BLOODY PALM OIL PLANTATION IN INDONESIA

BLOODY PALM OIL PLANTATION IN INDONESIA

Photo: BBC

Investigations carried out by the BBC, The Gecko Project and Mongabay found that communities could potentially lose trillions of rupiah each year, as palm oil companies fail to fulfill their obligations to develop plasma, as mandated by law.

The Suku Anak Dalam (SAD) or Orang Rimba in Tebing Tinggi Village, South Sumatra, admitted to handing over their land to a palm oil company in 1995, which they said promised future prosperity.

After three generations, their land had been turned into oil palm plantations, but the Orang Rimba went through prison and poverty. This is just one of more than a hundred conflicts over oil palm plantations in the last ten years related to plasma - a system that was originally aimed at building prosperity and establishing self-reliance in local communities.

The Orang Rimba Tebing Tinggi have now dispersed, and some of them live in other people's gardens with huts made of wood and tarpaulin. This land belongs to someone else, said Mat Yadi, one of the chiefs of the Orang Rimba Tebing Tinggi tribe. "We took refuge here because we were evicted by the company after our land was taken over by the company," said Mat Yadi. In the beginning, Mat Yadi said, the Anak Dalam Tribe had customary forest lands which he called "very important for our livelihood, our children and grandchildren."

"[The customary land] was handed over to the company, but in fact, nothing was returned to us, everything has been taken. This promise was a lie," continued Mat Yadi. In the period 1995-1996, according to Suku Anak Dalam, PT London Sumatra Indonesia (PT Lonsum) offered a nucleus-plasma oil palm plantation partnership.

Plasma plantations are plasma areas developed by the core company with plantation crops. Meanwhile, plasma farmers or participating farmers are farmers who are designated as recipients of plasma plantation ownership and are domiciled in the plasma area.

The Rimba Tebing Tinggi people agreed to hand over their land to the company and in return, they said, the company promised to return some of their lands to them, with oil palm planted. "PT Lonsum wants to meet face-to-face with the community with the aim of opening a garden, the way is by working with partners," said Rebani bin Hasyim, who at that time served as Secretary of Tebing Tinggi Village. At that time, Orang Rimba claimed to own 2,500 hectares of customary forest in Tebing Tinggi Village - one of the oldest naturally formed villages in South Sumatra. Of the 2,500 hectares, according to their records, 1,100 hectares will be given as plasma to transmigrant groups from Karya Makmur Village.

Meanwhile, the rest, covering an area of ​​1,400 hectares has promised to build a plasma plantation, the proceeds of which will become the rights of the Orang Rimba. "The goal is for the welfare of the community," added Rebani, who said that at that time he had kept a verbal promise from PT Lonsum. Now, the palm trees planted by PT Lonsum have grown tall and harvested many times. The results are taken to processing plants and produce multi-million dollar palm oil.

But more than a quarter of a century later, the Suku Anak Dalam admit they never received any of the promised benefits. During these two decades of land conflict, the profits from such a large plantation may have exceeded USD $30 million or more than IDR 430 billion.

Since the 1970s, the Indonesian government has encouraged companies to establish plantations for local communities or transmigrant groups under the "Intiplasma" partnership scheme. The company partners with the community; manage land into plantations whose capital comes from banks or other loans. Then, the cost of capital is returned by the farmer by way of installments from the crop deductions. In this partnership, the company gets a share of plantations from land handed over by the community or the state, referred to as the "core". While the part of community plantation land is referred to as "plasma". However, as the number of plantation companies in Indonesia grows, accusations begin to emerge against companies breaking their promises – and legal obligations – to provide plasma.

Based on media reports and other sources, the research identifies allegations that the community has made more than 150 palm oil companies for failing to provide plasma over the past ten years. An analysis by BBC Indonesia with The Gecko Project and Mongabay of the best available data from the government paints a bleak picture, showing that palm oil companies have failed to provide hundreds of thousands of hectares of plasma to communities. Tens of thousands of families in Indonesia have the potential not to receive plasma and cumulatively lose trillions of rupiah per year that should be theirs.

