Laksamana.Net

September 16, 2003

More Troops, More Tree Stumps - Coincidence?

Just a few days after the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) announced
plans to form new battalions in Papua, a prominent environmentalist
has warned that illegal logging mafias are joining forces with crooked
officials to plunder the province's rainforests.

State news agency Antara on Tuesday (16/9/03) quoted Forest Watch Indonesia
(FWI) director Togu Manurung as saying foreign mafias have entered the
country via cooperatives supported by Indonesian officials.

He declined to name the foreign mafias or the Indonesian officials.

Environmentalists say Indonesia is losing nearly 2 million hectares of forest
annually, largely due to corruption and lawlessness.

Manurung said about 60,000 cubic meters of timber have been smuggled out of
Papua during the past month. Another 600,000 cubic meters were traded
illegally over the past year, he added.

He urged the government to take measures to stop the illegal trade, which is
worth about Rp30.4 trillion ($36 million) annually.

A report released in February 2002 by the World Resources Institute (WRI),
Global Forest Watch (GFW) and FWI said the rate of deforestation in Indonesia
had doubled over the past decade.

The report said forest cover fell from 162 million hectares in 1950 to only
98 million hectares in 2000. It warned that lowland forests had almost entirely
gone from Sulawesi and were likely to disappear in 2005 from Sumatra and in
2010 in Kalimantan.

Manurung, who lectures at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture in West Java,
said Indonesia now only has only 96 million hectares of forest cover left and the
level of deforestation is increasing.

Military Budget
In October 2002, TNI commander Major General Endriartono Sutarto said the
government was only able to meet 30% of the military's budget, while the
remaining 70% comes from "a range of sources".

Some of those sources are legitimate businesses and foundations. But some of
the money allegedly comes from sources such as illegal logging, extortion,
drug dealing and prostitution. The military also provides security services for
multinational companies such as gold mining giant Freeport and oil giant
ExxonMobil. Some soldiers also profit by moonlighting as contract killers.

Critical non-government organizations, such as the Australia West Papua
Association, say Papua has become the military's main source of illegal
funds, with concessions being mapped out and allocated to a handful of powerful
generals.

And there may soon be more generals in Papua, with Sutarto keen to increase
the number of permanently stationed battalions in the province from three to six.

Trikora Regional Military Command chief Major General Nurdin Zainal, who
oversees security in Papua, last Friday claimed certain groups that initially
opposed the plan had since changed their tune after talks with the military.

He claimed that Papua Governor Jaap Salossa is among those who support the
creation of the new battalions.

Some district administrations have even expressed their readiness to provide
land for the headquarters of the new battalions, he added.

The Trikora Regional Military Command's three battalions each have an
average of 752 personnel and are supported by personnel from six non-organic Army
battalions.

Zainal said that in addition to the creation of the new units, the three
existing battalions would be beefed up to 1,039 soldiers each.

"We Must Help the Poor Papuan People!"

Local human rights groups say the presence of more battalions in Papua will
only serve to increase the level of violence and deforestation in the
province.

The government has passed a decree to split Papua into three new provinces,
each with its own military unit, claiming the move is necessary to boost
development in the resource-rich province.

Critics say the cliche of "We must help the poor Papuan people" is one
of the main slogans used by government and military officials who support illegal
logging.

"Commercial logging has always been a loss deal for the community and a
huge profit for the timber company," says the Papua branch of the Forest Peoples
Alliance (FPA).

The FPA says most of the logging business operators in the province are from
Malaysia and China.

While Manurung did not name local officials who collude with the timber
mafia, the FPA has singled out the Bupati (regent) of Sorong regency, John Piet
Wanane, who is alleged to have issued logging permits for conservation
forests.

The FPA says Forestry Ministry officials have little motive to attempt to
enforce the law "because bribes are regular practice".

Citing an example how forest destruction takes place on traditional lands,
the FPA recounts the case of Kapatlap village on Salawati island. The village
community intended to build a new church but had no funds and could only
obtain
money by finding a logging investor.

The local district officer of Samate, Abdullah Fattah, sent a request to his
boss Regent Wanane, who issued permits for four landowning families to each
exploit 100 hectares of forest, the maximum size permissible under government
regulations.

The concession was picked up by PT Wahana Papua, an Indonesian company of
Malaysian-Chinese investors. The company entered a contract with the village
to pay the landowners Rp30,000 ($3.50) for each cubic meter of high quality
timber.

According to the FPA, the company ended up taking 14,000 cubic meters of logs
from an area much larger than the concession of 4x100 hectares.

The company is estimated to have sold the timber for $150 per cubic meter,
while the village ended up with its new church (generously valued at Rp150
million) and an outboard engine. Each of the landowners reportedly received
an initial payment of an outboard engine and Rp15 million in cash.

"Such appalling discrepancy between the mean income for the traditional
forest owners and the entire community on the one hand side, and the profit made by

the logging company, on the other side, is standard practice," says the
FPA.

"In quite a few cases companies not even fulfilled their contracts -
knowing too well how little power and legal means the villages possess," it adds.

For so many Papuans, who have for centuries lived from the forests, the
increased presence of Indonesian soldiers in their province does not bode for
a promising future.

**************************************************
Paul Barber
TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign,
25 Plovers Way, Alton Hampshire GU34 2JJ
Tel/Fax: 01420 80153
Email: plovers@gn.apc.org
Internet: http://tapol.gn.apc.org
Defending victims of oppression in Indonesia,
1973-2003