Letter: Orangutans betrayed

After 18 months of excuses and deceit the truth is out. The Forestry Ministry and seemingly almost all of the so-called orangutan conservation and animal welfare organizations have abandoned 12 young orangutans to a life of abuse and neglect in Thailand.

It was February 2009, when Thai forestry officials raided a private zoo in Phuket and confiscated 12 orangutans stolen from their mothers and the forests of Indonesia. To kidnap the then babies, hunters (most likely palm oil employees) first had to kill all 12 mothers.

Given the legal (in theory) protection afforded orangutans, one would be forgiven for thinking Indonesian government authorities and NGO groups who profess to care about orangutans would be clamoring to have the animals brought home to Indonesia. You would be wrong.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

On Aug. 23, with NGO rehabilitation groups showing no enthusiasm for helping repatriate the orangutans, a letter was signed by Forestry Ministry official Darori telling his Thai counterparts Indonesia did not want the orangutans repatriated.

In this one letter, all 12 orangutans were sentenced to a life dressed as clowns, musicians, and kick-boxers to be paraded in front of jeering tourists in Thai zoos. Various news reports described such abuse in Thailand as “macabre”, “barbaric”, “heartbreaking” — not that this worried the Indonesian government and NGOs.

It is a traitorous act of betrayal by both the government and NGOs towards orangutans — a species one would think deserves to be held as an icon of Indonesia.

Some 60,000 orangutans have been killed in the last 35 years. If this is not genocide I don’t know what is. Compounding matters, despite this species being totally protected under Indonesian law, no person has ever been prosecuted.

What does this tell us about the President’s much lauded Orangutan Action Plan? Sadly, it looks as if the Forestry Ministry took this plan to be one of eradication, not conservation. Hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign donations have poured into Indonesia to save orangutans and their forest homes. Like the orangutans, these donors probably feel betrayed as well. It’s all about money.

Sean Whyte
England