3) Buried in Practice Reconstructs the Record on West Papua, Human Rights, and a Missing US Investigation
Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto has instructed the government to continue and strengthen agricultural development programs in Papua, citing their direct benefits to local communities and farmers, Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said on Thursday.
Speaking after a meeting with Prabowo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, Amran said the government has allocated the largest agricultural budget in history for Papua, totaling more than Rp 5.5 trillion ($308 million) over 2025 and 2026.
"We reported to the president that agricultural assistance for Papua reached Rp 3.2 trillion this year and Rp 2 trillion last year, bringing the total to more than Rp 5.5 trillion," Amran told reporters. "The president instructed us to continue the program because it directly benefits the people."
The push forms part of the government's broader effort to strengthen food security while boosting economic development in Indonesia's easternmost provinces.
Amran said the Agriculture Ministry recently met with around 200 representatives from Papua, including governors, district heads, agricultural officials and farmers, to discuss the region's development needs.
During the meeting, several local governments requested additional support for rice field expansion programs.
"We received requests from a number of provinces, including West Papua, to increase the area designated for new rice fields. We will expand the program," Amran said.
The government has promoted agricultural development as a key strategy for improving livelihoods in Papua, where infrastructure gaps and higher poverty rates have long posed challenges to economic growth.
Previously, Amran said the government is accelerating efforts to develop downstream agricultural industries in partnership with state-owned food companies.
The initiative focuses on expanding the cultivation and processing of higher-value commodities such as cocoa, coffee, cashew nuts, coconuts and sugar cane to increase productivity and raise farmers' incomes.
The government has allocated Rp 9.5 trillion for the program, targeting the development of 870,000 hectares of smallholder plantations nationwide between 2025 and 2027.
Amran said the program would include Papua and is expected to support local economic growth while creating new income opportunities in rural areas.
"We have started the program together with state-owned food enterprises in 2025, and we will continue it in 2026 and 2027," he said. "The total area targeted for farmers is 870,000 hectares, including throughout Papua."
The government's National Strategic Projects (PSN) in Papua, including large-scale agricultural expansion, have drawn both support and criticism. While officials say the initiatives are essential to achieving food and energy self-sufficiency and boosting local welfare, indigenous groups and environmental activists warn of potential land rights violations and increased deforestation.
Jakarta. Indonesia is moving to raise farm-gate palm oil prices after President Prabowo Subianto instructed authorities to align fresh fruit bunch (FFB) prices with gains in global crude palm oil markets.
“The president has instructed us to side with smallholder palm oil farmers,” Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said after a meeting with Prabowo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta.
The directive follows government findings of what Amran described as an anomaly in domestic palm oil pricing. While global CPO prices and the US dollar have strengthened, prices received by farmers for FFB have declined in several regions.
The minister said the issue affects around 15 million palm oil farmers nationwide, making it a significant concern for rural incomes.
To address the situation, the Agriculture Ministry has convened hundreds of palm oil industry players from across the country and requested assistance from the national police to monitor companies that have yet to adjust FFB prices in line with market developments.
Amran said letters had been sent to National Police Chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo and regional law enforcement authorities seeking support in overseeing compliance.
According to the ministry, around 1,900 palm oil mills operate across Indonesia. Authorities initially identified 274 companies that had not adjusted FFB purchase prices despite higher CPO prices. Following government intervention, about 90% of those firms have complied, leaving roughly 100 companies still under scrutiny.
The minister expressed confidence that FFB prices would recover fully within the next week and said longer-term reforms could improve transparency and farmer welfare.
An important element of the government's strategy is a new one-gate export system managed by Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia, which is expected to streamline exports and reduce inefficiencies in the palm oil supply chain. Amran said the centralized export mechanism could help ensure fairer pricing for farmers while reducing leakages in commodity trading.
Last month, the Agriculture Ministry identified 139 palm oil mills suspected of purchasing FFB from farmers below government-set benchmark prices and warned that violators could face sanctions, including possible license revocations.
Officials have linked the recent decline in FFB prices to market uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the one-gate export policy. According to the ministry, confusion among businesses over the new rules contributed to a drop in farm-gate prices, which fell by between Rp 50 and Rp 1,200 per kilogram in some regions.
FFB prices currently range from Rp 2,700 to Rp 3,200 per kilogram, depending on location.
