>

Papua New Guinea and West Papua may not have been colonised by the same coloniser, but there are a lot of similarities between the two, even though New Guinea is the world's most diverse island. Plus, the culture of Papua is so different from the rest of Indonesia that there's almost little to no connection between Papua and the other more populous western provinces.
Also, while PNG was initially colonised by the British and the Germans, all of it has been under Australian administration between WWI and 1975.
Leaving aside the merits of the issue of Papua independence, why would a rebel group think taking a hostage from another nation with no connection to the conflict would help their cause? Do they think this is going to make the New Zealand government favorably inclined to pressure the Indonesian government to accede to the rebels' demands? if so that must be some good shit they're smoking. >

We are talking about it. That's the goal. 
A lot of people will hear of this conflict for the first time because of this. >

I just saw this movie >

All-Black Down? >


For those unaware West Papua was “legally” stolen from the Natives of Papua New Guinea
With better education and increasing internal communication between cultures in Papua New Guinea now becoming more prevalent, there have been social movements to both retake West Papua and to defend against further Indonesian encroachment

Uhh... Just to make clear, West Papua and Papua New Guinea were colonized by different country (Dutch for West Papua, German and Britain for PNG) and completely isolated to each other pre-colonization, so it's not really correct to say that West Papua used to be part of Papua New Guinea.