Locals get a nasty surprise when they see what modern mining does to their land. JEFF ATKINSON attended a conference about it.
In December last year, environmental activists from all over Indonesia gathered in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, to discuss how to combat the negative social and environmental impacts of mining.
Indonesia is one of the most mineral rich areas on the face of the planet, and mining companies from around the world are showing an increasing interest. But increased activity is also increasing problems for communities in mining areas. No more so than around the Freeport gold and copper mine in Irian Jaya, where the conflict has led to loss of life.
While Freeport represents an extreme case, conflict between mining companies and landowners is on the increase in all the mining areas of Indonesia, including Kalimantan.
The first
The Banjarmasin gathering was the first ever NGO advocacy and networking workshop on mining. Organised by the environmental umbrella group WALHI (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia), it brought together more than 50 representatives from non-government organisations (NGOs) all over Indonesia. There were also several groups of affected landowners, including two people from Freeport.
The workshop heard a common story from the communities, of rivers polluted by mine wastes, run-off and chemicals, of fish, crabs and aquatic life dying, domestic animals and people becoming sick, land being taken for mining without proper compensation, and of traditional mining (panning) being made impossible by silt in the rivers and streams.
Australia
Three groups of landowners from different parts of Kalimantan gave presentations at the workshop. In every case the mining company causing the problems was Australian. One was PT Indo Muro Kencana, a gold mining company 90 percent owned by the Perth-based Aurora Gold Ltd. Another was PT Kelian Equitorial Mining, owned by CRA; and the third was PT Adaro of whom the majority partner and operator is the Brisbane based New Hope Ltd.
The largest coal mine in Indonesia, Kaltim Prima in East Kalimantan, and the second largest gold mine in the country, Kelian, are both operated by Australia's CRA. Recent amalgamation with RTZ, now a shareholder in the Freeport mine, gave CRA an interest in that mine as well.
Of the ten coal mines in Kalimantan, six are operated by Australian companies, including three by BHP. Australian companies are mining for gold in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, South Sumatra and Sumbawa, for diamonds in South Sulawesi and for tin on Banka Island. And they are exploring for new deposits all over the country.
Network
The Banjarmasin workshop resolved to establish an NGO Mining Advocacy Network in Indonesia. This will enable NGOs to assist affected landowners more effectively, and will work to minimise or prevent the negative impacts of mining operations.
While not part of the Indonesian network, environment and development organisations in other countries including Australia were seen to play an important supporting role. For Australian NGOs, one obvious function is to be a source of information about Australian companies operating in Indonesia. Several groups, including Community Aid Abroad, have already taken up this role.
Two clear issues emerged from the workshop. First, given that so many of the people affected by mining, particularly in Kalimantan and Irian Jaya, are minority indigenous communities with traditional land rights, there is a need to re-assert those rights and the traditional laws upon which they are based.
Second, participants expressed a need to re-assert the importance of the small scale mining many communities in mining areas traditionally engage in. This is a more equitable form of resource exploitation, in which benefits go directly to the local community rather than to a company or the government.
Awe inspiring
On the final day of the workshop, participants travelled by bus into the interior of Kalimantan to visit an Australian operated open-cut coal mine, at Paringin near Tanjung. The huge open-cut pit was an awe inspiring sight, as were the artificial hills created by the dumping of overburden and waste rock. Currently bare, these were to be eventually planted with commercial timber.
In the pit itself, giant mechanical shovels tore away at the coal and dumped huge loads onto the backs of trucks to be carted away to the coast and loaded onto ships bound for Japan and other parts of Asia.
Frightening
After touring the mine site and talking to the managers, the bus load of workshop participants headed back for Banjarmasin. One young man, a farmer from another part of Kalimantan where a company is looking for coal, was asked what he thought of the mine. 'Frightening', he replied. Neither he nor anyone else from his area had ever seen a coal mine before. Its size, and the extent of the damage caused were a frightening surprise to him.
The company exploring his area had told people they were simply going to 'take the coal out of the ground, and then give the land back'. For this they would be handsomely compensated. They had no idea their land was going to be dug up and altered forever like that.
