Tribal communities cry out for justice

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Agrarian Affairs Hasan Basri Durin was probably not ready to be a target of people's anger but he managed to stay calm during the first congress of Indigenous people held here recently.

The minister, along with several government officials, was forced to listen to the demands of these oppressed people, victims of many government projects since the country's independence 54 years ago.

More than 200 chiefs and prominent members of tribal communities across the country gathered at the five-day meeting held at Hotel Indonesia last month.

A foreign visitor who was quite surprised to encounter hundreds of indigenous people at a five-star hotel in the capital city of Jakarta, commented: "It's like a parade. But this is a rare chance for us to meet them. This is the real Indonesia."

The meeting looked like a gathering anywhere, except for the enchanting and colorful traditional dress the participants wore.

Wearing a red loincloth, Tengkanai Neratai, chief of the Kubu (Orang Rimba, forest people) tribe in Jambi, South Sumatra, boldly shouted at the minister, expressing his people's agony.

"We are suffering because our lands and forests have vanished," declared the Kubu chief.

Their previous ancestral territory, covering between 300,000 hectares and 400,000 hectares of forest area along the Batanghari river, is now reduced to only one-tenth of its original size.

Their habitat, now occupied by almost 4,000 people, was seized by the government to make way for numerous development projects such as forest concession and agriculture and transmigration sites.

"The government never asked permission to use our priceless domain. We are the rightful custodians of our own lands but they keep ignoring our existence and welfare," protested the tribal chief.

JP Rahail, chief of the Ohoi Wut in Southeast Maluku, conveyed his discontent over the government's rural development projects which caused serious problems for his people.

"We have been through ungrateful times. All government policies were aimed at cheating and impoverishing my people," Rahail condemned.

The Ohoi Wut's traditional system, including social and cultural codes, were coercively adjusted to "modern" values.

"We were forced to give up our lands. Now, we demand that the minister return our property," Rahail told Minister Hasan Basri Durin, who looked pale and was rendered speechless.

These two cases were just part of countless problems faced by indigenous or tribal people across the country's 27 provinces.

The meeting, supported by 13 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), has been one of the major attempts to bring together the country's indigenous people to voice their opinions and their demands for the sake of their well-being.

Senior sociologist Selo Sumardjan said that the native people have been extremely patient for a long time. "Let them express their rights and needs," he said.

He said many government policies were inappropriately applied to these people without any effort to understand their actual needs.

"The government can no longer ignore or suppress issues and concerns of the indigenous groups. They are an integral part of the national and international political agenda," he warned.

Issues on indigenous people initially appeared as a main agenda in an international conference on human rights in Vienna, Austria, in June l993.

That year, the United Nations declared l993 international year for the world's indigenous people. The declaration was intended to enforce the commitment and collaboration of the world's governments and related parties to seek solutions to problems faced by native populations in all parts of the world.

Fueled by the struggles of their counterparts around the world, Indonesia's indigenous people continue to seek justice and demand that their claims to the land and resources be returned to them.

The subject of most debates was the government's excessive power over their lives in the name of development programs.

The programs were direct violations of customary tenure rights to the extent that they were coercive, although their aim was supposedly to strengthen and modernize traditional and social systems and productions.

Sandra Moniaga, chairwoman of the organizing committee, admitted that there will be a long way to go for the indigenous people to fully achieve their dreams: entitlement to their lands, self-determination and self-management over their natural and cultural resources.

"The meeting has, at least, opened the door for them to obtain acknowledgement of their rights," she said.

The other thing the meeting showed was that it was possible for scholars, politicians, government officials and related parties to engage in thoughtful public discussion of emotional subjects and make genuine efforts to find solutions.

That might be the real gift of these indigenous people: to be heard and to be respected by the people and the government of Indonesia. (raw)