Wednesday, December 02, 2015

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT: The Case of Land Conflict Among Suku Amungme, West Papua 2003*

By Arie Setyaningrum Pamungkas




 

(Foto: sungai Ajkwa, Timika Papua)


ABSTRACT:

This paper identified the problem of land conflict faced by the indigenous tribe (Suku Amungme) in West Papua, Indonesia. This problem caused by the recognition program offered by the Government of Indonesia (GOI) and Freeport Company in order to minimise the effect of environmental destruction caused by the gold mining in Timika, West Papua. Possible effect is questioned in this paper to ask about the indigenous rights which may involve in conducting development process. Solution are addressed to contribute some possible ideas which may apply to overcome the problem.


BACKGROUND
 The extension of development process may harm the local indigenous people because of the disputes in land-use system and environmental destruction. The damage local environment caused by inappropriate development in altering benefits from local resources. This short essay will try to identify sort of dispute in land use system as a result of land concession offered by PT Freeport Indonesia  to deal with the problem of environmental destruction.

The gold mining in Timika, West Papua has polluted ‘the Wanagon’ lake, the major river ‘Ajkwa’ and several streams surrounding, which is deadly for human life. The water was contaminated by tailings which affected the quality of Sago trees as the main resource of food for the locals. It also has impact on sedimentation along the watershed, which affected to the decreasing number of fish which was their additional food. There are various responds to this situation, but most of the locals who live nearby the gold mining saw this problem as land conflict between the locals and the government who give privilege to certain investor such as Freeport Corporation. Therefore, both of the Indonesian government and the corporation concern about the land problem as a key to find the appropriate solution which may satisfy the locals. After facing some critics, PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) offered the land concession program which is called ‘recognition program’.

Based on the concept of recognition since 1997, PT Freeport initiated to conduct recognition in order to reconcile with the locals by building new settlement for them. There are at least four tribes surrounding the mine as the target of this program: Komoro, Tipuka, Nawaripi, and Amungme. Despite the fact that most tribes surrounding the fields accepted the program, only one tribe rejected the offered program which is: ‘suku Amungme’.“But why did this tribe reject the program?” Before we try to discuss the problem, we have to take a look at the definition of indigenous and indigenous rights which related to this discussion. Then this could help us to figure out some possible causes and possible solutions for overcoming the problem.


THE DEFINITION OF INDIGENOUS AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

According to the term developed by World Bank (1991), indigenous covers indigenous, tribal, low caste and ethnic minority groups. Despite their historical and cultural differences, they often have limited capacity to participate in development process because of cultural barriers or economical and political subordination. 

Robert Knox Denton etal (Murphy is quoted) define indigenous peoples as: descendants of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other part of the world, overcame them and, by conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant colonial situation.

Meanwhile, Marcus Colchester (1995) define the indigenous rights which include 3 claims:
1.     The right to ownership and control their territories (based on Article no.11 of ILO Convention 107)
2.     The right of self determination (based on the International Covenants of Civil and Political Rights and of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
3.     The right to represent themselves through their own institutions (Article no.2 of ILO Convention 169)


In order to solve the problem of land conflict caused by the extensive production of PT Freeport Indonesia, both of the corporation and the government of Indonesia (GOI) offered a new method of concession called ‘recognition’. PT Freeport and GOI regard the concept of recognition with 2 legal assumption:
1.     Indonesian Agrarian Act (UUPA) No.5/1960, Article No.3, which stated about the state recognition to the indigenous land in term of no contrary with the national interest. This means that if the land is very valuable for the national interest it should be owned by the government for the maximum profits gained by the government.
2.     The minister of Agrarian Rules No.1/1994, Article No.29 which stated about the types of concession in land conflict between the local indigenous and the government. It applies to the practice of ‘recognition’ by building new settlement and infrastructure for the locals.


POSSIBLE CAUSE

There are three possible causes of this problem which are: the detriments for the people surrounding the fields keep occur, the maladjustment of the Amungme caused by cultural disjunction, the ambivalent of legal system (Agrarian Act) which does not guarantee the win-win solution.

According to Mardi Y Hutomo (1999), there are 3 detriment for the people surrounding the fields:
(1) Firstly, it is called “resources loss  that they can no longer obtain benefits from the natural resources. This means that there’s nothing last for them because the production still continues and the environmental destruction keep occurs. 
(2) Secondly, it is  external diseconomy” which related to the burden caused by the side effects from the pollution. Within this detriment, the Amungme can no longer rely on the available Sago along the watershed as their main food because it was contaminated by tailings. 
(3) Thirdly, it is “the lost of inter-temporary opportunity cost” which has consequence to the next generation of loosing their opportunity to gain benefits from their own land.

Most of the tribes (Nawaripi, Tipuka, and Komoro) can easily adjust to the new settlement because they have no boundaries of having a modern life.  This is because they rely on agriculture as their civilisations where the modern life found its basic form. Sociologist said that agriculture is the basic form of a modern life when people first use their simple technology to grow their crops.  

