Herman Wainggai, from Ambai Island off the coast of Yapen was fifteen in 1988 when his father appointed him to deliver food every week to his brother, Dr Thomas Wainggai, in Abepura Prison. He is one of his generation’s most effective political activists, was a political prisoner for five months in 2000 - 2001, and for two years 2002—2004, and lead forty-three West Papuans in a traditional canoe around his homeland and across the Arafura Sea to Australia in 2006. He represents the Federated Republic of West Papua in Washington and has been a Visiting Scholar at George Mason University in Virgina since 2012. Coming from a tradition of orators, craftsmen and musicians, he believes people's dignity and their culture, as well as God's laws and international secular laws are fundamental to the West Papuan self-determination project.
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