In January 1996 four young British scientists were taken hostage by Papuan tribesmen in the remote mountainous province of Irian Jaya. Swept up in the rebels' violent political struggle against the Indonesian military, they learned to admire and respect their captors and grew to fear the government forces that would become their only hope for survival. Daniel Start gives a personal account of the terrors of jungle captivity as well as the inhospitable beauty of the landscape and the gentle spirituality of the Papuans. "The Open Cage" is a tale of a forced journey through mountainous forests and makeshift prison camps, and of a desperate escape from captors whose peaceful nature has been turned by the forces of war to hatred and murder.