In February 1961, Dutch authorities organized elections for a Papuan representative body called the New Guinea Council. The Netherlands was preparing, belatedly, to let West New Guinea follow the pattern of decolonization that had already produced Indonesia and a dozen other post-war nations. The Council appointed a National Committee to draft a political manifesto, chose the name West Papua, and declared the Morning Star as the national flag. That flag - a red vertical stripe on the hoist with a five-pointed white star, followed by thirteen horizontal stripes of blue and white - was raised for the first time on 1 December 1961, a month ahead of the planned independence timeline. The date is still observed as Papuan independence day by activists. Raising the flag remains illegal in Indonesia.

Events moved faster than the Dutch plan. Indonesia under President Sukarno considered West New Guinea part of the territory of the former Dutch East Indies and claimed it as an integral part of the Indonesian nation. In August 1962, pressured by the United States, which feared pushing Indonesia toward the Soviet Union, the Dutch signed the New York Agreement. Administration was transferred first to a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority in October 1962, then to Indonesia in May 1963, with the understanding that a plebiscite would determine the territory's final status. That vote, the Act of Free Choice, took place in 1969. Instead of a universal ballot, Indonesia conducted a musyawarah - a consensus process in which 1,025 tribal representatives, selected by Indonesian authorities, voted unanimously to remain with Indonesia. The UN accepted the result. Scholars and human rights groups have since called it the Act of No Choice.

The independence movement has not had a single voice for most of its history. Multiple factions with different strategies - diplomatic, political, armed - have competed for legitimacy since the 1960s. The Free Papua Movement, known by its Indonesian acronym OPM, has waged a low-intensity insurgency in the highlands. Exile groups have lobbied capitals from Oxford to Port Vila. In December 2014, three of the major organizations - the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, the Federal Republic of West Papua, and the National Parliament of West Papua - agreed at a summit in Vanuatu to unite under the umbrella of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua. Benny Wenda, a Papuan exile who had escaped Indonesian custody in 2002 and obtained political asylum in the UK, became its chairman. The ULMWP's July 2019 claim to have united all armed factions was contested by the West Papua National Liberation Army, which denied having merged. The unity is more aspirational than operational.

No UN member state recognizes the Republic of West Papua as a sovereign entity. What the movement has secured is something short of recognition but louder than silence. Vanuatu has officially supported West Papuan self-determination since 2010, when its parliament passed the Wantok Blong Yumi Bill - Tok Pisin for 'Our Close Friends' - declaring support for West Papuan independence as national foreign policy. The Solomon Islands has taken a similar position. Several African states including Ghana and South Africa have spoken in support. Pacific Islands Forum countries have passed resolutions calling attention to human rights concerns in the region. The Republic of West Papua has been a member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, the UNPO, since that body was founded in 1991. Within Indonesia, any public display of support for separation is illegal and can carry a charge of treason carrying up to fifteen years in prison.

Indonesia has offered Special Autonomy status, created new provinces, directed substantial investment, and built highways and airports where none existed before. Supporters of the central government point to these as evidence of genuine development. Critics point to the military presence, the continuing violence in highland provinces like Nduga and Intan Jaya, the restriction on foreign journalists, and the demographic transformation of coastal cities by transmigration from other parts of Indonesia. The ULMWP and its supporters argue that self-determination was promised and then denied, and that no amount of infrastructure compensates for the failure to hold a genuine vote. The Indonesian government argues that West Papua is an integral part of a unified nation and that its development is a domestic matter. Between the two positions sits a land that has been answered for by outsiders for half a century, and people who have not yet been allowed to answer for themselves.