Although we have celebrated 65 years of Indonesia’s independence, and commemorated 62 years of human rights worldwide, human rights violations against communities still occur in Indonesia. Human rights violations are often carried out against a majority group of people in Indonesia: farmers.
The problem is how to define human rights. To address this, the General Assembly of the United Nations produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
The UDHR says there are two aspects of human rights: (1) civil and political rights; (2) social economic and cultural rights. These aspects are complementary, in that if one of the two aspects is violated
then a human rights violation has occurred.
Referring to the two concepts above, the government has indeed failed in ensuring the basic rights
of Indonesian people, especially farmers.
In fact, there are many government policies that violate both farmers’ economic rights and civil rights.
In Indonesia, the number of workers who work in the agricultural sector according Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data is 46.7 million people (or about 44 percent of the total labor force in Indonesia).
Of these, more than half are landless farmers or farm workers who own less than 0.5 hectares of land.
The numbers above are the largest among all other sectors. If we say that the average farmer has two family members, it can be assumed there are more than 120 million Indonesians whose livelihoods depend on the agriculture sector.
Ironically, the quality of life of farmers, who produce Indonesia’s food, is still far below the standard. Groups of small farmers are groups that are highly vulnerable to food insecurity problems.
In other words, the state is unable to protect the welfare of family farmers as the majority group in this country. They are always threatened by regulations that disadvantage them.
“The question must be, how can Indonesia escape from the poverty trap if the sector that is its backbone is not supported.”
Some cases have shown land seizures by a company facilitated by state regulations. Plantation Law No. 18/2004 caused agrarian conflict among the Silat Hulu Tribe in Bantan Sari village, West Kalimantan.
From April 2008 to September 2009 PT Bangun Nusa Mandiri (BNM) allegedly grabbed 350 hectares from the Silat Hulu community to develop plantations. The community demanded the return of the lands seized by the company, whose actions were legal under the Plantation Act.
The latest case was a farmer shooting case in Jambi. Several farmers from the Union of Peasant farmers (RPM) were shot — one was killed and another seriously injured. This case is just one on a long list of land conflicts involving PT Wirakarya Sakti, which has seized 7.224 hectares of farmers’ land.
Ironically, the shots were fired not by PT Wirakarya Way staff, but by rogue police officers from the Jambi Police Mobile Brigade unit.
On the other hand, the quality of life of farmers is still very far from prosperous.
The BPS noted that of a total 65,554 villages in Indonesia, 51,000 were underdeveloped, and 20,633 were classified poor.
The expansion of food imports also threatens farming. The price of rice has been handed over to market mechanisms that benefit consumers, especially through the opening of free trade mechanisms between Indonesia and other countries such as China, America and ASEAN.
This is compounded by the structure of food markets in Indonesia. The game of ijon and tengkulak harm farmers at the grassroots level. Farming is no longer promising, and neither is the projection that urbanization will reach 68 percent by 2025.
The government should have realized that the policies and actions of the government institutes have violated the fundamental rights of the majority groups in this country. The return of their basic rights
is a necessity that must be fulfilled by the government as soon as possible.
The return of rights to land and capital needs to be done under an agrarian reform. There have been more than 1,500 land dispute cases in Indonesia since 2005.
Most disputes have been between people and companies or countries. If the condition remains thus, the question must be, how can Indonesia escape from the poverty trap if the sector that is its backbone is not supported, and is merely handed over to big businessmen.
The government promised to provide about 8.15 million hectares of land area to be shared with the government from 2007 to 2014, but the concept of agrarian reform was established 50 years ago under the 1960 Agrarian Law. As of today, this concept has still not been implemented.
In addition, the government also should review all regulations that potentially deprive the basic rights of farmers. Some of these laws include the Plantation Law, the Law on the Utilization and Management Rights on Coastal Region, the Germplasm Law and the Mineral and Coal Law.
Unfortunately, the mechanism in the Constitutional Court is still filled with confusion surrounding the preparation of decision-making. The Court does not have a standard by which cases should be prioritized to ensure a speedy verdict. Or in other words, this has become too political.
For example, the court remains undecided on the law on the management and use of coastal areas, which was filed for a judicial review in January.
But the most important thing of all is the return of the power of the state in protecting society. The country was established to protect the entire community, and not just a handful of actors who have resources. Right?
If the state allows or is involved in human rights violations against the people, the purpose of the state can be said to be a failure.
The writer is a member of the Indonesian Political Economy Association (AEPI) and now works as a researcher at the Alliance for Prosperous Villages (ADS).
