Vanuatu has been an ally to the West Papua cause from the very start.
The Papua conflict has persisted for nearly 30 years in Western New Guinea between Indonesia and the Free Papua Movement. In the struggle, over 100,000 West Papuans have lost their lives.
According to the Interim President of the Provisional Government of West Papua and Chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, this is a critical time in the conflict as it has become a double crisis. The conflict has displaced people from all over West Papua.
Mr. Wenda recognises that Vanuatu has been standing firm in support of the Free West Papua movement from the very beginning and thanks the country on behalf of the movement and all the people of West Papua saying; “The Prime Minister of Vanuatu’s presentation that called on the United Nations to step up in sending human rights officers to West Papua and recalling the result of the Pacific Island Forum in 2019 to remind the Indonesian Government, UN High Commissioner to visit West Papua shows great support to West Papua.”
Wenda states that the ULMWP and West Papua appreciate the support Vanuatu as a small country with a big heart has steadily provided, saying God is using Vanuatu to liberate West Papua.
West Papua has applied to become a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). Wenda informs Daily Post that West Papua had applied in 2019 and has recently renewed the application hoping to be accepted as a full member in the next MSG meeting.
“I hope the Melanesian leaders will take the right decision and will allow West Papua as a full member. This is an opportunity, if we wait 10-20 years before West Papua is liberated from Indonesia, the Melanesians of West Papua will be completely wiped out,” he says.
Wenda states that West Papua becoming a full member of the MSG is a significant move for the people as full membership would mean West Papua would be equal with Indonesia and can engage with Indonesia as an equal.
- Some Indigenous communities in West Papua who agreed to lease their lands to palm oil companies for the promise of infrastructure development and better livelihoods, have been left in limbo by a government decision to revoke the companies’ permits for various violations.
- The communities say all they want is a better life, and that while they don’t necessarily defend palm oil, they point out that the government has done little to build roads or provide electricity for their villages.
- Some of them who received early compensation payments from the companies say they’re now afraid they may have to pay it back.
- The permits were revoked following an audit that found a litany of violations by the companies, at least two of which appear to belong to a notorious alleged illegal logging kingpin.
SORONG, West Papua — With its lush rainforests and long stretches of beaches, Waimon, a coastal village in Indonesia’s West Papua province, seems like an idyllic place.
But some residents consider it a hostile, almost inhospitable place due to its remoteness and the heavy rains that can make traveling by boat a deadly prospect.
“Living in Waimon is like gambling with our lives,” says Hendrikus Malalu, a resident. “God still loves us — if he didn’t, we’d all have perished by now.”
The only way for the villagers to travel to other parts of the region is by sea; there’s no road access. The village also only has electricity at night, when the villagers turn on their diesel-powered generators.
Amid these restrictions, two of the three clans in the village welcomed a palm oil company that promised them a better life as the only way out.
And now that the permits of the company, PT Papua Lestari Abadi (PLA), have been revoked by the government of Sorong district, where the village is located, the Indigenous people there have been left questioning their future and afraid of the fallout of the revocation.
Permits revoked
PLA was one of several palm oil companies that saw their permits revoked following a government audit in West Papua province, which is home to some of the largest swaths of intact forest left in Indonesia.
The audit itself was part of a moratorium by the central government to freeze the issuance of new palm oil licenses, in the wake of fires on oil palm concessions and years of uncontrolled deforestation associated with the industry.
The moratorium, which expired in September this year, also mandated a review of all existing licenses, in the same vein as a previous review of mining licenses that saw more than 2,000 permits cancelled based on irregularities that came to light.
Very few oil palm permits were revoked by the central government prior to the moratorium’s expiration. But in West Papua, the provincial government revoked the licenses of 14 companies after finding a litany of irregularities and violations.
The West Papua move, coming at the tail end of the moratorium, may serve as a test case for how government officials approach trying to cancel licenses held by potentially powerful companies. This may still be possible despite the moratorium having expired, since the government says Indonesia will use existing regulations to address sustainability issues in the palm oil industry.
