2) Individuals might take advantage of current situation in Papua for own interests to meet President Widodo
3) Indonesia Wins Top Vote to Secure UN Human Rights Council Seat
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1) In West Papua, oil palm expansion undermines the relations of indigenous Marind people to forest plants and animals
Author: Sophie Chao
Date 10/16/2019 3:17:42 AM
MENAFN - The Conversation) It was the third night Rosalina (a pseudonym), an indigenous woman from the Marind community in Merauke, West Papua, dreamt of 'being eaten by oil palm'. She had been having recurring nightmares over the last few weeks, in which oil palm's sharp spines turned into bayonets, and hard and round palm oil fruit transformed into lethal bullets.
In her dream, Rosalina heard repeated shots before finding her father slumped next to her, covered with blood. She herself died the next night of hunger and thirst after losing her way in an oil palm plantation in the middle of the night.
Nightmares of being 'eaten by oil palm' or 'shot by oil palm' plague many Marind indigenous people in Khalaoyam village (a pseudonym), West Papua, where I have been undertaking ethnographic fieldwork since 2011.
The village is one of several Marind settlements affected by large-scale oil palm plantation expansion under theMerauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) , a government development project thatwill convert at least a million hectare of forests and swamp into privatised concessions.
Khalaoyam village is home to some two hundred Marind households who depend primarily on the forest for their subsistence - for instance, hunting, gathering, and fishing. However, the forest represents much more than just a source of food for indigenous Marind.
For instance, Gerfacius, another member of the Marind community, spoke to me of the soil still smelling of the ancestral forest that had once stood here, but that has been razed to make way for oil palm over the past few years.
To him, the soil that was once full of memories of his plant and animal kin was now full of death, loss, and sadness.
The forest is our family
For Marind people, the forest is a living, sentient ecology in which selfhood is extended to plants and animals.
Indeed, many Marind villagers whom I spoke to describe the forest as their 'family' and many clan names represent the deep relationship of forest plants and animals to human communities, as shared descendants of ancestral spirits, or dema (in Marind language).
For instance, the Mahuze clan are 'children of the dog' (mahu meaning dog and ze meaning 'child of' in Marind) and the Balagaize clan are 'children of the crocodile.'
Importantly, Marind also consider thediverse plant and animal species living in the forest to be sentient beings , endowedwith will, agency and volition.
Each Marind clan, or bawan (in Marind language), is related to other grandparent (amai) or sibling (namek) species with whom they share bodily wetness (dubadub) and skin (igid).
Together, skin and wetness are primary markers of personhood among Marind and they take the form of sweat, tears, sap, mud, water, grease, and more.
Humans and amai (forest organisms) sustain their mutual existence through everyday practices of reciprocal care.
For instance, amai grow to support humans by providing them with food and other resources. In return, Marind exercise respect and perform rituals as they interact with amai (plants and animals) in the forests, recall their stories, hunt, gather, and consume them. Exchanges of skin and wetness, along with rituals of care and respect, enable humans and other-than-humans to thrive in each other's company within the forest environment.
Forest foods, like sago starch, are considered nourishing by Marind because they derive from revered plants and animals.
Sophie Chao, Author provided
Marind people and oil palm expansion
Sophie Chao, Author provided
Marind people and oil palm expansion
Since around 2008, however, the relations of Marind to their non-human kin have been undermined by large-scale deforestation and monocrop oil palm expansion,promoted by the Indonesian governmentin the name of national economic development and food sovereignty.
These agribusiness projects are largely being designed and implemented without the free, prior, and informed consent of Marind. Many communities report being forced into land surrender deals in exchange for derisory compensation.
One Marind family I spoke to, for instance, reported having been paid a one-off sum of Rp350,000 per hectare of land, or less than AU$35, for a lease of 25 years.
Other grievances shared by Marind villagersincluded unfulfilled Corporate Social Responsibility schemes, increased local food insecurity, critical water pollution, endemic biodiversity loss, and widespread deforestation, including through illegal burning.
Just as Marind do not see themselves as existing separately from the natural environment, so too the destruction of the forest is more than just an 'environmental' problem for Marind.
Rather, this destruction undermines the historical relationships of Marind men, women, and children to the plants and animals with whom they share the forest.
It annihilates the past events, memories, and stories inscribed in the landscape – its trees, organisms, rivers, and hills.
Deforestation and oil palm expansion are taking place at an accelerated pace across Merauke.
Sophie Chao, Author provided
Lesson learned from indigenous Marind
Sophie Chao, Author provided
Deforestation also deprives Marind of forest foods that are nourishing and meaningful because they derive from plants and animals whom Marind revere and respect, and whose futures and survival, too, are jeopardised by agribusiness expansion.
The obliteration of the forest, then, represents the devastating loss of the dynamic, multispecies world in which Marind's sense of identity as human beings and as indigenous peoples is rooted.
