Politics & democracy

DTE 93-94, December 2012

In this article we highlight some of the influences at work inside Indonesia which are contributing to the ongoing transfer of land from communities to corporations. These influences include national and local government policies, laws, governance and practices, whose provisions for supporting indigenous peoples and communities’ rights and livelihoods have been deprioritised in favour of large-scale, commercial ‘development’ projects. The result is a growing disparity between rich and poor, worsening imbalance in the control over agrarian resources and more and more conflicts between communities, private sector and the state.

DTE 93-94, December 2012

By Noer Fauzi Rachman*

The systemic agrarian conflicts referred to in this article are protracted conflicts arising from opposing claims made on particular pieces of land, or over natural resources and community-owned areas or territories, by giant corporations in the business of infrastructure, production, resource extraction and conservation, and where each opposing side is taking direct or indirect action to negate the claim of the other.