The long-running dispute between the Bentian people of East Kalimantan and the logging company PT Kahold Utama remains unresolved. The dispute reached a new stage when indigenous villagers from Jelmu Sibak, in Kutai district, accompanied by NGO representatives travelled to Jakarta to meet members of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM).
They appealed to the Commission to investigate their dispute which centres on the violation of traditional (adat) rights over a 1,600 hectare area of land belonging to 72 families. The crops, forest resources, including honey trees and rattan stands cultivated for generations by the Bentian have been destroyed by the company, which has been licensed to develop a timber plantation and transmigration site on the land.
Ancestral graves have also been destroyed and local water courses disrupted by the company's activities. To date, the many protests lodged by the indigenous land-owners with the authorities have met with no success. Instead, a number of protesters have been repeatedly hauled before the police for interrogation on trumped-up forgery charges. Meanwhile the logging of community forests and the destruction of precious forest resources continues.
This is the second time the Bentian have approached the Human Rights Commission. The first deputation, in January 1995, persuaded the Commission to try and get the Kalimantan Governor to intervene on behalf of the Bentian, but this achieved nothing concrete. This time Commission members said they would send a mission to Jelmu Sibak to investigate and promised that the case would be a priority.
Unfortunately, the Commission's powers to help the Bentian will be limited by the fact that the company they are up against is owned by Indonesia's timber boss, Bob Hasan, who is a close associate of the President. The Commission will be free to call for action to help the Bentian if its sympathies lie with the villagers, but whether those calls would have any impact remains to be seen. (For a brief outline of the Commission and its powers see DTE 27).
Despite all the intimidation they have suffered and despite the attempts to bribe them to stop protesting, the villagers' demands remain forthright. They want their land to be recognised and returned to them; they demand that the company be made to pay fines according to customary procedures and brought to book according to the law, that the project be moved off their land and that their adat land rights no longer be disturbed.
(Sources: Republika 15/11/95, Informasi peremapsan dan penghancuran tanah adat masyarakat Jelmu Sibak, Bentianbesar, Kutai, Kalimantan Timur, Secretariat Promotion for Community based Forest System Management. 29/11/95) (For more background to the dispute see DTE 24 and 26)
West Kalimantan villagers attack pulp project
In West Kalimantan too, indigenous people are struggling to defend their customary land against commercial interests. Early in 1995 a company called PT Nityasa Idola started clearing land for a pulpwood plantation on a 120-hectare area belonging to Dayak families in Belimbing village, Sambas district.
The land had been signed over by the government-approved Village Head and a few others the previous month. This agreement stipulated that the company should respect the local customs, respect the local people's rights and efforts, prioritise local people for employment on the project and pay attention to village needs.A ceremony, led by the Village Head, was then arranged in which ten villagers received Rp 500,000 (US $250). The traditional [adat] leader and other villagers were not involved. Soon after, the villagers were told rudely that they could no longer work on their fields as the land had been bought by PT Nityasa Idola. The Village Head threatened to send to jail villagers who trespassed.
Since then, repeated attempts by the villagers to resolve the dispute through official channels have failed. In November 1995, their anger reached flashpoint and they burnt down the company's seedling camp.
According to Lembaga Bela Banua Talino (LBBT), an NGO based in the West Kalimantan provincial capital, Pontianak, this was the third such attack against timber estate developers in the area in the past couple of years.