“We, the indige­nous peo­ple of Yowied Vil­lage reject cor­po­ra­tions com­ing on to our land in Tubang Dis­trict for the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

There is not so much land around Yowied Vil­lage.

Our lives are depen­dent on what our envi­ron­ment can pro­vide.

Where will the future gen­er­a­tions go?”

The sign is tied with coconut leaves, a sig­nal that it is a ‘sasih’ mark­er, a tra­di­tion­al means to for­bid pas­sage. Sim­i­lar signs can be seen in almost all vil­lages in the area. They are backed up by an agree­ment between all vil­lages in the area that no-one should give up their land, under pain of death. It’s a des­per­ate first act of defi­ance to a mod­ern world they know has no place for them. A plan­ta­tions mega-project has been imposed on Mer­auke, West Papua, and 2.5 mil­lion hectares of for­est, grass­land and swamps – the ances­tral lands of the Malind peo­ple – are being tar­get­ed for oil palm, indus­tri­al tim­ber and sug­ar cane.

For now, the nat­ur­al ecosys­tem in remote Tubang Dis­trict is still in good con­di­tion, and the Malind Woyu Mak­lew peo­ple who live in the area can eas­i­ly find all they need from the for­est by hunt­ing, gath­er­ing and fish­ing. The for­mer chief of Yowied vil­lage has claimed that he could eas­i­ly live on only $2 a month, which he would use to buy tobac­co and betel nut – every­thing else could be got from the for­est.

Through­out Mer­auke Regency in the south­ern part of West Papua, a land con­tro­ver­sial­ly annexed by Indone­sia 50 years ago, indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties are hav­ing to learn fast how to resist cor­po­rate manip­u­la­tions. In 2009 ambi­tious local politi­cians pro­posed Mer­auke as Indonesia’s new cen­tre for indus­tri­alised agri­cul­tur­al growth. This was in the after­math of the 2008 glob­al food cri­sis, when gov­ern­ments world­wide got pre­oc­cu­pied about nation­al food secu­ri­ty, prompt­ing a wave of land-grab­bing glob­al­ly. The Mer­auke Inte­grat­ed Food and Ener­gy Estate (MIFEE), as it became known, was offi­cial­ly launched three years ago in August 2010. Around 50 pro­vi­sion­al per­mits have been issued to around 20 cor­po­rate groups, most­ly from Indone­sia or South Korea.

Starvation and rebellion as the companies move in.

They claimed that MIFEE would ‘Feed Indone­sia, then feed the world’. But in the end, it brought hunger. In Zane­gi, one of the first vil­lages to be caught up in MIFEE-relat­ed devel­op­ment, five chil­dren have died in the first half of 2013 from mal­nu­tri­tion and pre­ventable dis­eases thought to be linked to pol­lu­tion. Med­co, the com­pa­ny involved, is not even pro­duc­ing food. Its indus­tri­al forestry plan­ta­tion is cur­rent­ly turn­ing the Zane­gi people’s ances­tral for­est into wood chips. These are then loaded onto ships and export­ed to Korea by Medco’s joint ven­ture part­ner LG Inter­na­tion­al, to be burnt in pow­er sta­tions or turned into fibre­board.

Zane­gi too has had to learn to resist. Vil­lagers were tricked out of their land by Med­co, who gave them a ‘Cer­tifi­cate of Appre­ci­a­tion’ and US$33,400. The peo­ple had no idea that they were sign­ing away their for­est, their means of sub­sis­tence, their iden­ti­ty. Then the com­pa­ny start­ed tak­ing away the tim­ber, giv­ing peo­ple a frac­tion of the price the logs were worth and break­ing their promise to leave intact for­est around sago groves and sacred sites. Even­tu­al­ly the peo­ple decid­ed to block the company’s access. If they heard chain­saws then they would come run­ning, and in this way they suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged to keep the com­pa­ny from oper­at­ing on their land for over a year.

Despite their resis­tance, Zane­gi has suf­fered. The for­est is gone and the vil­lage is emp­ty nowa­days as peo­ple reg­u­lar­ly aban­don the vil­lage, stay­ing in tem­po­rary camps to try to hunt the few remain­ing for­est ani­mals. Oth­ers work for the com­pa­ny, but their dai­ly pay is only enough to buy a day’s food for a fam­i­ly. Swamps are poi­soned with pes­ti­cide residues from the tree nurs­eries, fish swim errat­i­cal­ly as if drunk and then die. Peo­ple do not have enough to eat, espe­cial­ly the women who always feed their hus­bands and chil­dren before them­selves. Tra­di­tion­al beliefs in this area mean that deaths are thought to be linked to black mag­ic. This has led to a con­flict which has left sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers impris­oned, accused of killing some­one who was believed to be a sor­cer­er. Three of the men have died in prison in the last year, deaths which are also put down to black mag­ic.

