In 1969, seven years after Indonesia invaded the country, the UN stood by as Indonesia rigged the vote. The UN was forced to intervene, but it was swiftly made clear to its diplomats what the outcome should be. It was the height of the Cold War, and the West was keen to appease Indonesia, which was being wooed by the USSR and China. As one British diplomat put it at the time, "I cannot imagine the US, Japanese, Dutch, or Australian governments putting at risk their economic and political relations with Indonesia on a matter of principle involving a relatively small number of very primitive peoples." The US, the Netherlands and Indonesia agreed that the UN would stage a face-saving referendum in which the Papuans would be asked to choose between independence and Indonesia. Until the mid-20th century, this remote land was part of the Dutch East Indies. In 1949 the Dutch gave up most of their empire to the new nation-state of Indonesia.

They argued, however, that West Papua was part of Melanesia, not Asia, and that it should remain separate In 1961, they granted it independence Months later, Indonesia invaded. It is a country which is closed to foreign journalists and human rights workers, and which is flooded with thousands of soldiers, ready to strike at the least sign of dissent. Look at West Papua through the travel books, and it looks like paradise Look a little closer, and it can start to seem like hell. It is a country in which calling openly for freedom is punishable by torture, or even death. But paradise stops there, for West Papua is an occupied land, whose people have no freedom to choose their own government and little control over their land and resources.

Most continue to live in small villages, harvesting sweet potatoes, growing sago and raising pigs as their ancestors did before them. West Papua is certainly one of the most remarkable places on Earth. Swathed in tropical rainforest which is second in size only to that of the Amazon, it is home to around 250 tribes, who have inhabited the country for an estimated 40,000 years and speak, between them, 300 separate languages. When it does, the stories are of the kind which made headlines yesterday: the discovery of new species of Birds of Paradise or tree kangaroo; the "Stone-Age paradise" of tribal New Guinea. Perhaps we like to feel that such an untouched, Lost World exists, outside of time, peaceful and "primitive" The reality is very different. I was, I was proudly told, the first white person ever to come here. As firelight flickered on the walls, Galile was telling me about the wildlife that inhabited the rainforests.