The Sydney Morning Herald, April 4, 2006
Overjoyed Papuans arrive in song
IT WAS a joyous end to an epic journey for the 42 successful Papuan asylum
seekers who arrived in Melbourne yesterday in spectacular fashion.
Shouting "Papua, Merdeka" - or Free Papua - they descended from their charter jet
waving the Morning Star Flag and singing the Haitanah ku Papua - My Land of Papua,
an anthem for a land they hope one day will become a nation.
This expression of identity would likely have them jailed in the Indonesian province.
Indeed, their leader - Herman Wainggai - was imprisoned twice for raising the
outlawed independence flag.
"Today we are happy, but in West Papua they are still suffering," Mr Wainggai said at
Melbourne Airport.
The Papuans said they fled in fear of their lives, claiming they would be persecuted,
"disappeared", or killed if they stayed.
While Indonesia rejected their story as fabrications, the Department of Immigration
accepted it.
Immigration officials could be seen crying as the singing and chanting unfolded before
them. Mr Wainggai, too, choked back tears at an emotional press conference.
"I have seen my friends shot by the guns of Indonesia, with my own eyes I have
witnessed this," he said.
"We give thanks to your Government. We give thanks to God … These protection
visas, they are for the West Papuan people."
As well as building new lives in Melbourne, the asylum seekers plan to campaign
vigorously for their cause.
"West Papuan people wishes for peaceful way to solving the problem in West Papua,"
Mr Wainggai said.
Papua's indigenous Melanesian population has been decrying persecution at the
hands of the Indonesian military for 40 years.
Because of the Dutch missionaries, they are deeply religious and Christian. And the
asylum seekers believe that a divine hand guided their home-made outrigger canoe to
Australia over five treacherous days.
"We were told this journey would only take two days, so we only had petrol and food
for two days," said Fera Kambu, another of the asylum-seekers.
"But we faced huge waves, as big as houses. There was very, very hard rain. Then
one motor broke down."
Their canoe was flooded and they were starving.
In the waves, Ms Kambu said they saw "hantu laut", or ghosts of the sea - huge dark
satanic spectres whose hands seemed to be grasping their stricken boat.
At this point, all appeared lost, even as they prayed. Then one of the young boys on
board woke and told everyone of a dream. "He said the Lord Jesus was holding the
two Wainggai children," Ms Kambu said.
The seas then calmed, the motor started and they saw land. "We didn't know if it was
Merauke [in Papua] or Australia," Ms Kambu said.
It was remote Cape York.
A little over 13 hours later, they were found by customs officials.
Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.
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