During the visit, he had been busy photographing everything. Now he was going to bring some nasty revelations about open-cut mining to the people back home.
Jeff Atkinson is National Research Co-ordinator with Community Aid Abroad, based in Melbourne.
Inside Indonesia 47: Jul-Sep 1996
Death of a consort, end of a dynasty?
JULIA SURYAKUSUMA reflects on the passing of Mrs Suharto
The recent death of Mrs Tien Suharto (28 April) can be likened to the demise of the consort of a reigning monarch, bringing disruption and uncertainty. From clairvoyants to seasoned political analysts alike, many see this as the beginning of the end of the rule of Suharto - now in his sixth term - which has lasted for almost 30 years, the longest of any modern national leader. The sheer length of his rule has led people to refer to it as a 'dynasty'.
Rumours of Suharto's resignation - or downfall - have been circulating and speculated on for a long time. But now the prospect becomes more imminent. Personally, for Suharto, the death of Mrs Tien is like 'losing half his soul'. However, in terms of the power, legitimacy, cohesion, stability, balance and continuity of the President's rule and the New Order regime, the implications are even greater.
Royalty
Suharto derives his power and legitimacy from both 'people power' as well as royalty. He constantly prides himself on his lower class rural origins, as being an anak desa (village boy). To this day he regularly has televised audiences with village people. However, his marriage to R. A. Siti Hartinah, his 'closest companion and loyal helpmate', who stems from the Mangkunegaran court in Surakarta, Central Java, provides him with another kind of legitimacy and mystical power needed to consolidate his rule, which can only be derived from nobility.
In political matters, it was commonly understood that Mrs Tien was also Suharto's most loyal aide, as well as his closest and most influential advisor. Mrs Tien has been known to express preferences as well as dislikes toward certain cabinet ministers, often connected with their personal lives. Throughout Suharto's rule, in almost all of his public appearances, she was at his side. It is difficult to imagine him without her.
Family principle
Social cohesion in the New Order is attained using a mix of coercion and consensus, by military, political, economic, ideological and cultural means. One is through the much-touted 'family principle': the state as family, with Suharto as the head of the state-cum-family. In the New Order paternalism, Suharto is often referred to as bapak (father) Harto and his wife,ibu (mother) Tien.
If Suharto is the Sun, the source of all power, Tien was the Moon, who reflected that power, and who also provided balance and stability. In many instances, the family principle has been criticised as justifying the practice of nepotism and cliquism, giving special favours to their children, friends and relatives, who dominate the Indonesian business world with their conglomerates and monopolies.
Harmony and balance are mainstays of Javanese life. Mrs Tien also provided these in the New Order. She was known for her involvement - as founder, patron, or head - of many social organisations and charitable foundations. This served the purpose of giving a balance - albeit merely pseudo - to the heavily economistic development strategy of the New Order regime, as well as to the business activities of her children. True that Indonesian development has raised living standards, but it has also widened the gap between rich and poor.
Sexual politics
Ibu Tien also epitomises and personifies sexual politics in Indonesia. Her unquestioning loyalty and unstinting support of Suharto - as husband as well as head of state - and her desire to be part of him rather than being herself, serves as the ideal model of Indonesian womanhood. The resulting ideology - in academic circles known by the term 'State Ibuism' - is a mish- mash of Javanese aristocratic-feudalistic, Dutch petit-bourgeois, as well as military-hierarchical values.
State Ibuism is institutionalised in Dharma Wanita, the compulsory civil servants wives' association, which disseminates the ideology through the Family Welfare Movement, an integral part of the government apparatus at the village level. Apart from the inappropriateness of many aspects of Dharma Wanita ideology to most poor women's lives, it also serves the purpose of control.
This is the reality of bedroom politics in Indonesia, which pervades the entire bureaucratic structure. The performance of a wife in Dharma Wanita can heavily affect her husband's career. Thus on the one hand, a wife is secondary to her husband, yet on the other, has the power to control and influence his career in the bureaucracy.
