"The smell was of death and dying.  Everywhere was black and my people were crying.  Our sacred trees were falling, brutal alien men were driving massive yellow machines through our land and waters, taking our trees,  we were being herded out... Soldiers were firing at anything that moved, as helicopters were flying over what was left of our home, sending sheets of fire to burn everything... My mother died, my father died. All I have left is a memory of my home, and my sister alongside me today in this limbo... So of course I must go back and fight.  I was born as a warrior, even if I die early as one, I am still fighting for my people’s grandchildren.  These Garudas will eat every last one of us unless our poison arrows go for the heart of their greed. We must drive those aliens out, and remind them that THIS IS OUR LAND.” 

Is this a key scene James Cameron’s much talked about epic Avatar?  No, it is a description from a refugee student (let’s call him Melkias for his safety), of the situation that forced his flight from the Pandora of this planet, West Papua.  Interviewing him in a PNG border camp in May 2006, Melkias was describing to me what happened when a logging company, backed and run by the Indonesian military, started clearing out local people from the Boven Digul border area.

(Article originally published at Helo Magazine: www.Helo.Squarespace.com)

This report is the seventh in a series of monthly (August 2004) reports prepared by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights-Indonesia Support Group providing updates on developments in West Papua. The RFK Center has monitored and reported on the human rights situation in West Papua since 1993 when Bambang Widjojanto received the annual RFK Human Rights Award.
For more information, contact:
Miriam Young, RFK Program officer 202-463-7575 or 1-800-558-1880
Abigail Abrash Walton, Support Group Member 603-357-265

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