Killings in West Kalimantan due to Land Rights Issues
2/25/97
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Headline: Killings in West Kalimantan due to Land Rights
Issues
Source: Down to Earth
Date: 2/25/97
Hundreds of people have been killed following recent ethnic
unrest in West Kalimantan, according to reports from
Indonesia. Bloody clashes between the indigenous Dayak
people, migrants from Madura and the military have been
going on since early January, but little news has reached
the outside world as the whole area has been sealed off by
the Indonesian military. The present violence is merely a
symptom of discontent which has built up over many years.
Land rights issues are at the heart of this issue. Dayak
communities have become dispossessed as their traditional
forest lands are appropriated by outsiders in government-
supported resettlement, development and large-scale
commercial enterprise schemes.
ACTION
As the UK-based NGO which campaigns for ecological justice
in Indonesia, Down to Earth asks for your support to put
pressure on the Indonesian authorities to allow Indonesian
journalists, the international press and international human
rights monitors to carry out independent investigations and
report openly on the recent events in West Kalimantan. Of
equal importance is that the Indonesian government should
address the underlying long-term causes of the tension
between the indigenous people and settlers, rather than
deploying a knee-jerk military response to what it portrays
as an isolated conflict along religious or ethnic lines.
ú Write to the following people:
The President of the Republic of Indonesia, President
Suharto, Istana Merdeka, Jakarta 10110, Indonesia
The Governor of West Kalimantan Province, H. A. Aswin, Jl.
A. Yani, Pontinanak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia Tel 0062 561
36000
The Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Soesilo
Soedarman, Jl. Merdeka Barat No. 15, Jakarta 10110 Fax 0062
21 3450918
ú Pass this information to other organisations concerned
with human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples and
sustainable development so they can take action.
ú Use your contacts with the press to raise international
concern.
OTHER ACTIONS
ú The British peer, Lord Avebury has written to UK Foreign
Secretary, Malcolm Rifkin and UN Special Rapporteur on
Extra-Judicial Killings, Bacre Wali Ndiaye, to press the
Indonesian government for an international review. Contact
tapol@gn.apc.org
ú Amnesty International are issuing an Action Alert. Contact
kbrogan@amnesty.org
ú Look for further actions and information on
apc.act.indonesia or apc.reg.indonesia
BACKGROUND
There has been long-standing hostility between the
indigenous Dayak peoples and migrants. Many landless
peasants from Java and the island of Madura (SE of Java)
moved to West Kalimantan as part of a government
resettlement programme which offers free land, housing and
food aid. Open conflict between the indigenous people and
settlers first broke out in early January. An incident in
Sanggau Ledo some 100 kilometres northeast of Pontianak
triggered four days of riots. Five thousand Dayaks rampaged
through the town and attacked the villages of Merabu,
Kampung Jawa and Jirak plus four transmigration sites. In
Bengkayang , three men were shot when a crowd of Dayaks
surrounded a local military post where transmigrants were
sheltering. Around six thousand people fled to the
provincial capitals of Singkawang and Pontianak several
hundred kilometers away on the west coast. Many were
airlifted to a temporary refugee camp by the airforce.
Meanwhile the minority Dayak communities in the two cities
sought protection as settlers sought revenge. Over a
thousand troops were moved in and a curfew imposed. The
military reported on January 6th that all was quiet and
people were returning home. The clashes caused six deaths,
an estimated 8.4 million US dollars damage and the
destruction of nearly one thousand homes.
However, by the end of January the land border between
Kalimantan and Malaysia remained closed and the province was
on military alert. Security was tightened in early February
as the end of the Muslim fasting month coincided with the
Chinese New Year. The provincial capital of Pontianak
remained cut off from the interior by roadblocks and under
night curfew. The Sydey Morning Herald (6th Feb) reported
that a Catholic school and several Christian foundations
linked to the Dayaks were destroyed. This may be the same
incident reported by the Indonesian news group Pijar (10th
Feb) when masked men armed with knives attacked and burned a
Catholic dormitory in the West Kalimantan capital housing
Dayak regugees who had fled violence in their areas, and a
nearby boarding house. Two Dayak women were injured while
residents said that another person was killed but the death
has not been confirmed. Military reinforcements landed
overnight in West Kalimantan on 5th February. The Indonesian
military and civil authorities were still saying the
situation in West Kalimantan was calm and "under control",
although the Pijar report mentioned that fighting had broken
out again in other towns at that time.
Information from the area is confused since journalists have
not been permitted to leave Pontianak and a news blackout
has been imposed on the city. There are four documented
incidents of the army opening fire in which 72 Dayaks have
been killed. On 2nd February seventeen were killed when they
tried to break through an army road block at Anjungan. Five
died and twenty one were injured near Sanggau on Feb 3rd. On
the same day thirteen more Dayaks were killed near
Singkawan. The worst incident was a separate on at Anjungan
in which 37 were killed and 27 wounded when Dayaks tried to
get into the military barracks at Anjungan where Madurese
were sheltering. There are no reports of the military
shooting Madurese. There are also reports of clashes between
local tribesmen and migrants from a town in Sambas district
where at least seven houses in Tebas, north of Pontianak,
had been burned by angry Dayaks. Dayak elders in northern
Pontianak have confirmed that two Dayak men have been killed
in recent days, including the victim whose return to Tebas
sparked the new clashes. BBC correspondent Jonathon Head
reported (11th Feb) from an area "that looked like a war
zone" where soldiers, including Indonesia's elite combat
regiment, were everywhere and houses were daubed with the
ethnic origin of their owners in an attempt to prevent
attack from Dayaks or settlers.
