Quotes of the Day

In her many prayers before deciding to flee her West Papuan home with her husband and three-year-old twin sons, Ferra Kambu says she found divine guidance. Surrounded by plastic bags containing their meager possessions in the Melbourne hotel room where the family is staying, the 36-year-old women's rights activist, one of 42 West Papuan asylum seekers released from Australian immigration detention last month on three-year protection visas, says the realization came to her clearly: "I was shown by the Lord that Australia has been given a role as the hand of God in helping to finally resolve the issue of Papua."

That's not a message Australian officials want to hear as they try to mend the worst breach in relations with Indonesia since Australian peacekeepers were sent to East Timor six years ago. Nor will it calm Indonesians who claim that, by giving all but one of the group visas, Australia is meddling in their country's affairs and stoking separatist fervor. The men, women and children landed in a homemade outrigger canoe on the far northern Queensland coast in January. Since then, their case has led to the recalling of Indonesia's ambassador, prompted an increase in Indonesian naval patrols, and abruptly put an improving relationship, as Prime Minister John Howard delicately conceded last week, "under strain."

Close as it is to their shores, the western half of the island of New Guinea remains a mystery to most Australians - as does its Melanesian people's 40-year struggle for self-rule. Home to vast mineral and timber wealth, West Papua's status is an accident of colonialism: retained by the Dutch when Indonesia declared independence in 1945, it came under Indonesian rule after the Act of Free Choice referendum in 1969 - a change decried by many Papuans, who say the 1,000 voters were hand-picked by Indonesia.

Since then, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, has waged an independence struggle of peaceful protests and occasional attacks by poorly equipped guerrillas on Indonesian soldiers and foreign interests like the giant Freeport gold mine. Jakarta, which does not want to forfeit Papua's natural wealth or see another province break away as East Timor did in 1999, agreed in 2001 to a Special Autonomy Law. But independence supporters say little has changed since then. Access to the province is notoriously difficult but in recent years human-rights groups have documented a range of abuses by Indonesian security forces, such as rape, torture, abductions and thousands of deaths. When he visited last year, Sydney University researcher John Wing says the mood among locals was defiant but frustrated: "They feel they have been ignored. They're praying and hoping the international community will pay more attention to them."

The arrival of Kambu and her fellow activists has certainly thrown new light on Papua's aspirations. Her husband, 32-year-old activist Herman Wainggai, says increasing military intimidation late last year sealed the group's decision to escape. 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." The group's lawyer, David Manne, says all have suffered at the hands of the military, including "quite a number who have witnessed massacres," and that their family and friends report being harassed since the group's escape. Some of the refugees, including Wainggai, have spent time in jail for raising the separatist Morning Star flag in public. When they flew into Melbourne last week, the Papuans joyously displayed it and sang. "It's an honor for us to receive these visas," Wainggai says. "But that doesn't mean that the Papuan situation has been resolved." Wrong, say both Jakarta and Canberra. With a displeased Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono offering to guarantee the safety of the asylum seekers if they were sent back, Indonesian protesters urging trade boycotts and newspaper cartoonists trading insults, the Australian government has repeated its longstanding opposition to an independent Papua. Manne says the relative speed of the visa decisions - read by some Indonesian observers as a sign of political intervention - simply reflects recent reforms in the asylum application process.

Howard last week promised a review of that process while doing his best to discourage other Papuans from attempting the same trip, and was full of praise for his Indonesian counterpart, lauding him as "one of the most capable, moderate Islamic leaders in the world." All of this means nothing to little San and Joy Kambu Wainggai as they run around in the autumn chill in bright new beanies and warm pajamas. All they remember of their journey are "big waves." Their father hopes one day to take them home to an independent West Papua. Their mother will be praying he can.

• Lisa Clausen
• Australia's granting of visas to 42 boat people casts a chill on a warming relationship with Indonesia