Shortly after the provincial government rescinded the permits, PLA and another affected company, PT Sorong Agro Sawitindo (SAS), which held a concession in the village of Gisim, filed a legal challenge against Johny Kamuru, the Sorong district head. The two companies are seeking to have a court annul the government’s decision and give them back their concessions. They argue the move to revoke their licenses has harmed them.
Benidiktus Hery Wijayanto, head of the West Papua provincial agriculture department, said the government had every reason to revoke the two companies’ concessions because they had violated the law by failing to fulfill their obligations. Among the unfilled obligations is obtaining a right-to-cultivate permit, or HGU, the last in a series of licenses that oil palm companies must obtain before being allowed to start planting.
The two companies also appeared to have done nothing since receiving their permits in 2009, Benidiktus added.
“They had no activities in Sorong at all,” he says. “They didn’t have offices. If you ask government officials in Sorong, there’s no single document either [about the two companies]. It’s only when we did the evaluation at provincial level that we got [the documents].”
Benidiktus said he eventually managed to track down a PLA employee, who told him that both PLA and SAS hadn’t started any activities on their concessions because they didn’t have any operational funds.
That means the companies’ concessions are technically abandoned, which is grounds for a permit revocation, according to Piter Ell, a lawyer for the Sorong district government.
The man behind the companies
Piter said PLA and SAS had also violated the anti-monopoly law by having the same person, Ronald Louis Sanuddin, as their chief executive. Both companies share the same address, which Piter said turned out to be the office of another company, called Papua Diving.
Benidiktus said the two companies didn’t have any offices in West Papua province, and that it was only when they filed a lawsuit against the Sorong district head that they set up an office in Sorong.
The similarities between the two companies don’t stop there.
According to the NGO Pusaka, which advocates for Indigenous rights, PLA and SAS are also owned by the same individual. The shares of both companies are owned by PT Pilar Sukses Sejahtera and PT Global Jaya Abadi Gemilang, two companies that are in turn owned by Paulus George Hung, a businessman from Malaysia. Hung also serves on the boards of both PLA and SAS, according to Pusaka.
Villagers in both Waimon and Gisim recalled Hung as having approached them. Daniel Kayaru, the head of the hamlet of Klajaring in Gisim, even referred to him as the “big boss,” while Demianus Yapen, the Waimon village secretary, called him “Mr. Ting,” a throwback to his old Malaysian name of Ting Ting Hong.
In 2006, Hung was among 50 individuals accused by the Indonesian government of illegal logging operations in the country. He was linked to a ship that was seized with 21,000 cubic meters (741,600 cubic feet) on board in West Papua waters. Despite that, Hung was able to get new forestry permits from the government, paving the way for him to keep doing business in Indonesia.
It’s common in Indonesia for businesspeople to operate in both the forestry sector and the plantation sector, as they can benefit from clearing forests and selling the timber before converting the land into plantations.
Piter said there are indications that many companies applying for oil palm licenses are doing so only to cut down trees and sell the wood for quick cash, with no intention of establishing an oil palm plantation.
PLA and SAS hadn’t started clearing their respective concessions because they didn’t have the requisite timber exploitation permits. Another company that had its permits revoked and that is also suing the Sorong district head, PT Inti Kebun Lestari (IKL), had already obtained a timber exploitation permit.
Benidiktus said when the local government surveyed IKL’s concession, they detected clearing. Photos from a document drafted by IKL’s logging operator, CV Aimas Jaya Mandiri, also show there had been some clearing, he added.
West Papua and Papua provinces hold some of the last remaining stands of commercially valuable hardwood species in Indonesia, including merbau, a prized target for illegal loggers and timber traffickers.
With many irregularities surrounding PLA and SAS, Piter said the court should reject the companies’ lawsuit and declare that their permits had been revoked in accordance with the law.
