Wild
West: Original inhabitants of fertile West Kalimantan lands face uphill battle
against those intent on clearing forest areas, but activists say prospect of
new president renews hope of a solution for the disputes between indigenous
peoples, companies and local governments
Jakarta Globe, Basten Gokkon, Oct 06, 2014
 |
Part of the 15,000 hectares of land originally owned by the indigenous Dayak Iban
people, which has been turned into a palm oil plantation. (JG Photo/Basten Gokkon) |
Pontianak.
For the Dayak Iban tribe of West Kalimantan’s Bengkayang district, the dense
virgin forest here near the Indonesian border with Malaysia has been the center
of life for generations.
“The
ancestral forest is rich with natural resources,” Momonus, 42, the chief of the
Dayak Iban village of Semunying Jaya tells the Jakarta Globe during a trek
through the forest.
“The
graveyards of our ancestors are there, as are our places of worship.”
Semunying
Jaya is a seven-hour drive, with no stops, from Pontianak, the provincial
capital. The nearest center of commerce, the Seluas traditional market, is two
hours away, along a dirt track with no streetlights.
So remote
is this village of some 50 households that using a satellite dish is the only
way to catch television broadcasts — and those with a cellphone get text
reminders that they are roaming on Malaysian carrier Digicom’s frequency.
Uninvited
guests
Like many
indigenous groups, the Dayak Iban didn’t traditionally subscribe to the notion
of land ownership. The forest and everything within it was there to be used,
and when the need arose they would move to another part of it.
When their
nomadic wanderings came to an end and they finally settled in what would become
Semunying Jaya village, they assumed that they would continue to have access to
the 18,000 or so hectares of forest from which they had subsisted for decades.
Limited
access to education and zero awareness of land laws meant they never thought to
formalize their claim to the land.
So it came
as a bitter shock to the Dayak Iban when its rich forests were suddenly beset
by wave upon wave of outsiders seeking to exploit it. First came Yamaker Kalbar
Jaya, a company belonging to the armed forces, which began logging the area in
1987.
Then from
1998 to 2000, the government appointed state-owned logger Perum Perhutani to
reforest the area — only to see it continue cutting down valuable trees and
sell them for timber across the border.
In 2000,
Lundu Sawmill, a Malaysian company based in Sarawak state, illegally logged
timber in Semunying Jaya, which ignited protests from the indigenous people,
who fought back by seizing two bulldozers.
Two years
later, the Indonesian company Agung Perkasa obtained a permit to develop an oil
palm plantation in the area. But by 2004 it still hadn’t planted any oil palms.
Instead, it was illegally felling trees and selling the timber in Malaysia. Its
permit was subsequently revoked and awarded to another company, Ledo Lestari, a
year later.
 |
Momonus at a landmark in the Dayak Iban’s
customary forest. (JG Photo/Basten Gokkon) |
Conflicts
If the
villagers thought that the arrival of a bona fide plantation company — a unit
of the Duta Palma Nusantara group controlled by Surya Darmadi, one of the top
150 wealthiest individuals in Indonesia — would be an improvement from the
illegal loggers, they were to be deeply disappointed.
Ledo
Lestari had a concession to develop 20,000 hectares of plantation, and duly
razed 15,000 of the Dayak Iban’s 18,000 hectares of ancestral forest to plant
oil palms. Four months after its arrival, the villagers’ rubber farms were
destroyed by the company to build a road.
The
community protested and imposed a fine against the company for violating its
traditional laws, having successfully employed the same tactic against Yamaker
back in 1987.
But Ledo didn’t
flinch, offering nothing in the way of compensation, even after the villagers
escalated their protest by seizing one of the company’s motorcycles.
“During the
protests, we received many curses and threats from the company’s hired thugs,”
Momonus says. “They threatened to kidnap us, and set bounties on our heads of
Rp 50 million to Rp 75 million [$4,100 to $6,160].”
With Ledo
showing no sign of wanting to resolve the conflict, the community seized an
excavator and eight chainsaws in an attempt to stop the forest clearance, and
invited the company manager to discuss the matter.
The
response was one they hadn’t expected: Momonus and another village elder,
Jamaludin, were arrested by the police on charges of extortion. After nine days
in jail, they were released due to lack of evidence.
“When I was
in jail, the company offered Rp 1 billion [$82,000] to each family on condition
that we all give up our land,” Momonus said.
Ledo was in
2006 refused a right of cultivation, or HGU, the final permit required of
commercial oil palm planters, because of the ongoing conflict with the local
community. It reapplied in 2011 and the process is pending. It currently
continues to operate on a plantation permit, or IUP, and land concession
permit.
Sufferings
Momonus
says the Dayak Iban community is justified in its stand against the plantation
company.