Lesson learned from indigenous Marind
The conversion of forests to monocrops represents far more than just an 'ecological' change for indigenous people like Marind.
Marind people believe that 'nature' and 'culture' are not separate and mutually exclusive realms. Rather, humans and their environment come into meaningful being through their relationship to each other.
The transformation of kindred forests to industrial plantations thus radically subverts the sense of social, moral, and collective self worth that Marind derive from living with, in, and from, the sentient forest.
The layered emotional, cosmological, and social meanings of the forest among the Marind people, and the cosmological and existential implications of its destruction, invite us to rethink state-promoted forms of large-scale land development that purport to improve socioeconomic wellbeing among rural communities in West Papua.
It is important to reconfigure such forms of development from top-down to bottom-up approaches that take as their starting point indigenous peoples' own understandings of the natural environment, as these are shaped by local cultural norms, values, and aspirations.
This is not to suggest that indigenous cultures are static and unchanging, or that they are necessarily resistant to development.
Rather, it is to highlight the need for grassroots and culturally sensitive approaches that respect the cosmologies, beliefs, and practices of indigenous communities, whose wellbeing as humans is indissociable from the wellbeing of their multispecies forest 'families.'
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2) Individuals might take advantage of current situation in Papua for own interests to meet President Widodo
Published 2 hours ago on 18 October 2019
By pr9c6tr3_juben
Jayapura, Jubi – Emus Gwijangge, Papua parliament member from the Democratic fraction, appeals to any individuals or groups to not exploit the current situation in Papua for their personal or group interests.
He said this to pointing some recent group meetings with President Joko Widodo in Jakarta. The first group, he mentioned, met the president and then proposed some requests, while another group claimed Papuan youth representatives met some state officials. And the most recently some officials of the Indonesian community group in Papua met President Widodo and asked the president to divide the region of Papua into seven indigenous territories in both Papua and Papua Barat provinces.
“Everyone has a right to meet the president. But please do not act on behalf of indigenous Papuans while requesting something to the president,” Gwijangge told Jubi on Wednesday (16/10/2019).
According to him, indigenous Papuans never ask for a title, new regional split or anything else. What they want is the central government sit together with them in a forum facilitated by the third parties addressing some issues that occurred in Papua.
“What indigenous peoples want is a historical correction as well as the settlement of many cases of human rights violations in Papua. Therefore, the Melanesian race no needs to continue our contention against the central government. We shouldn’t go to Jakarta for asking so many random requests,” he said.
Moreover, he hopes President Widodo and other state officials should carefully accept the proposed meeting by any groups from Papua who claimed to represent indigenous peoples.
He said if the president and state officials want to meet indigenous Papuans, they must invite the indigenous representatives. Also, the provincial government officials, local parliament and Papua’s People Assembly members and religious leaders are there to consider.
“The sort of this representation would guarantee that the aspirations delivered to the president are coming from the indigenous Papuans. It would contribute to the future of our grandchildren for they would not be engaged in the same problems and continuously become victims,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Taufan Damanik, the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, said Komnas HAM has repeatedly advised President Jokowi to come to Papua for a dialogue. The president is suggested meeting people and any relevant stakeholders to solve problems in Papua.
However, he said, the president has contrary invited other groups, who claimed themselves as Papuan leaders, to Jakarta.
“Inviting a group of people from Papua to Jakarta is not what we meant, but the president himself needs to come to Papua,” said Ahmad Taufan. (*)
Reporter: Arjuna Pademme
Editor: Pipit Maizier
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3) Indonesia Wins Top Vote to Secure UN Human Rights Council Seat
Translator: Dewi Elvia Muthiariny Editor: Laila Afifa 1
8 October 2019 08:58 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia has been re-elected to have a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council through voting in New York, United States, on October 17. Along with 13 other new members, it will serve as the council member starting in January 2020.
“Alhamdulillah, Indonesia is elected as the UN Human Rights Council member for the 2020-2022 period. The election has been held in NY. Indonesia earns the highest vote (174) from the Asia Pacific, surpassing Japan (165) and South Korea,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi to Tempo via Whatsapp messaging, Friday, October 18.
Retno reiterates that Indonesia secures the highest vote at 174 from 193 countries of the UN members. Indonesia is the council’s founding member in the period 2006-2007 and has been elected three times, for the period of 2007-2010, 2011-2014, and 2015-2017.
“This shows that international people truly honor Indonesia’s track record and acknowledge that democracy and tolerance are assets to actively contribute to the UN Human Rights Council,” said Febrian Ruddyard as the Director-General for Multilateral Cooperation at the Foreign Ministry, in the press release today.
As announced on the UN official website un.org, 14 new members of the Human Rights Council are Armenia, Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Libya, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Namibia, Netherlands, Poland, Republic of Korea, Sudan and Venezuela.
The new members replace the outgoing members, namely China, Croatia, Cuba, Egypt, Hungary, Iceland, Iraq, Japan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom.
EKA YUDHA SAPUTRA
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