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Money can’t buy you love in resource-rich Papua

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) recently awarded Indonesia’s mining and plantation companies a “silver medal” for human rights violations due to their poor handling of land disputes and labor issues (The Jakarta Post, Dec

Pierre Marthinus (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, January 9, 2013

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Money can’t buy you love in resource-rich Papua

T

he National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) recently awarded Indonesia’s mining and plantation companies a “silver medal” for human rights violations due to their poor handling of land disputes and labor issues (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 12, 2012).

The “gold medal” given by Komnas HAM to the National Police persuaded the London-based risk consultancy Maplecroft, when compiling its 2013 Human Rights Atlas, to rank Indonesia in the extreme risk category for human rights violations, alongside countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan.

Resource-rich Papua, along with Kalimantan, are the best regions to scrutinize corporate practices (as well malpractice) and predatory plunder. Although Papua offers immense financial rewards and lucrative returns on business investments, companies usually need to first establish a rapport with local communities to foster cultural
sensitivities.

This easier said than done: Community engagement has been a significant source of frustration for large companies in Papua.

A few exceptional companies, such as BP Indonesia, which operates in Bintuni Bay, West Papua, have done remarkably well, while others, despite having already operated in Papua for more than decades, continue to be overwhelmed in navigating land disputes, labor strikes and contract renegotiations. Three reasons stand out in explaining corporate failures with local communities in Papua.

First, most companies still view their social responsibility mainly as a cost. Unfortunately, instead of trying to maximize their social impact, profit-oriented corporations tend to reflexively minimize and localize these costs through corporate speak, geography and cultural localization.

Corporate speak is an overemphasis on a corporation’s social contributions, a form of propaganda overkill that utilizes white-washing and media-swarming techniques along with an emphasis on corporate image over tangible social impact. Some also employ this practice to counter criticism from major international news outlets, often times labelling criticism against the company as a smear campaign.

A milder version, often employed in Papua, involves the romanticization and exaggeration of a company’s social contributions.

A company, for example, might boast of its biodiversity programs and the potential increase in land fertility accidentally caused by its tailing disposal — all the while failing to mention the local sago fields destroyed as well as the social disruption it has inflicted on nearby river-based communities.

Geographical localization is almost exclusively practiced by extractive industries claiming themselves to be “geographically embedded” — a code word for limiting company contributions only to their immediate local surroundings. Nearby construction projects of roads, bridges, or port facilities to support company operations are used to inflate the value of a firm’s social contributions that are reported back by the company to the government, the public and the investors.

Cultural localization is the latest corporate attempt to limit responsibility in Papua. Due to the concepts of adat (custom) and tanah ulayat (ancestral land), companies now want to identify who their cultural beneficiaries are. However, as noted by anthropologist Semiarto Aji Purwanto, ethno-cultural maps are fluid and not necessarily geographically bounded.

In fact, mapping such boundaries might actually bring about new forms of competition or conflict between communities that do not have a mutually exclusive notion of territorial ownership.

To make things worse, in Papua, companies often expand their operations by acquiring new plantation fields or discovering new mineral deposits without significantly readjusting the geographic and cultural demarcations of their corporate social responsibility programs in a timely manner.

Second, organized opposition that keeps corporate practices in check are often bought off, weakened or sabotaged. Companies even go as far as buying off local big men and creating new labor unions and cultural associations that are more compliant, less critical and less demanding.

Finally, companies tend to get around the time and effort needed to establish local relationships with money. Company efforts in binding local communities through formal agreements and contracts clash with the amount of haggling that local communities can muster and put forward against the company. Artificial engagement, signed contracts or even videotaped agreements will provide companies with little or no compliance from the local community. Genuine engagement, on the contrary, can mean that a Rp 200 million (US$20,830) customary fine can be settled by a hearty meal alongside a good conversation.

Avoiding the vicious circle of corporate predatory plunder, businesses need to view social responsibility as a form of reinvestment and a dividends-sharing mechanism that positions local communities as both stakeholders as well as shareholders in their business. Furthermore, the tug of war between companies, labor unions and local cultural associations is needed to let everyone know that they are in the same boat and should not be used as a pretext to throw others overboard.

A new deal from the government might be important. But one can also question the total absence of companies from peace initiatives despite the gargantuan amount of resources they command and the massive social impact they engender. This is not to imply that corporations should go into politics.

However, simply by adhering to responsible business ethics, sound corporate practices and by making a “genuine” effort at community engagement, companies can make their own worthwhile contributions toward achieving peace in Papua.

The writer is program director for the Papua Center at the University of Indonesia.

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