The Guardian (13th Feb) reports that hundreds have been
killed in West Kalimantan in the past two weeks. Government
sources admit that as many as three hundred may have died,
but refute reports in the international press of thousands
of killings (19th Feb). Local people say the death toll is
much higher than official figures admit and that local
hospitals are full of casualities, although access to these
is denied. Some Dayaks say this is to cover up killings by
the military. The atmosphere in the province is now very
tense as curfews are still in place in Potianak and other
urban centres and there are military patrols on the streets.
Army Chief of Staff General Hartono said on Feb 14th that
the situation was secure and that hundreds of weapons had
been confiscated from the public. Members of the National
Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, are making their second
visit to Pontianak in the past fortnight. Komnas HAM General
Secretary Baharuddin Lopa refused to comment on reports that
there had been 2000 deaths in the fighting since the New
Year. Komnas HAM are also under pressure from the local
governor and military to act as a mediator between the two
communities. While community leaders are apparently prepared
to discuss peace, the disturbances were apparently spreading
eastwards (13th Feb) and there were rumours that tens of
thousands of Dayaks throughout Kalimantan and across the
border in Sarawak were preparing for confrontation (KdP 14th
Feb).
Initially the Indonesian authorities tried to represent the
violence in West Kalimantan as a conflict between two hot-
headed ethnic groups in frontier country. It is normal for
Madurese men (popularly believed to be quick to take
offence) to carry knives, while accounts of Dayaks
make much of their former reputation as headhunters.
Reports also played on religious differences between these
communities: the settlers from Java and Madura are largely
Muslim in contrast to the predominantly Christian Dayaks.
The Indonesian press (which closely reflects government
views for fear of closure) has reported the troubles as yet
another example of the social unrest which has caused
deaths, destruction of property and the burning of churches
in several urban centres on Java. These are attributed to
tensions between Muslims and the largely Christian ethnic
Chinese business community. Local Muslim leaders in West
Kalimantan issued a statement (13th Feb) denying religious
factors were the driving force behind recent events.
These simplistic explanations ignore the history of ethnic
conflict in this area and deliberately play down the
transmigration angle. Waves of immigration over the
centuries, have brought Chinese, Indians, and Malay peoples
to the region attracted by the mineral wealth and trading
opportunities. This and the government's programme to
resettle people from densely populated Java and Bali to the
outer islands has resulted in the Dayak community making up
only 40% of the population in Kalimantan. Figures given by
the World Bank in a 1988 report showed that Sambas district
has by far the largest influx of transmigrants of the West
Kalimantan districts. As long ago as 1980 over 90,000
people, or over 15% of the total population of around
600,000, were government sponsored transmigrants. This
compared to a national average in receiving areas of 3.4%.
The underlying problems are those of the land rights of
indigenous people and the destruction of tropical
rainforests. The Dayaks' traditional lifestyle depends on
the sustainable use of forests for food, medicines and other
basic needs. The rainforest is the basis of their culture
and, though nominally Christian, animist beliefs and
practices are still important to many Dayaks. The Indonesian
government includes the Dayaks, with all other indigenous
tribal people in the archipelago, as `backward' and in need
of `development'. As all Indonesian forests are regarded as
state land, forest dwellers' customary rights to the land
and forest resources are ignored because there is no
documentation of legal ownership. With the loss of the
forest, many Dayaks now make a living as subsistance
farmers. At best, when new projects move in, token
compensation is paid for crops destroyed in land clearance
and indigenous families are expected to live with
transmigrants on the sites.
All over Indonesia, indigenous people have been marginalised
as the regime parcels out Indonesia's natural resources for
exploitation. Transmigration, logging, mining and
agribusiness projects serve powerful business and military
interests close to Suharto's family rather than the needs of
local communities. In West Kalimantan 75 forest concessions
have been granted covering nearly three-quarters of the
province. The cleared land is turned over to plantations for
the paper pulp and palm-oil industries. At least three
state-owned companies have set up huge plantations and 14
private companies have agri-business ventures in West
Kalimantan. One of these is the massive Finnanatara Intiga
paper pulp factory and timber plantation in Sanggau - a
joint venture between the state-owned forestry company
Inhutani III, leading tobacco manufacturer PT Gadang Garam
and Finnish forestry giant the Enso Group.
The role of the military in recent events in West Kalimantan
deserves further examination. It would appear that they did
little to stop the initial unrest in January from getting
out of hand. Similarly in the past two weeks attacks and
reprisals by Dayaks and settlers on whichever community is
in the minority in a particular locality have continued. It
is unlikely that the authorities were genuinely unprepared.
It is also unlikely that fear of public and international
outcry over another case of military repression and rutality
particularly so close to the forthcoming elections in late
May would have restrained their actions since West
Kalimantan is such a long way from Jakarta and a virtual
newsblackout had been imposed. It seems more likely that the
military are seeking to exploit the unrest in order to
strengthen their position within the Indonesian regime when
they eventually `restore order to this lawless area'. If
members of the ethnic Chinese community are intimidated and
their businesses ruined in the conflict, as in the recent
violence in other parts of Indonesia, this will pander to
the anti-Chinese sentiment prevalent in many factions of the
government.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Tapol Bulletin No.139 February 1997
Down to Earth No. 32 February 1997
`Ethnic Clashes kill hundreds in Borneo', The Guardian, p15,
13th February 1997
The Economist this week should have an article
Far East Economic Review 20th Feb ditto