Icon
The death of Mrs Tien Suharto means the disappearance of one of the icons of the New Order. An icon that was never given much consideration, yet it was much like a part of the landscape one takes so much for granted - noticed only when it is gone. There is a remarkable oversight by conventional political analysis - whether journalistic or academic - which tends to look mainly at the male actors in formal politics. In fact, the informal role of women, especially as wives - traditionally as well as in modern-day politics - is crucial.
Now, after his lifelong companion and advisor - wife for 49 years and First Lady for 28 years - has gone, is Suharto still in a position to run for another term? A trader in Jakarta remarked, 'losing the First Lady is like losing your mother, who holds the household together', while a bus driver made the observation, 'Pak Harto couldn't have led the country alone and kept the nation stable for such a long time'.
In the ensuing instability after Tien's death, the fear of instability alone is enough to cause state and society alike to act in unpredictably destructive ways.
Julia Suryakusuma is a free-lance columnist, and currently visiting research scholar at the Centre for South East Asian Studies at Kyoto University.
Inside Indonesia 47: Jul-Sep 1996
Grassroots democracy
Philip J. Eldridge, Non-Government Organisations and Democratic Participation in Indonesia, Oxford University Press, 1995. xxii, 260pp, photos. RRP AU$54.95.
Reviewed by Ron Witton
When government is as authoritarian and all pervasive as in Indonesia, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important role. They communicate to the government the views of ordinary people by mobilising them to act in their own interests. For anyone who has had contact with action for village development, human rights or the environment in Indonesia, the central role played by NGOs is clear. Less clear, however, has been the origins of many of these groups, how they interrelate, and the dimensions of conflict that periodically arise between them. Philip Eldridge has done a masterful job in providing this crucial information.
Networking
He outlines the origins and continuing concerns of central NGOs such as those in legal aid (e.g. YLBHI), the environment (e.g. WALHI), women (e.g. Yasanti), rural development (e.g. LPSM) and consumers (e.g. YLKI). In addition, he traces the rise of networking and coalition building (such as INGI) and examines the tensions within them.
Through selected case studies, such as that of the struggles over the Kedung Ombo dam, he shows how ordinary people work to counter the massive power of the Indonesian state, and the role played in this by NGOs. He also examines ideological conflicts between intellectuals such as George Aditjondro and Arief Budiman over whether NGO-Government co-operation represents a potential for democratisation of the state, or merely the co-option of people's organisations by that state.
Big NGOs
Of particular interest is his analysis of the strong pesantren (Islamic schools) movement, which addresses local development issues. A contradiction exists between the authoritarian structures of such institutions and the democratic, people-centred goals they pursue. Similarly, he examines the concerns of many within the NGO movement that the BINGOs ('Big NGOs') have managed to commandeer both the leadership of the movement within Indonesia as well as the channels of communication to, and funding from, international aid organisations.
His conclusions provide much food for thought. To what extent can NGOs grow and still remain close to their 'grassroots' partners? To what extent is the democratic struggle in the political arena central to the development process? To what extent does it represent a diversion of NGO energies and a subversion of their original aims? These questions are of continuing concern to Indonesians involved in NGOs.
Non-Indonesians are well advised to acquaint themselves with the dimensions of this debate before venturing into the field to make contact with this very active area of Indonesian social involvement. Reading this book would be a good start.
Dr Ron Witton lectures at the University of Western Sydney.
Inside Indonesia 47: Jul-Sep 1996
Asmara Nababan: 'Human rights belong to us'.
Asmara Nababan is the executive secretary of INFID in Jakarta. Since he is also a member of the National Human Rights Commission, we asked him to assess both. For Asmara, the link is human rights.
What is the role of INFID?
INFID is a forum for a wide range of NGOs in Indonesia, with a wide range of backgrounds, interests and functions, from all parts of Indonesia, from Aceh to Irian Jaya. It also groups NGOs with different religious backgrounds - some have Islamic, Catholic and Protestant backgrounds. It is a meeting place where NGOs can discuss the problems they face in Indonesia.
What have INFID and its predecessor INGI been able to achieve?
I don't have a simple answer to that. But at the very least it has been able to bring all NGOs onto one platform. In itself this is strategically important in Indonesia, where the differences between NGOs have been great, and where there has been little history of working together.