Meanwhile, the Suku Anak Dalam or Orang Rimba now live side by side with poverty. The Orang Rimba Tebing Tinggi, which according to data from the Orang Rimba Advocacy Team numbered about 571 families, are now living in dispersal. Some live in people's gardens, like Mat Yadi. Some have migrated to neighboring villages. "SAD no longer has a livelihood or daily life. If you want to do gardening, you don't have a forest, you don't want to cut jelutung [wood], or you don't have any forest contents anymore, because it has been turned into an oil palm plantation. "SAD's last hope is the promised plasma. PT Lonsum," said Orang Rimba's lawyer, Mustika Yanto.

Medi Iswanda, a member of the Tebing Tinggi Orang Rimba Advocacy Team, said that the community had been carrying out "actions and demonstrations" since 2001. The community had also complained about the plasma issue to the government, from the local government to the Musi Rawas Regional People's Representative Assembly, but could not find a solution. At the 2013 Musi Rawas Regional People's Representative Assembly Commission I meeting, for example, it was stated that PT Lonsum "had no reference and did not know the location of the land". In this official report, it is also stated that the Hak Guna Usaha (HGU) letter number 10 of 2000 which is owned by PT Lonsum is odd.

In an agreement in 2015, PT Lonsum was said to be willing to build a plasma plantation for the Orang Rimba Tebing Tinggi. However, Orang Rimba said, it was a promise for the umpteenth time. The promises that have not been realized, said Orang Rimba, have exhausted their patience.

In early 2017, some of the Suku Anak Dalam established huts and installed boundary markers over the replacement land they claimed was promised by PT Lonsum, as a form of protest. However, they said, the huts made of wood and tarpaulin were then forcibly dismantled. In retaliation, the protesters detained the company's Dutro Truck Dam car. The local government tried to mediate, but the demonstrators did not get a definite answer.

"If there's no resolution today, we'll just burn it. We'll burn the Lonsum security post first as a warning," someone shouted, according to court records at a later trial. Hearing the command, some residents returned to action. With cars and motorbikes, they took wood and diesel oil that had been wrapped in plastic, then headed to the security post and the division office of PT Lonsum Sei Kepayang Estate.

They broke the windows with stones and machetes. They collect the dried palm leaves and then burn them. An amateur video recorded an image of PT Lonsum's office engulfed in flames.

'Muted by violence'

"Ask for our rights, our land has been taken by PT Lonsum," said Lina, a descendant of Orang Rimba, when asked why she took part in the 2017 action. The night after the big demonstration, the police raided the huts and houses of the Orang Rimba. About 45 people were imprisoned, six of whom were women - Lina was one of them. "He broke the door, smashed it. He went straight into the room, to arrest us. There was a small child, he almost stepped on here," said Lina with tears in her eyes. After six months in prison, Lina admitted that she spent more time "praying, reading the Koran in prison."

Another Orang Rimba who was detained at the police station also admitted to being abused. "Without being questioned we were beaten [until] bleeding. We were beaten with batons," said Johan, an elder of Orang Rimba. "No family dared to visit for fear of being arrested.

The action that ended in the imprisonment of the community became part of the spotlight of the BBC Indonesia investigative project. BBC Indonesia counts that there have been at least 126 public protests against palm oil companies in 17 provinces over the past ten years, all of which are related to plasma issues.

Of these cases, the highest was in South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, Riau, and West Kalimantan - all of which are areas with the largest oil palm plantations in Indonesia. Generally, conflicts end with the community being subjected to "tremendous intimidation and terror" with the involvement of security forces and thugs, said Sri Palupi of ESC Rights. "Until now [several] conflicts have not been resolved, and the conflicts have been quelled by violence.