Outdated law destroying local cultures: Study

JAKARTA (JP): A 1979 law on village governance threatens rural communities' traditional autonomy and cultures because it makes village chiefs answer to the government instead of to the people who elect them, a study has found.

The study was conducted by the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) on the law's impact on indigenous cultures in Indonesia.

ELSAM executive director, Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, said in his report presented in a recent seminar that Law No. 5/1979 threatens the widely diverse culture of Indonesia.

"Many village officials are ignorant of local customs and they will hear only what the superiors from the higher administrative level say," Abdul Hakim said.

ELSAM assigned Rachmad Safa'at, an anthropologist from the University of Brawijaya in Malang, East Java, to conduct the study in Irian Jaya, East Nusa Tenggara, West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan.

The study found it ironic that the law states that the village chief is democratically elected by the local people, but is answerable to the district chief who inaugurated him instead of to the people that elected him.

"As a mouthpiece of the central government, they (village chiefs) often fail to defend the people's interests and thus stir up widespread discontent," Hakim said.

Leadership crises in rural areas often happens because local informal leaders are denied access to politics, decision-making and control over exploitation of natural resources, he noted.

For example, any business concern or government agency that wants to exploit natural resources in a particular area would approach the local government instead of consulting the people, Abdul Hakim said.

ELSAM considers the law an effective tool created by the government as a instrument of social engineering which has inadvertently changed the roles of traditional leaders.

"Traditional leaders only function during traditional rituals," Hakim said.

A workshop was held in Puncak last month to discuss the study's findings. It recommended that the government consider amending the law to be more responsive toward local communities' cultures.

The study found that the law is of a strong Javanese flavor, which is not always appropriate for areas with different cultures.

It recommended that village chiefs should be made accountable to the people that elect them instead of to government officials who swear them in.

The study also suggested that traditional leaders retain their traditional role, such as retaining their rights to have a bigger say in the decision-making process.

"This suggestion is not meant to resurrect traditional tribal leadership that may segregate the nation's unity, but to sustain the diversity of Indonesian cultures, by empowering rural people," Hakim said. (14)