“Our land
was taken away from us without our knowing about it. Our rubber farms were
cleared without any discussion. Even our graves and sanctuaries were cleared,
almost as though our identity was being erased,” he says.
Ever since
the forest was razed, he says, the water in the rivers around the village have
become contaminated, and the villagers now resort to collecting rainwater.
There has
also been a dire social impact on the community, with unemployment rising after
villagers lost their rubber farms, and children dropping out of school to work
— some of them in Malaysia — in order to supplement the family’s income,
Momonus says.
Tensions
have also arisen as some members of the community take jobs with Ledo, giving
up their land in exchange for a house measuring four by five meters, with no
electricity or plumbing.
“What we
want is for the company to leave and to give us back our 15,000 hectares of
land. We’ve had enough,” Momonus says. “For now, what we can really fight for
is the 1,420 hectares of ancestral forest still standing because there was
already a ruling about that from the local government in 2010. We just need
help to make it happen.”
“We also
want our sufferings in Semunying Jaya village to be heard by the new
government,” he adds.
 |
The graveyard in Semunying Jaya with palm
trees planted on it without the people’s consent.
(JG Photo/Basten Gokkon) |
Overlapping
regulations
The
conflict in Semuning Jaya is one of a litany of near-identical tales of
plantation, logging or mining operations muscling in on land long inhabited by
indigenous groups. Of the 6,000 complaints of rights violations lodged with the
National Commission for Human Rights, or Komnas HAM, a fifth relate to land
disputes.
Rights
activists and the dispossessed have called on the incoming administration of
President-elect Joko Widodo to do more to resolve the disputes between
indigenous peoples, companies and local governments.
“What needs
to be done first by the new government is to issue a presidential decree
enforcing the Constitutional Court’s ruling,” says Abdon Nababan, the secretary
general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago, or AMAN.
The ruling
he refers to is a landmark 2012 verdict striking a clause from the 1999
Forestry Law and effectively handing ownership of indigenous lands from the
state to the indigenous groups themselves.
Since then,
however, the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has done
little to enforce the ruling by issuing new supporting regulations to reflect
the change.
“SBY
promised [to issue a president decree] since a year ago, but he still hasn’t
done it, even now when his term is almost up. If Joko issues the ruling, that
will be a groundbreaking step,” Abdon says.
He adds
that the new administration should also work on revising overlapping
regulations and laws related to ownership of indigenous land and the presence
of indigenous people across the archipelago.
“Overlapping
regulations let people cherry-pick which law to use to support their personal
interests. This way, the strongest party will always win,” Abdon says. “That’s
why so many indigenous people lose their cases in court because they never have
enough resources to go through the legal process.”
Hope for
new government
Land
conflicts have raged for decades, with the government continuing to hand
companies concessions to hundreds of thousands of hectares of land inhabited by
indigenous people.
The
dispossessed communities have had limited courses of redress, and conflicts
between them and the security forces, often in the pay of the concession
holders, have resulted in numerous deaths and arrests.
Sandrayati
Moniaga, a commissioner at Komnas HAM, says the new government must make a real
effort to resolve the disputes, and warns of “nationwide destruction” if the
state continues to ignore the issue.
“This has
reached a crucial point. A systematic solution is non-negotiable,” says
Sandrayati, noting that Komnas HAM recently filed a preliminary report to
Joko’s transition team about rights violations allegedly committed against
indigenous groups.
She adds
the new government can use its first year in office to compile all the cases,
and resolve them gradually over the following years.
Activists
have also praised Joko’s plan to create a national commission focusing on
Indonesia’s 70 million indigenous people, who make up roughly 29 percent of the
country’s 240 million inhabitants.
Joko and
Vice President-elect Jusuf Kalla have committed to creating an independent and
permanent national commission to work on regulations and forming institutions
that will oversee matters related to the recognition, honoring, protection and
empowerment of indigenous peoples, according to Abdon.
“The
commission can operate directly under the president’s watch,” he says.
Sandrayati
says the national commission for indigenous people, which should also have
regional chapters across the country, can provide security and certainty for
the tenure of indigenous lands, eventually providing fair solutions to all
stakeholders involved in the disputes.
“If all is
worked out well, the indigenous people’s rights will be protected and investors
can stop worrying about disputes that may disrupt their business,” she says.
Abdon adds
that businesses and indigenous people should be able to live and work alongside
one another, as long as they can find a mutually beneficial common ground,
including but not limited to drawing up a legal rental agreement between all
stakeholders protected by the state, without stripping the indigenous people of
their right to the land.
“For
instance, the companies can pay a royalty to the people for the duration of the
contract. And once the contract ends, the companies have to return the land
back to them,” he says.
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