There are a small handful of elite Papuans that have obviously benefited out of Indonesia and the integration and the economic investment, but on the whole very poor, especially in the cities, lacking education and real health and infrastructure.
MARK COLVIN: More so than the Indonesian migrated population?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Because the Indonesian migrated population they go there to hold different jobs. So most Indonesians will have a comparably better living standards because they would have moved there to a secure job.
MARK COLVIN: Has it got to the point with roughly 50/50 population where it's not going to be possible to go back?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Right, this is one of the biggest concerns; it's something I voiced to the general. And the general said that it should be only Papuans who are allowed to vote for the future of the country.
MARK COLVIN: Which effectively would disenfranchise millions of Indonesians.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Right.
MARK COLVIN: And that would mean that they would probably have to go home.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: From what I got from the people I met was there there's no actual anti-Indonesian feelings. Many of the Papuan rebels or underground activists I met, they have Indonesian friends, Indonesian relationships; it's more like a main thing, the bigger picture that they don't want to be controlled by Indonesia, they want to be able to rule their own country.
So I don't think that Indonesians would be kicked out overnight and I don't think even all the investments would be kicked out overnight.
MARK COLVIN: What did they think when they saw what happened in East Timor a decade ago?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: A few of them brought it up. I think they felt a bit forgotten that East Timor managed to get all the interest in the international community and they've been trying for years and the international community has paid little attention to what's happened in West Papua. I think obviously they hoped that something similar would happen.
MARK COLVIN: And what do they think that a country like Australia could do or should do because obviously we're a pretty close neighbour?
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: There was a lot of talk of Australia and also the US but obviously the proximity and also the large role that Australia played in East Timor I think that they have hopes that Australia would also do the same thing for West Papua; drum up support throughout the world to bring the same sort of justice that they would say to West Papua.
MARK COLVIN: And what's your judgement on what's likely to happen; I mean there's been action there in recent times, actual demonstrations and clashes there in recent times.
WILLIAM LLOYD-GEORGE: Yeah. Just last month heavily armed police stormed congress after they declared independence. Local human rights groups said that over 17 people have been killed. And it seems that rather than dishearten the West Papuans they seem to be more desirable to want to get independence and only weeks after they had the crack-down they were holding protests across the island again.
So it seems that unless the Indonesian government is going to back down or agree to dialogue something will happen and the tensions will just rise and there'll be more problems in the coming months.
MARK COLVIN: British reporter William Lloyd-George.
Listen to the interview