Arief Budiman spoke earlier in the conference about the need for NGOs to develop a common ideology. Do you agree?
I think by working together to face obstacles, by joining in the same process, we can come to a common understanding. In three fields- democratisation, equity, and sustainability - all the participants in INFID already have a common understanding. All the NGOs in INFID support these core positions.
How has the composition of INFID changed over the years?
In the early years, only the biggest NGOs participated, but recently many smaller and local NGOs have begun to participate directly. There are also regional networks of NGOs which participate, including networks from Aceh, Yogyakarta, and North Sumatra. Each of these represent between fifty and one hundred NGOs. So if we say that around forty NGOs participate in INFID, in fact that is an underestimate, there are far more than that. We have seen an expansion of the social base of this network.
How do you see the interaction been Australian and Indonesian NGOs?
Frankly speaking, most such cooperation is in the development field. This is not wrong of course, but we hope in the future that Australian NGOs will be more active in human rights, in advocacy and democratisation issues. This is because, quite apart from our criticisms and disappointment with the development process in Indonesia, people no longer die from hunger in Indonesia. It's not like Somalia or similar countries. The main problems we face now are not economic, but matters like basic human rights, the right to participate, the right of people to be recognised as human beings.
Why did INFID choose the land issue as the theme of this year's conference?
Land disputes are increasing from year to year. Especially in Java, economic growth has dramatically increased pressure on land. They need land for, you name it, roads, industrial plants and so on. And yet, the legal infrastructure is too weak to protect the people who are simply ousted from their land.
In the past, people used to just accept this. They used to have an attitude of 'well, what can we do?' But over the last five years, people no longer want to just accept it anymore. There is a new awareness among the people that they have the right to fight for their own rights, for their land.
You are a member of the National Human Rights Commission. People say it has more independence than was initially expected. How can the Commission influence the Indonesian government on human rights?
First of all, relations between the Commission and NGOs have improved greatly. In the Commission's first year, many of its members were cynical about NGOs. They had stereotyped perceptions of NGOs, similar to those of the government. They were reluctant to cooperate with NGOs. Over the last year, a new understanding has emerged in most members about the function of NGOs. Most recognise the need to cooperate with the NGO community.
Now on the role of the Commission regarding the government. From the start I did not expect too much from the government. Rather, I see the main role of the Commission right now is to promote understanding of human rights in the public. Our statements appear every day in the newspapers. They are bringing about a kind of legitimation of the issue of human rights.
Our work shows the public that human rights belong to us, that they are not an alien concept. Five years ago, if a group raised the human rights issue they were accused of spreading 'Western' ideas and subversion. Now it is legitimate to discuss human rights. This is a major step forward, a real change. Now you hardly even find any generals or ministers who will say that human rights are an alien or Western concept.
Of course, because of our limited mandate, we must cooperate with the government. We can't confront the government. The Commission is too weak, in terms of our legal basis, our capacity and so on. So we take a cooperative approach. But this does not mean that we don't criticise them.
Inside Indonesia 47: Jul-Sep 1996
Soul painting
A book that testifies to the burgeoning of the arts in Indonesia over the last thirty years.
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Satya Wacana University: an expensive lesson
Many foreigners have learned Indonesian on the green campus of Satya Wacana University in Salatiga, Central Java. Since 1993 it has been in the news for a different reason. BUDI KURNIAWAN reports that serious conflicts between the campus community and the university board have reduced the prestigious campus to a shadow of its former self.
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The army's single function
Wing Commander Ian MacFarling has produced a well-researched book on the often misunderstood 'dual function' of Abri, the Indonesian Armed Forces.
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Punks, rastas and headbangers: Bali's Generation X
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Diany Sinung: from poverty to painting
GLORIA FRYDMAN talks with successful artist Diany Sinung about her favourite subject, other women.
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Information revolution
Satellite TV and the Internet are opening Indonesia to the globe. MARK CRAWFORD asks: Will this mean less mind control by the state?
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More than six decades after being inspired as an undergraduate in Sydney, Ron Witton retraces his Indonesian language teacher's journey back to Suriname