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Indigenous Rights Seen as Key to Land Peace in Indonesia
Fidelis E. Satriastanti | December 23, 2011

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mamaku
3:22pm Dec 23, 2011

dear Mr.President R.I : should we do suicide in front of your palace to catch your attention ?

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The alleged massacre of villagers in Lampung’s Mesuji district and a host of similar land disputes elsewhere across Indonesia can be traced to a lack of recognition of indigenous people’s rights, a top official said on Thursday.

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of the presidentially appointed Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force, said the violence being seen now, such as in Mesuji where 30 people were allegedly killed to make way for a palm oil concession, was the culmination of several years of seething tensions.

“The cases we’re seeing now go back many years,” he said. “As long as we can’t clearly define the land rights of people who live near and inside forests, there will always be cases like this.”

He said there needed to be a “new way of thinking” on the issue. “We need to put out a new law on this matter. The prevailing laws date back to the 1970s,” Kuntoro said.

“Take the case of HPH [timber permits]. If we issue an HPH in Papua, for instance, what happens to the people who live among the trees? It’s the same [in Mesuji] where people’s homes are being razed just because their land has been given over to someone else. We need to find an answer to this problem.”

In the Mesuji case, human rights activists allege that 30 farmers were murdered from 2009 to 2011 as part of attempts by palm oil firm Silva Inhutani to evict them from their land.

A group of farmers visited the House of Representatives last week to present a video purporting to show several of the killings and bodies.

Police have cast doubt on the authenticity of some of the footage and claimed the real death toll was not as high as claimed.

The government has also established a fact-finding team to look into the violence, headed by Denny Indrayana, the deputy justice minister.

On Thursday, Denny said his team, already in Mesuji, had made preliminary findings into the likely cause of the conflict, but declined to go into detail.

“We have our initial suspicions and information and we’re continuing to investigate. We are also compiling evidence,” he said.

The team also met with witnesses in the case, including a farmer being treated at a local hospital for a gunshot wound reportedly sustained in the violence and another being held in police custody.

Denny said the team would speak to more witnesses today.