What first got you interested in the issue of oil palm plantations?
To be honest, I am not. My interest is in the connections between three actors - the state, companies and communities - and the consequences arising from different modes of relationships between them. I decided to focus on land issues, and oil palm plantations were one example of these interactions, but I have also looked at rubber plantations and mining.
What did you find?
Communities are in a much weaker position than the state and business who owe their strength to collaboration with each other because they share certain interests. Government officials need income, both for state institutions and personal reasons. Businessmen need the state to secure the means to develop their enterprises.
Indonesian civil society is weak in two respects. Firstly, communities do not have the power to resist the interests of business and the government: they are easily persuaded when their leaders are won over and if promised a few million rupiah. Secondly, communities are unable to fight hard for their rights and their own interests against government and business. Their organisations are weak or, in some cases, non-existent; their level of education is low; local people who do have education lack the capacity to organise people to stand up for themselves.
This is not to say that communities do not fight for their rights, but that it is usually easy to break down their resistance by controlling their leaders. In the end, they give up their land to companies because they are forced to or because the majority do not understand what is going on.
Would you say that the government isn't fulfilling its role to protect the public?
So what should the function of the state be?
This can be seen by the pride that the district administrator (bupati) and/or governor take in generating large local revenues (PAD). Obviously the government needs money to serve the public but it is often difficult to raise revenues through taxation. It therefore chooses the easier route of 'rent seeking' - issuing permits in return for money. Although local authorities find various lucrative ways of issuing permits for companies to operate in their area, they do not care about the impacts on communities. So, this is an example of the way that the government supports business.
Does the same analysis apply to other agrarian contexts in Indonesia, such as mining, pulpwood and other plantations?
What can communities do in this situation?
Can certification address the political and legal problems that exist in Indonesia?
This venture is not a guaranteed success. It needs civil society organisations like WALHI, Sawit Watch and WWF to keep the pressure up. They must report any violations of the principles and criteria because to keep quiet would increase the opportunities for collusion between the auditors, companies and RSPO.
The RSPO is the most recent certification scheme and has learned from the weaknesses of other systems. The issue now is how we monitor its implementation. If this is done properly, it could bring about improvements such as companies taking more care of the environment and local communities rights because they are audited according to agreed indicators.
How would the companies benefit?
Will this affect the relationship between companies and the government?
Isn't there a risk that government revenues will be reduced?
Doesn't this mean that the companies and government will have to change their old ways of working, where they identified development areas on paper without even knowing who was living there? And won't less land be available to companies as certain areas must be excluded to comply with the criteria - such as conflict locations? That's right and I suspect that there will be many violations of the rules in order to get access to larger land areas. That is why we need organisations such as Forest Peoples Programme and Sawit Watch to put pressure on the government and business community.
Will the government listen to civil society organisations?
Issues such as human rights violations, lack of workers rights and environmental damage do not only occur in Indonesia. The capitalist economy is at the root of many disasters: people must produce to make a profit and these activities conflict with the interests of the masses. Hence conflicts arise depending on the strengths and weaknesses of civil society and the degree of concern shown by the state.
The same problems confront the USA and Europe but at lower levels of intensity than in Indonesia because their decision-making involves long public consultation processes. In Indonesia, public consultation is meaningless because stakeholders are invited to listen to decisions that have already been taken.
Why did you choose oil palm plantations for your case study? Is it because these are so many of these plantations in West Sumatra?
Oil palm plantations have become a key issue in Indonesia in general. If you want to explore agrarian issues, you have to focus on mining or oil palm. Sugar cane is only really an issue on Java and even then the area is small compared with oil palm. Moreover, there has been a long history of individual land ownership in Java which has wiped out customary law.
Are agrarian conflicts in West Sumatra over communal land?
Is the customary concept of a village (Nagari) still in use?
In the government's view, forests are state land
Yes, there is a difference of views.The indigenous community consider that they are the rightful owners of the forest under customary law, but the government says this is state land under the laws which it has passed. The concept of legal pluralism is important in this context: the two legal systems are in collision, but customary law existed long before state law.
The 1960 Agrarian Law recognises customary law. What does this mean in practice?
That law only grants limited recognition as it contains the problematic phrase "as long as (the customary rights) still exist". There is also the agrarian minister's decision (No5/1999) that customary rights only apply to land which the government has not granted formal rights over. If the government granted land use rights to a company (HGU, HGB) then, in the government's opinion, that area is no longer acknowledged as customary land. However, indigenous communities believe that the status of their land is not the government's business - so it's a complicated situation.
The battle in West Sumatra and other places now is to challenge certain clauses in that ministerial decision. The West Sumatra Legal Aid Bureau (LBH Sumbar) and customary leaders want to amend the clauses which say that on expiry of land rights granted by the state the land automatically reverts to state control. They want such land to return to customary control.
There is public support for a new local regulation on customary land in West Sumatra, but this has not come about yet because the local government wants to implement the Agrarian Law. There is a problematic legal issue of governance here because tenure is not covered under local autonomy legislation. So we cannot pass local regulations that conflict with the national agrarian law. Also, it is pointless to hope for an amendment to the agrarian minister's decision unless the basic legislation is revised. That is why we need to support groups who are pushing for agrarian law reform.
So your answer to all these issues is that communities must be empowered?
Yes. It's the only way. That does not mean that I do not want to increase the capacity of the government sector but, even if government officials know about people's rights, it is by no means certain that these will be implemented if communities remain so weak.
Dr Afrizal's book, The Nagari Community, Business and the State, published in 2007 by Forest Peoples Programme, is available from www.wrm.org.uy or from FPP - see www.forestpeoples.org or contact info@forestpeoples.org Tel: +44 (0)1608 652893 Fax: +44 (0)1608 652878