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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
President
Suharto of Indonesia and His Global Forestry Interests
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
10/24/96
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE by EE
Following
is a photocopy of an article from _The Nation_ in Bangkok
which
provides further information on the rise of South-South
colonialism;
as Indonesia and Malaysia continue to make exploitative
investments
in less developed countries. The extent
to which President
Suharto's
relatives and associates are involved in Indonesian industrial
logging
overseas is highlighted.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
Suharto's
global forestry interests
10/15/96
Article
in The Nation, Bangkok, September 9, 1996:
SUHARTO
CLAN'S GLOBAL FORESTRY INTERESTS
George
J. Aditjondro
A new
trend of South-South colonialism has emerged recently, where
southern
transnational companies are making heavy investments in more
backward
Third World countries. This observation was raised by a
spokesperson
for the World Rainforest Movement, Marcus Colchester, in an
interview
with the Sydney Morning Herald , on Saturday, August 31, 1996.
In this
article, titled "How Asia's logging companies are stripping the
world's
forests," several examples of this new trend has been mentioned,
with
Malaysian and Indonesian companies at the forefront.
The
only Indonesian company mentioned explicitly is Musa, which has a
60,700-hectare
concession in Suriname. This is actually an
understatement,
because Indonesian companies have also began to log, or
began
large timber plantations and associated wood-based industries, in
several
other countries. The brief reference to MUSA is also an
understatement,
because it omits the high-power backing which this
company
enjoys in Suriname and in Indonesia. It is, in fact, a company
owned
by President Suharto's relatives from his home village of Kemusu
in
Yogyakarta, which has branch offices in Suriname, Hong Kong, and
Singapore.
Hence,
the following cases delineate some of the (known) overseas
forestry
and/or wood-processing industries controlled or owned by the
Suharto
clan.
How military
regimes support each other
The
first Indonesian investor in Burma is PT Rante Mario, one of the
numerous
companies under the Humpuss Group, controlled by President
Suharto's
youngest son, Hutomo Mandala Putra, aka as Tommy Suharto.
Through
a joint venture with a Burmese state company, Myanmar Timber
Enterprise
(MTI), PT Rante Mario is planning to build a wood processing
industry
with an investment of US$ 75 million (Bt 1.8 billion).
In the
first five years (since 1994), this joint venture will only
produce
logs and lumber. After that, it will go into plywood production.
"Rante
Mario will become a test case in involving foreign investors in
Myanmar
in forest management," said Herry Sunardi, general director of
PT
Rante Mario to an Indonesian business magazine, Swasembada , in its
December
1994 edition (page 41).
"If
this projects succeeds, then other investors will be attracted, and
that is
when Myanmar will be a challenge to Indonesia's timber export
market,"
adds the Humpuss Group executive.
Sunardi
bases his argument on his data of Burma's excellent forestry
potentials.
According to him, from Burma's total forest of 66 million
hectares,
32.4 million consists of high-density forest.
The
Humpuss executive's data, however, contradicts some other sources.
According
to WWF data, Burma's natural environment is already worse off
than
Indonesia. As published on page 42 in the November 20, 1995 edition
of
another business journal, Warta Ekonomi , Burma has already lost
71per
cent of its natural habitat, compared with 49 per cent in the case
of
Indonesia.
Area
wise, Indonesia still has nearly 750,000 Km2 of natural habitat,
while
Burma only has nearly 226,000 Km2. So, one can say that to
conserve
Indonesia's own natural forest, President Suharto is allowing
his
beloved youngest son to destroy a friendly nation's forest.
No
wonder that Suharto so vehemently opposes any "Western interference"
in
Asean's "domestic affairs", after the Slorc's Myanmar -- not Aung San
Suu
Ky's Burma -- has been accepted as an observer in Asean.