The sto­ry of Zane­gi vil­lage has become well known around the Mer­auke area: it is a warn­ing of what hap­pens when vil­lagers sell their land, and that prompts peo­ple in oth­er vil­lages to hold out against the com­pa­nies. Anoth­er com­pa­ny, Rajawali, is try­ing to set up a sug­ar cane plan­ta­tion near the coast. The com­pa­ny suc­cess­ful­ly bought up land belong­ing to Domande vil­lage, but oth­er vil­lages, Ong­gari and Kaiburze, have been res­olute in their refusal to sell. This is despite intense pres­sure from the Rajawali cor­po­ra­tion, which has also been accused of ille­gal­ly felling trees on Ong­gari village’s ter­ri­to­ry.

In Domande Vil­lage, in June 2013, local peo­ple angry about unpaid tim­ber com­pen­sa­tion set up a block­ade, and some days lat­er ordered Rajawali’s log­gers to leave the area. As in Zane­gi, they had already been tricked out of their land, but were still fight­ing to get fair com­pen­sa­tion for the trees at least. Pre­vi­ous­ly the vil­lagers had tak­en action after Rajawali cleared a bur­ial ground. Liv­ing in the plan­ta­tion zone means you must be on con­stant alert to com­pa­nies over­step­ping the line.

Fear and con­flict is only ever one step behind the com­pa­ny. Back in Yowied, com­pa­ny guards work­ing for PT May­o­ra, the com­pa­ny which is try­ing to gain access to plant sug­ar-cane, accused peo­ple of being sep­a­ratist rebels, fight­ing for West Papuan inde­pen­dence. See­ing that vil­lagers were prepar­ing to run to the for­est in fear, some com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers felt forced to sign a doc­u­ment PT May­o­ra were pre­sent­ing them. In near­by Woboyu, vil­lagers were scared a dead­ly con­flict would break out after rumours spread that peo­ple from anoth­er vil­lage were col­lab­o­rat­ing with PT Astra to sur­vey cus­tom­ary land bound­aries. Both com­pa­nies are plan­ning sug­ar-cane plan­ta­tions.

Local com­mu­ni­ty activists involved in the SSUMAWOMA forum record­ed video inter­views in these two vil­lages which they then took to Mer­auke city. After dis­cussing the issue one Sun­day after­noon, about 100 peo­ple decid­ed to take action, and the next day occu­pied PT Mayora’s office in the city, demand­ing that if com­pa­nies want to pro­pose new plan­ta­tions, they approach peo­ple in a rea­son­able way, and not just show up caus­ing chaos, divi­sions, intim­i­da­tion and con­fu­sion. The local regency leader agreed to meet with rep­re­sen­ta­tives after the action and agreed to order PT May­o­ra to tem­porar­i­ly leave the land, but it is known that the com­pa­ny is still look­ing for a new strat­e­gy to con­vince vil­lagers.

The SSUMAWOMA Forum is a group that has emerged in recent months, made up most­ly of uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ates who have roots in the west­ern part of Mer­auke Regency. With the back­ing of the com­mu­ni­ties, they are artic­u­lat­ing their oppo­si­tion to all plan­ta­tion plans, at least as long as the peo­ple lack the skills or expe­ri­ence to get mean­ing­ful employ­ment with com­pa­nies, mean­ing they end up mar­gin­alised on their own land. They bring the voice of the vil­lagers to the pub­lic and gov­ern­ment, show­ing how the peo­ple have noth­ing to gain from plan­ta­tions and, at the same time, have so much to lose: their for­est, their liveli­hood, their cul­ture and their iden­ti­ty.

The Malind peo­ple are not just depen­dent on the for­est for their dai­ly needs. The for­est defines every aspect of who they are. In Malind cos­mol­o­gy mor­tal humans are the third gen­er­a­tion; the first two gen­er­a­tions of their ances­tors remain immor­tal in the envi­ron­ment around them, and the Earth is seen as moth­er. Each clan is inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to their dema or totem – a part of the ecosys­tem: Gebze with coconut, Mahuze with sago, Basik-Basik with wild pigs, Samkakai with tree kan­ga­roos. It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble for Malind peo­ple that the for­est might be gone, if it is their cul­ture becomes no more than a sad sym­bol, their sense of being torn apart.

“The Malind Anim cul­ture is not just a dance, a rit­u­al or a carv­ing. It is not a mere rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a cul­ture, dec­o­rat­ed in mud, leaves and vines” (SSUMAWOMA forum)

When Oil Palm wears a Uniform

In the east­ern part of Mer­auke is the bor­der with Papua New Guinea. The area is mil­i­tarised, under the pre­text of pro­tect­ing the bor­der zone. For decades local peo­ple have had to live with con­stant intim­i­da­tion from the troops at dozens of out­posts strung along the bor­der. Here tra­di­tion­al soci­ety has faced even more chal­lenges; many women have been raped, and sub­sis­tence becomes more dif­fi­cult when mil­i­tary per­son­nel have hunt­ed many of the for­est ani­mals.

The mil­i­tary is a source of ter­ror and trau­ma in West Papua, hav­ing waged a war on its peo­ple over the last 50 years, pro­tect­ing its own inter­ests and Indonesia’s eco­nom­ic agen­da. Shoot­ing inci­dents are com­mon, inde­pen­dence move­ments are bru­tal­ly crushed, tor­ture, impris­on­ment and ran­dom beat­ings are every­day haz­ards. Racist atti­tudes towards black-skinned Papuans pre­vail. The cli­mate of fear and resent­ment has long been estab­lished through­out Papua. Even though Mer­auke has not been a zone of intense pro-inde­pen­dence activ­i­ty recent­ly, this is why liv­ing along­side the mil­i­tary still means con­stant ten­sion.

