The Dutch New Guinea reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Dutch New Guinea

Dutch New Guinea was a colonial possession of the Netherlands which included the entire western half of New Guinea.

Until 1949 Dutch New Guinea was governed as part of the Dutch East Indies. When the Dutch East Indies gained independence as Indonesia in 1949, Dutch New Guinea remained a colony. After an armed conflict begun in the late 1950s, the Netherlands government agreed to place the territory under United Nations control (1962). A plebiscite was to be held to vote on joining Indonesia. However, the United Nations decided that the territory would become a part of Indonesia regardless of the vote (1963). Indonesia renamed it Irian Jaya and it is currently known as Papua.

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