Vita A.D. Busyra, Jakarta – Indonesia's indigenous communities have received a big boost in their effort to retake control of their ancestral lands, with the government's human rights body launching an inquiry to seek redress for past land grabs.

"The national inquiry is a way to resolve human rights issues systematically, in which indigenous peoples and representatives of the private sector will be invited to discuss and seek mediation, negotiation and solution," Sandrayati Moniaga, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, or Komnas HAM, said at the launch of the inquiry on Tuesday.

She added the move was timed to coincide with the commemoration of National Awakening day as a symbolic show of support "for a brighter future for indigenous peoples."

Sandrayati said the goal of the inquiry was regulation or policy change, as well as increased awareness among stakeholders and the establishment of the indigenous people's rights to their customary land.

The land rights issue has simmered for decades, with the government giving out concessions to hundreds of thousands of hectares of land inhabited by indigenous people to companies involved in the mining, palm oil, and pulp and paper industries.

For years the dispossessed communities have had little or no course of redress, and conflicts between them and the security forces, often in the pay of the concession holders, have resulted in dozens of deaths and arrests.

But in a landmark ruling in 2012, the Constitutional Court struck a single word from a 1999 law on forestry and land ownership, which effectively taking control of indigenous lands away from the state and putting it into the hands of indigenous groups.

However, critics say the government has been slow in complying with the spirit of the ruling by issuing new supporting regulations to reflect the change.

"The national inquiry is meant to help along the government's agenda, by delivering a comprehensive understanding of the issue, so that they can later on formulate national policies in order fulfill the human rights of the indigenous people, just as our Constitution states," Sandrayati said.

She noted that similar initiatives had been successfully implemented in other countries, including New Zealand, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Ahmad Sodiki, a former Constitutional Court justice, said the rights of indigenous people was already enshrined in the Constitution, "but practically, in many ways, other laws under it, such as the forestry law, have always found ways to deviate from the Constitution."

"The disavowal of the indigenous people's rights to their customary land and forests likely occurred when the bill on forestry was created, to disenfranchise the indigenous people of their rights," he said. He added that this included obscuring the article on indigenous people's land rights.

Sodiki said the land ownership rights of indigenous people and of the state should be clearly separated, unlike the representation in the 1999 law that was later amended by the ruling. "The government should prioritize the indigenous people's land first, then claim the rest of the forested land as the state's," he said.

Abdon Nababan, the secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago, or AMAN, urged the government to get more involved with indigenous communities, saying it had long been absent on that front.

"I should say that AMAN, Komnas HAM, environmental affiliates and other non-profit organizations have been the ones quelling [the conflicts prompted by land rights disputes]," he said.

He blasted the government for a series of legislation that he said disenfranchised indigenous people. Under those laws, he said, "two-thirds of our forest land is governed by the Forestry Ministry and the rest by the National Land Agency," or BPN.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono previously announced the need to issue new regulations specifically on the issue of indigenous people's rights, after signing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP, in September 2007.

Since then, however, no such regulation have been drafted, much less issued, and critics say the rights of indigenous people have not been fully recognized.

"This shows the unwillingness of our government to follow up on their recognition," Abdon said. "I hope that our recommendation on the issue will at least be on the main agenda of the presidential candidates. If not, they certainly don't deserve to be the future president of Indonesia."

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/rights-body-presses-indigenous-rights/