Dio Suhenda

The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, already one of the most influential men in government, looks intent on showing the limit of his power.

Amid an ongoing defamation lawsuit against two human rights activists, Luhut has demanded a financial audit of Greenpeace Indonesia in an apparent response to its criticism of government deforestation claims.

The former Army general has accused Greenpeace of spreading misinformation in its criticism of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, the United Kingdom, on Nov. 1.

In the speech, Jokowi said Indonesia had managed to bring the deforestation rate to a two-decade low, a claim the environmental watchdog rejected.

Greenpeace noted that according to official data, the rate of deforestation had, in fact, increased from 2011 to 2019.

Luhut questioned the credibility of the group’s statement, which he claimed was contrary to the government’s findings and data from international organizations. On Nov. 12, he threatened the watchdog with a financial audit.

A spokesperson for the coordinating minister, Jodi Mahardi, told The Jakarta Post that NGOs needed to be transparent in their organizational structure and funding details.

“Transparency is a two-way street,” he said on Tuesday, noting that the public had the right to information about the group’s sources of funding, particularly from foreign entities.

Although critics have decried Luhut’s move because of its implications for free discourse in the country, Jodi insisted that the audit would not be anti-democratic, noting that countries such as the United States also required their NGOs to disclose their sources of funding.

Greenpeace country lead Leonard Simanjuntak said at a webinar on Monday that Luhut might be overstepping his jurisdiction, given that audits had to be approved by court order.

He added that Greenpeace Indonesia already regularly published annual financial audits by an independent public accounting firm.

At the same webinar, the group’s global forest campaign lead, Kiki Taufik, noted that Greenpeace had sourced the deforestation data directly from the Environment and Forestry Ministry.

“So if he is accusing us of misinformation, then he is also accusing the government of misinformation,” he said.

Greenpeace also briefly faced a defamation lawsuit, which was quickly dropped by the petitioner to prevent speculation that the government was “anti-critique”, kompas.com reported.

It remains unclear whether Luhut’s call for an audit will stop with Greenpeace.

While it has been widely noted that the space for civil liberties has shrunk in Jokowi’s second term, activists say the recent string of civil and criminal lawsuits targeting human rights defenders and antigraft activists constitute a new low.

Read also: Democracy at stake as critics face civil, criminal lawsuits

 

Defamation charges

Prior to the Greenpeace challenge, Luhut filed a Rp 100 billion (US$7 million) lawsuit against two human rights activists – the Lokataru Foundation’s Haris Azhar and Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Fatia Maulidiyanto – for defamation. Luhut, who is a close ally of the President, said he would donate the money to Papuan causes if he won the case.

The minister accused the human rights activists of online defamation by sharing a video where they discussed allegations that the business interests of several high-ranking officials, including Luhut, had contributed to increasing military activity in Intan Jaya, Papua.

The allegations were based on a report titled Ekonomi-Politik Penempatan Militer di Papua: Kasus Intan Jaya (The political economy of military deployment in Papua: The Intan Jaya case), which was published by a coalition of civil society organizations.

Both sides have made attempts to settle the lawsuit through mediation but with little progress. Most recently, the activists’ failure to appear at a police station on Monday prompted the minister to demand that the lawsuit continue.

“There’s no need [for mediation]. We’ll see them in court. If they are wrong, they’re wrong. If I am wrong, I’m wrong,” Luhut said, as quoted by kompas.com.

On Tuesday, Fatia said in a statement that Luhut’s decision to push for the trial and his unilateral claim that the mediation had failed were arrogant.

“We believe this act is one of arrogance by a public official who does not mean to provide room for discussion nor afford respect to restorative justice,” she said.

“His narrative also gives us the sense that Luhut’s side wields the power to dictate the mediation process.”

In a separate statement, Haris’ legal counsel, Nurkholis Hidayat, said police prosecutors had been informed several days prior that one of the disputing parties would not be able to attend the meeting at the police station.

“The agreement was to mediate when it was convenient for both parties,” he said.

Haris and Fatia’s camp also said that while it might set a bad precedent for Indonesia’s democratic culture, a court hearing could have the benefit of presenting evidence of Luhut’s reported involvement in Papua, which he had never directly addressed.

“Through an open judicial mechanism, the public would be able to find out about the real situation in Papua. [Luhut] has not provided evidence on the defamation allegations either,” Kontras said in a statement released on Monday.