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Komnas HAM holds inquiry to settle land disputes

Speaking in her native Batak language, Opung Putra Lumbangaol quickly stole the attention of hundreds of people attending a public hearing held on Wednesday by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Medan

Hasyim Widhiarto and Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta/Medan, North Sumatra
Mon, September 22, 2014

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Komnas HAM holds inquiry  to settle land disputes

S

peaking in her native Batak language, Opung Putra Lumbangaol quickly stole the attention of hundreds of people attending a public hearing held on Wednesday by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Medan.

In front of four panelists '€” Komnas HAM commissioner Sandrayati Moniaga, former commissioner Eny Suprapto, National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) commissioner Saur Tumiur Situmorang and Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) forest policy professor Hariadi Kartodiharjo '€” Lumbangaol, a member of a traditional community in Pandumaan village, Humbang Hasundutan regency, shared a story about her local community'€™s ongoing struggle to take over the management of a 3,900-meter-square customary forest from pulp and paper company PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL).

The old lady said local residents used to make ends meet by harvesting kemenyan (incense) trees from the forest for the past 300 years. The villagers, according to Lumbangaol, however, were now unable to rely on the forest for their livelihoods after TPL, which in 1992 was granted a concession to manage 269,000 hectares of forest in North Sumatra for 35 years, started felling trees on the plot of customary land five years ago.

'€œWe have reported the case to the police but they never followed it up. The police, instead, only responded to TPL'€™s complaints about our activities [on the customary land],'€ Lumbangaol said, drawing long applause from the audience.

Held at Komnas HAM'€™s Medan office, the three-day public hearing, which concluded on Friday, was organized as a part of Komnas HAM'€™s national inquiry forum, a seven-month program held to gather information from indigenous communities, government institutions and companies to map out possible solutions for the country'€™s rampant customary land disputes.

  • Locals have been in an agrarian conflict with a pulp and paper company
  • Many have lost their livelihoods due to the company'€™s operations
  • Komnas HAM brokering a talk between the two sides

The public hearing in Medan was the second of its kind organized by Komnas HAM since it launched the national inquiry program in April. Earlier this month, it held the same event in Palu, Central Sulawesi

By the time it concludes the program in October, Komnas HAM is hoping to have held six public hearings in Central Sulawesi, North Sumatra, Banten, West Kalimantan, Papua and Maluku, with each of them including parties involved in prominent land disputes
in the region.  

Wednesday'€™s hearing, for example, included representatives from traditional communities in the villages of Pandumaan and Sipituhuta in North Sumatra, the Margo Semende Nasal community in Bengkulu, the Talang Mamak community in Riau, the Margo Bathin Bahar community in Jambi, the Mukim Lango community in Aceh and the Marga Belimbing community in Lampung, to share their experiences in cases against a number of companies and government institutions.

Prior to giving testimony in the hearing, representatives from traditional communities gathered in a room under the surveillance of several security officers from the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK). No authorized person was allowed to get close to the room or meet them in person.

'€œWe need to ensure these victims or witnesses feel safe and comfortable about publicly testifying against certain parties they claim are responsible for customary land disputes,'€ Komnas HAM'€™s Sandrayati said.

Agrarian reform activists say the absence of the state'€™s formal recognition of indigenous communities and their customary lands is the main reason behind the increasing number of customary land disputes in past decades.

Data from the Indigenous People'€™s Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), for example, shows that 143 customary land disputes took place throughout the country last year.

In 2012, AMAN filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court to challenge several articles in the 1999 Forestry Law that prevent indigenous people from collectively using natural resources in their customary territories, saying that they contradicted the Constitution.

Although the court finally approved the judicial review in May last year, formal recognition of indigenous communities and their customary rights cannot be immediately implemented due to the absence of formal procedure and lack of coordination among state institutions.

An official from the Forestry Ministry, Kustanto, who attended Wednesday'€™s hearing, said although the ministry had received a request from the Humbang Hasundutan regent in 2012 to remove the customary forest claimed by the Pandumaan and Sipituhuta traditional communities from the TPL'€™s concession map, it was still unable to follow up the request without the regency issuing a supporting bylaw.  

'€œThe bylaw will become our legal basis to remove the claimed customary land from TPL'€™s concession map,'€ Kustanto said.

Article 67 of the Forestry Law stipulates that the recognition of customary forests is to be carried out by regional governments via bylaws, the issuance of which is usually complicated and time-consuming due to a region'€™s political dynamics.  

Lawmakers and government representatives coordinated by the Forestry Ministry are currently deliberating the Recognition and Protection of the Rights of Indigenous People (PPHMA) bill to establish a mechanism for indigenous people to register their communities and to map their customary areas, which is in line with the court ruling that effectively restricted the state'€™s authority over customary forests. The bill, however, is unlikely to be passed into law this year since current lawmakers will conclude their five-year term in office by the end of this month.

The absence of formal procedure to settle disputes over customary land has forced businesses and indigenous communities to rely on informal agreements to prevent further conflicts.

'€œOur agreement with [the Pandumaan and Sipituhuta] indigenous communities states that both parties are not allowed to run any activity on the disputed land,'€ TPL director Juanda Panjaitan said in Wednesday'€™s hearing.

'€œWe have obeyed the agreement, but the problem is not all members of the communities are happy with it.'€

AMAN secretary-general Abdon Nababan said the government'€™s lack of initiative in settling the country'€™s customary land disputes was also triggered by a conflict of interests within the Forestry Ministry, which now handles almost all aspects of forest management, including forest production, forestry planning and forest protection and natural conservation.   

'€œHow come the state gave the leading role to settle customary land disputes to a party that took part in causing them?'€ Abdon said.

To avoid a further conflict of interests, Abdon suggested that the new administration of president-elect Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo dissolve the Forestry Ministry and split its current duties among other ministries.

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