“Because before the concessions are revoked, it has gone through a process of multistage evaluation, starting from the central government, the anti-graft agency, KPK, the West Papua provincial government and the Sorong district government,” Piter said.
Roads and electricity
Prior to filing the lawsuit, PLA approached the Indigenous communities whose areas overlap with its concession in Waimon. They offered money to one of the village’s three klans, the Kasilik, who accepted it.
Demianus, the village secretary, said the Kasilik asked for 300 million rupiah ($21,000), but settled for half that amount. The company paid the first installment, 50 million rupiah ($3,500), in April. The company also promised to give the clan two houses in Sorong and pay for the education of the Kasilik children through middle school, said Yunus Kasilik, a member of the clan.
Yunus said that amount of money could go a long way in improving the livelihoods of the Waimon villagers.
“I catch a lot of fish and shrimp. How can I sell them to Sorong since there’s no road?” he said. “I’m not defending palm oil. But can [the government] take care of [our] road access? Electricity?”
Some of the villagers, including Demianus and Yunus, said that if the government could guarantee access to road and electricity for the village, they would happily cancel their agreement with PLA.
“All I’m asking for is road and electricity, that’s all,” Yunus said.
The Sorong district government secretary, Cliff Agus Japsenang, questioned the timing of the company’s reappearance, suggesting it’s an attempt by PLA to gain support from the locals for its lawsuit.
“The companies arrived on the scene this April, May or June, after the permits were revoked,” he said. “But let’s not forget that they’ve had years [to fulfill all their legal obligations], where they were nowhere [to be seen].”
Johny, the Sorong district head, said the company’s sudden appearance after years of being absent is a sign that it doesn’t have the local community’s interest at heart.
In Indonesia, cash-strapped local governments often fail to build basic infrastructure, like in the case of Waimon. It’s not uncommon for agricultural or extractive companies to take on this role. But Johny said his government won’t abandon the villagers whose areas overlap with the rescinded concessions and who had been promised better lives by the companies.
“In this situation, the government took a decision [to revoke the permits] for the best interests of the people there,” he said in an interview at his house in Sorong. “There might be people who understood this, there might be those who don’t understand yet, thinking that this decision has harmed them.”
Johny said his government had actually planned to build a road to connect Waimon and other places in the region. Sections of the road have already been built by Petrogas, an oil and gas company operating in the region, but the project has been halted due to problems with land acquisition.
Johny said he would communicate with Petrogas again to discuss resuming the road construction.
‘They promised we can be prosperous’
Waimon is not the only village that has fears over the potential repercussion of the permits revocation.
In Gisim, another coastal village in Sorong district, the Indigenous residents face a similar quandary with SAS, the other company suing the Sorong government for revoking its permit.
Residents there had granted the company the rights to 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) of their forests. The company had promised to compensate them in the form of money, education and housing, according to hamlet chief Daniel.
“[They promised] that we can be prosperous with oil palm plantations,” he said. “So we accepted [SAS] so that we can change [our future]. We can be as prosperous as other places in Kalimantan [Indonesian Borneo] and Sulawesi.”
Up until 2010, SAS had paid the villagers 500 million rupiah ($35,100), which the community used for various purposes, such as holding Christmas celebrations, according to Daniel. But after that, the company disappeared, with the villagers unable to contact its representatives, he said.
In April, PLA arrived in the village and told residents that it had taken over SAS’s concession.
Daniel said the villagers refused to make any deal with PLA until SAS had settled things with them.
“For the first company [SAS], we deemed them to be just toying with us,” he said. “For the new company [PLA], they have to [operate] with new agreements.”
Like the concession in Waimon, the concession in Gisim was also revoked by the district government following the recent audit because it had been left unmanaged by SAS for more than a decade.
Daniel said the revocation has further complicated the situation, since it’s not clear where SAS has gone and whether the villagers will have to pay back the money they received from the company.
“We’re afraid of the company. Don’t let it sue us [for the money already paid],” he said. “We want to hear the district head say to us, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay off your debt.’ We haven’t met him so we’re not satisfied yet.”
