At the United Nations General Assembly not long ago, Melanesian leaders from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu accused the U.N. of "turning a deaf ear" to human rights atrocities in the Indonesian province of Papua and urged the world to support the region's campaign for independence. Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai said the people of West Papua must be allowed the right to self-determination to free themselves of the "yoke of colonialism."
Since first arriving in West Papua 30 years ago, I have been returning to make short documentaries to expose the situation in Papua and the drastic measures that are being taken by the Indonesian government to hide the truth in this remote corner of the world. For example, all media are prohibited to enter Papua. And the scale of the atrocities are unthinkable. It's been documented that when the military or police find a freedom fighter in a village, they burn him alive. Then they demand his wife eat him. If she won't, they kill her children. This is what they call an atrocity.
Last year I spent a month in Vanimo to film West Papuan refugees and learn about their lives.