Especially
since another son of the Indonesian ruler is also involved in
the
telecommunication industry in Burma. PT Elektrindo Nusantara, which
is 51%
owned by Bambang Trihatmojo, Suharto's second son, has followed
his
younger brother's step by investing in small telephone central units
for 256
subscribers in Rangoon, as a pilot project for a much bigger
deal
with the SLORC (Swasembada , Aug1995).
Forestry
interest in Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and China
While
his younger brother operates directly in the global forestry
sector,
Tommy's older brother, Bambang Trihatmojo, operates in this
field
more indirectly. Bambang, who himself controls his own business
empire,
the Bimantara Group, is a major shareholder in another
conglomerate,
the Barito Pacific Group. This group is led by a Sino-
Indonesian
businessman, Prajogo Pangestu. In the group's bank, Andromeda
Bank,
Bambang owns 25 per cent shares, Prajogo 50 per cent, and another
Sino-Indonesian
businessman, Henry Pribadi, also per cent.
Under
Prajogo Pangestu's leadership, Barito Pacific has ventured into
various
forestry operations in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. Two years
ago,
Barito Pacific acquired a Malaysian company, Cash (Construction and
Supplies
Houses Berhad) for M$ 1.3 billion (Bt 13 billion), to reforest
500,000
hectares of land in Sabah, East Malaysia.
Apart
from that, Prime Minister Mahathir has contracted Cash to
establish
a one million hectares timber plantation in Malaysia. To
finance
that project, the Malaysian government has issued 'timber bonds'
to be
sold on US and European stock-markets, with the full support of
Mahathir.
Apart
from Cash, Prajogo Pangestu also owns three other overseas
forestry
operations, namely Rindaya Wood Processing in Malaysia, Lombda
Pty Ltd
in Papua New Guinea, and Nantong Plywood Industry in Shanghai,
China
(Info-Bisnis, April 1994; Swasembada, December 1994: 41; Asia,
Inc., July 1995). With all these business
connections between the
Indonesian
and Malaysian elites, it is also no wonder why Mahathir is as
vehemently
opposed as Suharto against international criticism of their
countries
environmental policies.
The Musa
group in Suriname
Suharto
is indeed a very family-type person, who always wants to please
all his
family members. Not only his immediate family, but even his
relatives
in his home village of Kemusu in the province of Yogyakarta.
The
notorious Musa (Mitra Usaha Sejati Abadi), which has been mentioned
in the
SMH article, is owned by Yayasan Kemusuk Somenggalan, a family
foundation
of Suharto's relatives in his childhood village.
Musa,
which first came to Suriname in 1993, has had big ambitions in
this
country, with a large ethnic Javanese population. Despite protests
from
the Afro-Maroon people, it soon managed to obtain logging rights of
150,000-hectare
in the Apura district in West Suriname, without the
approval
of Suriname's parliament.
According
to an Indonesian independent journalist's bulletin, Suara
Independen
, Musa's investment approval was obtained after visits to
Indonesia
by Suriname's Minister for Social Affairs, Willy Soemita, who
is of
Javanese origin. A subsequent visit of Suriname's president, Mr
Venetiaan,
to Indonesia in 1994, had established a 20-years cooperation
agreement
between Indonesia and Suriname in the field of forestry.
Despite
international protests from the world rainforest movement, Musa
is said
to stand side by side with the Berjaya Group from Malaysia and
another Indonesian company, PT Suri Atlantic, in
eyeing another
concession
rights of more than 1 million hectare. The Indonesian anti-
deforestation
organisation SKEPHI has found inextricable links that Suri
Atlantic
may be coming from the same timber industry sources in
Indonesia,
as Musa did (SKEPHI press release on
Apakabar , 28 Aug 1995;
Suara
Independen, Aug 1995; Guardian Weekly,
July 21, 1996).
So,
from this case we can see, how successfully Suharto has transformed
his
international political role as head of the Non-Aligned Movement
into
financial assets for his extended family, from his children all the
way to
his relatives in his home village of Kemusuk in Yogyakarta.
###RELAYED
TEXT ENDS###
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