West Papua has the world’s third-largest rainforest and is one of its most biodiverse areas, with an equally rich array of indigenous tribes and languages. It is also the site of a long but little-known struggle for self-determination. In the 1960s, West Papua exchanged one colonial occupier, the Netherlands, for another, Indonesia. Its people have been struggling against Indonesian rule ever since.

Amnesty International estimates that the Indonesian military has killed at least one hundred thousand West Papuans in that time; other estimates are even higher. West Papuans have suffered systematic racial discrimination and land theft. The global mining, palm oil, and logging corporations operating in their lands are wiping out irreplaceable natural habits. But a media blackout has kept the experience of West Papua largely concealed from the outside world.

As a child, Benny Wenda lived in a remote village among the Lani people who rebelled against Indonesian control in the 1970s, and he witnessed the brutal repression that followed, including sexual violence against his female relatives. While at university, Wenda began to learn about the suppressed history of his country and its culture and organized West Papua study groups. He became a leader of the West Papuan independence movement.