Sorong district head Johny said he would protect the villagers
“It could be that the people didn’t know [better] and they were intimidated [to accepting the money],” he said. “Were they given an understanding and opportunities to think? The point is that the government will take responsibility.”
Daniel said that, looking back, he regretted the villagers’ decision to accept the palm oil company onto their land.
“We’re trapped. We didn’t understand [the impact of] palm oil. We just accepted it,” he said. “After that, we read and see the development in other villages, and we realize that the palm oil company has been trying to lure us with money and [promises of] prosperity.”
Editor’s note: The reporter traveled to West Papua as a guest of the EcoNusa Foundation, which advocates for sustainable resource management. EcoNusa does not have any editorial influence on this or any other story Mongabay produces.
Banner image: Indigenous Papuans travel by boat to Waimon village in West Papua province. Image by Hans Nicholas Jong/Mongabay.
"Be patient, as far as I know, the Jayapura city cluster has six athletes testing positive," Spokesperson for the Papua COVID-19 Prevention and Handling Task Force Silwanus Sumule told ANTARA on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, data collected by ANTARA reveal that as many as 19 athletes and officials—seven athletes in Jayapura District, six athletes in Jayapura City, three athletes in Timika, and three officials in Merauke—have been confirmed to get infected by COVID-19.
Athletes and officials who have tested positive for COVID-19 are undergoing isolation at isolation centers, self-quarantine, and some are being treated in hospitals, Sumule said.
On average, the athletes and officials testing positive for the coronavirus have been categorized as asymptomatic patients and patients with mild symptoms since they have been vaccinated against COVID-19, he explained.
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The three officials who have tested positive for COVID-19 are currently undergoing centralized isolation at Motor Vessel Sirimau, which has been docked at the Merauke Port since September 30, 2021, he informed.
"We always hope that athletes, officials, and the public will continue to comply with strict health protocols considering that COVID-19 is still around us," Sumule remarked.
Meanwhile, Head of the Jayapura City Health Service Nyoman Antari added that five athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. Two of them belong to Jakarta's contingent while three others come from North Sumatra, East Nusa Tenggara, and East Kalimantan respectively.
Athletes testing positive for COVID-19 are currently undergoing centralized isolation at Motor Vessel Tidar and Provita Hospital, he informed.
In addition, several athletes are undergoing self-quarantine and three are undergoing centralized isolation at MV Tidar and being treated at the Provita Hospital, he added.
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"Earlier, we have agreed that athletics must advance. We will build a training center later in Mimika, so that this can be used in future," Pandjaitan stated at the Mimika Sport Complex in Mimika District, Papua Province, on Tuesday.
The training center will be constructed at the Mimika Sport Complex. Later on, athletes from Papua, Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, and West Nusa Tenggara will practice at the athletic training center, he stated.
The training will focus on delivering achievements at five athletic competitions: 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters, javelin throw, and shot put.
"Later, 25 or several dozen athletes will learn here later, and Freeport will be the sponsor, and we will provide training for our athletes," Pandjaitan remarked.
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He also noted that the PASI will take former athletes as high quality coaches. They will be sent to several countries, such as China, Jamaica, and Kenya, to gain knowledge.
"For coaches, we are preparing them. Currently, we are recruiting good former athletes that we (will) train. We may want to send them to China or Jamaica, or from Jamaica to here, and also long-distance runners from Kenya," he elaborated.
Pandjaitan is also committed to improving the quality of education for athletes. He noted that the athletes will be taught about mathematics, physics, English, and civic knowledge (wawasan kebangsaan) to ensure a bright future.
President Director of PT Freeport Indonesia Tony Wenas echoed his company's commitment to developing Papuan human resources in the field of sports.
"We believe that sports development is part of human resource development, and the focus areas of PT FI's programs are health and education programs, including the one related to sports education for athletes," he added.
Related news: Pandjaitan to open athletics match, inaugurate Mimika Sport Complex
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