Several corrections for Mr Brown:

1) Indonesian take-over of East Timor was "ordered" by US President Gerald Ford and Australian PM Gough Whitlam in order to crush a potential communist state located right across from Australia, ruled by Marxist party Fretilin.

2) Indonesian president Habibie expelled East Timor from Indonesia through referendum, this is 100% Indonesian decision. Eviction of East Timor from Indonesia has NOTHING to do with Australia. Indonesia never had and never will have any intention to tolerate separatism.

3) West Papuans' lingua franca is Pidgin Indonesian, since no native Papuan language has large enough speakers. Papuans have higher Bahasa Indonesian-speaking population compared with many Javanese provinces.

4) West Papuan integration Indonesia is the most legal in the world. Australian Aborigines were never consulted whether they accept white settlement, Hong Kong were never consulted whether they wanted to join China.

5) Australia never has and never will have any role in Indonesian internal affairs, such as regarding West Papua. If Australia tried to meddle in Indonesian internal affairs, Indonesian govt and military will declare war, and in doing this they will have full backing from 250 million Indonesians.

@Leigh:
Indeed these "asylum-seekers" are self-proclaimed separatists who made this journey as a dirty propaganda against Indonesia. These cowards admitted it themselves:

"But they decided against the common solution of slipping across the border with Papua New Guinea. "We have not received any serious international attention by seeking asylum in P.N.G., says Wainggai through an interpreter. "We decided that because of Australia's role in taking responsibility in the Pacific area we would come here."
http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/article/0,13673,503060417-1181678,00.html

These 42 "asylum-seekers" do not represent 1.4 million native Papuans at all. Those who think so are mathematically-idiot. In fact, at least one of the 42, a little girl, was kidnapped by her divorced father from the care of her distraught mother. Now, the little girl's mother and grandmother are demanding that Australia returned the little girl to their care.
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/04/08/1553952.htm

Indeed, Australia shelters child-kidnappers and Indonesian enemies. If Indonesia was Israel/US, we would have bombed Australia and send agents to assassinate these "asylum-seekers".

"Well Mr. (name of any white colonizing monarch), and you have invented a spurious claim over a neighbouring country. Having taken that country you are now brutally subjugating the populace and stealing the best lands and treasure for your own people.

Gee..sounds just like RHODESIA and SOUTH AFRICA and.. 'name any country where we whites have set foot, including Australia'

The issue of the killings in West Papua by separatists raises interesting questions about their status as 'assylum seekers' because the U.N. charter on this specifically states that if a person is fleeing a CRIME, they have no political status as an assylum seeker.

If they were squeaky clean and had done nothing illegal except have 'views' which were seen as threatening, then they have status.

PTBI I take you point 1 above as valid.. point 2 is a bit dodgy, I think you are ignoring quite a bit of reality there.. after all, we do have eyes to see with.

You are still terlemas in your nationalism. Lets ALL stick to the facts.

I have grave concerns about the assylum seekers apparently regarding us as their 'supporters in the struggle for independance' by waving their flags as they disembarked planes.. this is quite outrageous on Australian soil and politically/diplomatically highly dangerous.

PTBI, are you not grateful for the Billion dollars in aid Australia committed to , and as far as I know, (within the constraints of legal process) delivered, and for the many 100s of Aussies who gave time and income to help in Aceh during the Tsunami ? Is this nothing to you ?
Not to mention those who gave their actual LIVES in the chopper crash.

Please remember, the next Tsunami might just crash in on YOUR family or on you... we need to be sensitive to our interconnectedness in the human family.

Could it be that the main reason the Javanese are so sensitive about separatism is that centralised domination from Djakarta has so little going for it?

Surely, the only legitimate reason for forming a single entity is mutual benefit. And if there are many people who want no part of the "Pax Javanesa" then any attempt to blame outsiders would seem to be deliberate distraction.

The Indonesian Government cannot be allowed to simplify the argument to one of "Australia discouraged other boat people so Australia should discourage Papuan boat people". The earlier boat people were from third countries, they were not seeking the right of first asylum like the Papuans. And we have a duty to provide first asylum while determining if other (particularly melanesian) countries can give them longer term residency.

The Indonesian government should only be given respect when it acts in a way that earns respect.

@Perseus:

LOL, you are full of crap. Indonesia is no "Javanese Empire". Our powerful VP is Buginese, three-quarters of our cabinet are non-Javanese, we have one Buginese president. Administratively, Indonesia is actually the most decentralised country in the world.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/INDONESIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:20129123~menuPK:381869~pagePK:1497618~piPK:217854~theSitePK:226309,00.html

All ethnicities in Indonesia are treated equally and are equal before the law. We are the most diverse country in the world with 742 ethnic-groups. It is simply impossible for one ethnicity to dominate the country.
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=ID

Proud to be an Indonesian,

Thanks for an enlightening Post informing Australians that
Indonesia is a Federation, or dedicated to be one. Unfortunately West Papua being a former Dutch colonial possession, Indonesia has inherited the problems that went along with colonialism, the permanent need for a large garrison of troops to keep down attacks from Indigines, the legitimate owners of any colonised country.

There is no doubt that the Dutch, as with other Western nations have a lot to answer for, even though, as many argue, Western nations established law and order or moral decency in most non-Western nations.

However, pity, it was first carried on in a big way by the pagan Romans with sword and short spear, then by Spanish Christians putting Aztecs on the run mostly with just gunpowder then on with more modern arms and shot, finally the so-called armies of Christ, subduing millions of unbelievers not counting Islamics, because they are yet to be taken.

Also pity us Westerners while tidying the captured countries up, as well as a touch of military law, achieved what was called the colonial economy, enriching the home countries but not those occupied.

So looking at our pasts, we cannot teach the Indonesians much at all, for indeed with military suppression still on the go in Indonesia, it is really only a copy of what the Brits, and the Dutch, where still doing not so long ago.

Certainly they would have a right to call even us more liberal Christians, hypocrites, so it seems we have a lot more deep thinking to do, even if it might be more than a touch left-wing intellectual.

It is not in Australia’s interest to have yet another failed black state on our borders. PNG is already costing the Australian taxpayer $500 million dollars of desperately needed dollars a year. East Timor $200 million and The Solomons, $50 million.

However much I hate to see a Muslim nation profit from colonial expansion, it is still better for the indigenous people of WNG to be governed by a relatively advanced civilization like Islam, than to be allowed to create yet another trouble plagued black state that holds out the begging bowl to the West while being a source of endless trouble.

I know that the Indos are murdering the WNG people all over the place, but any colonial power has to get tough in order to keep the local yokels under control. As the Boers used to say “a massacre in time, saves nine.” One only as to look at Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe by the dysfunctional, population) to see the wisdom of that statement. With millions now facing starvation in what had once been the breadbasket of Africa, it is screamingly obvious that the country was better off being run by the whites. As with Rhodesia, so too with WNG and the Indos.

As to the “refugees”. Unless we send them straight back to Indonesia, it is certain that it will provoke another rash of “boat people” who are very happy have an excuse to leave their backward societies and barge into our country where they will create yet another endemic and intractable social problem.

Haven't we got enough already?