by Alistair D. B. Cook
Recent events surrounding the Special Autonomy status of Papua in Indonesia have caught the eye of the international media and engaged public opinion. In particular, the protests in Jayapura in early July 2010 illustrated community tensions in Papua. This paper attempts to carve through the economic and political issues surrounding these events to analyse and evaluate the economic and political challenges in Papua, and thus provide an assessment on the prospects for conflict resolution.