All MIFEE com­pa­nies use the mil­i­tary (or police mobile brigade) as secu­ri­ty, adding to the pres­sure on peo­ple to hand over their land, but in this east­ern strip, near the bor­der, the mil­i­tary pres­ence is felt more strong­ly. This area has been allo­cat­ed for oil palm, with at least four cor­po­rate groups want­i­ng to devel­op big plan­ta­tions. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, the com­pa­nies have found it eas­i­er to gain access in this area, and sev­er­al are now clear­ing the for­est. Nev­er­the­less, a few clans are still resist­ing, refus­ing to sell their land, and there have been block­ades here too.

The going rate for com­pen­sat­ing indige­nous peo­ple for the anni­hi­la­tion of their world works out at about US$30 per hectare. This amount is piti­ful if it is seen as a replace­ment for the many life­times which a for­est could sus­tain, espe­cial­ly once that amount is shared out between dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies. But at the moment when the cash is hand­ed over for a few thou­sands of hectares, for the com­mu­ni­ties, as peo­ple who are des­per­ate­ly poor in terms of the mon­ey econ­o­my, it seems a huge amount In sev­er­al cas­es, this cash han­dover has been the cause of con­flict between vil­lages, clans or indi­vid­u­als, wrench­ing the com­mu­ni­ty apart.

Far away in Jakar­ta, Indonesia’s nation­al devel­op­ment mas­ter plan still tells the offi­cial sto­ry: MIFEE is a well-planned and struc­tured devel­op­ment which will pro­vide food crops such as rice, corn, soy­beans and beef for the nation. It total­ly ignores real­i­ty, which is that the land is being gob­bled up by the same oil palm, sug­ar and forestry multi­na­tion­als that have dev­as­tat­ed many of Indonesia’s oth­er islands. And as invest­ment fever spreads, oil palm com­pa­nies are also lin­ing up to estab­lish or expand their plan­ta­tions else­where in West Papua.

Indige­nous resis­tance some­times seems des­per­ate – what chance do for­est peo­ple stand against multi­na­tion­als and the mil­i­tary? But com­pa­nies remain cau­tious about enter­ing West Papua, fear­ing local anger, and many ambi­tious invest­ment plans have failed here. Stand­ing up to these com­pa­nies costs the Malind so much, but real­ly it is their only chance to sur­vive as a peo­ple, and pro­tect their land.

—-

This is the first of three essays writ­ten to give an overview of the MIFEE project, three years after it was offi­cial­ly launched on August 11 2010. The sec­ond arti­cle is a more in-depth analy­sis of how plan­ta­tion com­pa­nies have affect­ed indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties over the last three years.

The third arti­cle is a much longer analy­sis of the mis­match between the orig­i­nal plan of a food estate to “feed Indone­sia, then feed the world” and the real­i­ty: vast oil palm, sug­ar cane and indus­tri­al forestry plan­ta­tions. It also exam­ines how this food estate myth has persisted,providing legit­i­ma­cy to a nation­al devel­op­ment plan which ignores com­mu­ni­ties, and to a pol­i­cy for West Papua which is pro­mot­ing devel­op­ment while doing noth­ing to address the under­ly­ing caus­es of West Papua’s prob­lems.

List of key companies involved in MIFEE:

• Med­co (Indone­sian oil and gas com­pa­ny)
• LG Inter­na­tion­al (Kore­an TNC, best known for its elec­tron­ic prod­ucts)
• Rajawali (Indone­sian busi­ness con­glom­er­ate)
• Dae­woo Inter­na­tion­al (Part of South Kore­an Posco TNC)
• Korindo (Kore­an busi­ness con­glom­er­ate with diverse busi­ness­es in Indone­sia)
• Wilmar Inter­na­tion­al (Asian plan­ta­tion and grain trad­ing giant, and biodiesel pro­duc­er, also owns the com­pa­ny which mar­kets CSR Sug­ar in Aus­tralia)
• AMS Plan­ta­tions (The plan­ta­tion com­pa­ny belong­ing to the younger broth­er of Wilmar’s co-founder)
• Astra Agro Lestari (Indone­sian plan­ta­tions com­pa­ny, ulti­mate­ly owned by British-reg­is­tered cor­po­ra­tion Jar­dine Math­e­son)
• May­o­ra (Indone­sian food com­pa­ny)
• Chi­na Gate Agri­cul­ture Devel­op­ment (lit­tle known com­pa­ny, also South Kore­an)
• Moorim Paper (Kore­an paper com­pa­ny)
• Cen­tral Cip­ta Mur­daya (Indone­sian con­glom­er­ate – boss is in prison for pay­ing bribes for plan­ta­tion per­mits else­where but busi­ness goes on regard­less)
• Tex­ma­co (Indone­sian con­glom­er­ate focus­ing on forestry)