By contrast, the Amungme have a big problem with maladjustment because they have a unique custom. They believe that ‘land’ is their mother therefore they don’t want to hurt the land by building or cropping anything on it. Basically, they only rely on the river (fishing) and the watershed (collecting Sago). The Amungme live in the vessels on the river, therefore they do not want to move out from it. They have a practical beliefs which is based on the activities on the river. They taught their children how to survive and how to get mature by learning from the nature. A new settlement has caused dispute among this tribe, because some of them thought that they do not have other choice, while the others still insisted to keep their heritage. This was because they have a duty from God to save the river and His gift (Sago) along the watershed. Some Amungmes believe that if they move away from the river or from the watershed there will be a curse that they have to pay, as a consequence God will demolish their existence.

The legal system in Indonesia particularly in agrarian matter, has some limitations. It regards with the interpretation of putting priority for the national interest which sometimes ignited to the dispute between “State” and “People”. In the name of State, the government can claim the ownership of ‘open-land’ (the practice of acquisition) which originally inherited by the locals (indigenous). Sometimes it causes disappointment among the locals which may cause social unrest.


POSSIBLE EFFECT

Based on the potential conflict caused by inappropriate program such as ‘recognition’, there are two possible effect as its result. Firstly, the Amungme will become more and more fragile because of the social injustice. This results in the fact when the Amungme have been experiencing crisis for their existence because they eat contaminated food. Secondly, it may also affected some other conflict such as riots (social unrest). There are some disagreement and disputes among the Amungme themselves, due to the dilemma they have faced about maintaining their life in one side and preserving their culture and belief on the other side. As a result, sometimes war among the Amungme inevitably occurred, on the the other hand, hatred and dissatisfaction within the group who try to preserve their culture addressed to PT FI and Government keep growing.


POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

In order to overcome this problem we have to distinguish the short-term and the long-term solutions. Within short term we can identify 3 possible solutions as our priority. First, we have to consider the involvement of the locals to determine their development method by putting the cultural values as a basic consideration. The opportunity of regional autonomy should give some tasks for local government to identify the indigenous rights in their territories and protect their rights by involving them in decision making process. Secondly, there should be a legal advocacy to the people who suffered from exploitation by addressing the effort of eliminating the practice of natural destruction. Thirdly, it is close related with the second solutions by stopping the mining production for temporary, until there’s a guarantee from the company to preserve the environment.

For long period, there are three possible tasks that we have to prepare:
(1) First, we have to conduct a sustainable development which is based on local abilities to develop their own society. Sustainable development refers to sustainable use includes not just biological diversity, but also maintaining ecological functions and maintaining of natural produce which is essential to the livelihoods of local people. Developing a bio-region could be the example for this purpose. Within bio-region there are some responsibilities that should be done by the different actors. 
(2) Secondly, there should be law improvement which facilitate the people’s rights by creating the division of state, private and communal of land ownership. From the division of land ownership, we might hope that there will be no contrary in land use system for the next future. 
(3) Thirdly, there should be a new arrangement in investment by involving the awareness of preserving local environment as obligation for the investor. In this effort the ownership and the mobilisation of natural resources should be under controlled by the committee which represent the indigenous interest.


RECOMMENDATION

Learning from the previous problem where the land conflict was ignited to the riot, we have to put our priority by preventing it through appropriate concession. For some extend the ‘recognition’ project could be apply as a medium solution, but in case of Amungme we have to decide the long term effect of loosing our future. This means that the effort to save the environment should be the most priority among other solutions. We can not imagine that our next generation will loose everything, because what we already have now does not belong to us, we just borrow it from our children.

In short, stopping the mining production will initiate the whole process of preserving the environment. Nevertheless, we have to consider the practice of sustainable development as a prospect way to maintain our society without hurting the local values in the name of development. 

REFERENCES:

Anti-Slavery Society.1991. West Papua: Plunder in Paradise. London: Anti-Slavery Society.

Asian NGO Coalition.1989. People’s Participation and Environmentally Sustainable  Development. Manila: Asian NGO Coalition For Agrarian Reform and Rural Development.

Butcher, David, 1988. A Review of Land Acquisition And Resettlement Under Four World Bank Financed Project in Indonesia. Washington,D.C:World Bank.

Colchester, Martin. 1995. Indigenous People Rights and Sustainable Resource Use in South and Southeast Asia. In Indigenous Peoples of Asia, eds. Barnes, Gray, and Kingsbury.Michigan: University of Michigan.

Hutomo, Mardi Y, 1999. Rekognisi Sebagai Penyelesaian Konflik Pertanahan. (Recognition as a Land-Conflict Concession in Case of PT Freeport Indonesia). Paper presented at seminar, SEJATI Jakarta.   

Murphy, Julia. May 2001. “Studies in ethnicity and change” for teaching about Indigenous American Ethnologist. American Ethnologist Journal, Arlington; Vo.28, Iss. 2; pg.3. Flinders University Central Library. Proquest. (cited February 4, 2002).

*Paper presented at the Australian Studies Centre, The University of Melbourne 2003

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