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In the news release, Buried in Practice Reconstructs the Record on West Papua, Human Rights, and a Missing US Investigation, issued June 17, 2026 by Resource Capital Research over PR Newswire, the bullet points have been reformatted. The complete, corrected release follows:
3) Buried in Practice Reconstructs the Record on West Papua, Human Rights, and a Missing US Investigation
New investigative book from Resource Capital Research examines Freeport-McMoRan, West Papua, Indonesia, a vanished US State Department human rights report, FBI interference, and thirty comparative project case studies involving Indigenous rights, environmental harm, and corporate accountability across five continents.
Key Points
West Papua and the US State Department - Key Findings and Questions Raised:
- Missing US State Department human rights investigation: State Department officials publicly confirmed a human rights investigation in 1995-96.
- Declassified cables reveal widespread US government concern. Thirty years' later the interim and final reports remain unreleased.
- Revolving door between key government officials and corporate advisory roles and positions on Freeport's board – including former ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, and secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
- The unanswered fate of a 1995–96 investigation: Over ten years of FOIA searches and litigation failed to locate key report records, including potential conflict of interest declarations. Human rights concerns persist despite official reassurances.
- Development aggression: Why Indigenous communities bear development's costs. Indigenous Papuan communities bear substantial social and environmental costs.
- Public accountability versus national security secrecy: Domestic US and Australian critics reported surveillance, intimidation, and interference, including a former Wall Street analyst who challenged official narratives.
Additional Findings - Thirty comparative projects reviewed:
- Accountability can take decades. Comparative cases show that allegations of violence, displacement, and environmental harm can remain legally, politically, and socially significant decades later.
- Thirty projects spanning Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and the Arctic, highlighting similar conflicts across diverse political, legal, and cultural settings.
- Major sovereign wealth funds blacklisted multiple companies examined in the book.
SYDNEY, June 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Buried in Practice: Freeport in West Papua, Indonesia—and the State Department Human Rights Report That Disappeared is a new work of investigative non-fiction examining a publicly acknowledged US State Department human rights investigation conducted in 1995–96 whose interim and final reports remain missing or unreleased thirty years later. Combining investigative narrative with an extensive documentary archive, the book explores the implications of that absence for human rights, government transparency, and public accountability.
John Wilson said, "A publicly acknowledged US State Department human rights investigation was conducted, yet thirty years later the report remains missing despite more than a decade of FOIA searches."
This is the second installment in Archives of a Wall Street Analyst, a series built around official paper trails, first-person testimony, and the handling of human rights allegations tied to extractive-industry power. Drawing on declassified embassy cables, FOIA records, litigation filings, human rights reports, and eyewitness testimony, Wilson reconstructs the public record surrounding reports of killings near Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg mine in West Papua, and examines what the missing investigation reveals about accountability, secrecy, and the treatment of dissent.
In a 1996 embassy cable, US Ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, whose embassy was involved in the State Department's West Papua human rights investigation, described the competing forces surrounding the Grasberg project as "a kaleidoscope of greed, venality, high principle and naivete." Roy subsequently joined Freeport-McMoRan's board of directors.
Part narrative and part documentary archive, Buried in Practice assembles FOIA correspondence, embassy cables, litigation filings, human rights reports, and contemporaneous media coverage, allowing readers to examine the record for themselves.
Wilson broadens the subject beyond the missing report, describing a pattern of development aggression in which weak oversight, high-value resource extraction, and remote locations can combine to produce displacement, environmental harm, and contested Indigenous consent.
FOIA attorney C. Peter Sorenson, writes of the State Department's investigation in the book's foreword, "The frame is there. The picture is missing."
Wilson says, "The question is not whether an investigation occurred. The question is why its findings remain absent from the public record."
Comparative cases reviewed
Companies: Comparative analysis spans thirty projects across Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and the Arctic, including case studies involving Freeport-McMoRan, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Rio Tinto, BHP, Vedanta Resources, Glencore, and others.
Themes: In addition to the Freeport/West Papua material, the comparative cases examine allegations of development aggression involving resource projects and Indigenous communities across multiple jurisdictions. Drawing on controversies associated with projects linked to Shell in Nigeria, Chevron in Ecuador, ExxonMobil in Indonesia's Aceh region, and Rio Tinto and the Panguna mine conflict in Bougainville, among others, the book explores recurring themes of environmental damage, Indigenous displacement, security-force violence, unequal distribution of economic benefits, and the marginalization of local communities in resource-rich regions.
Significance: Several of the comparative cases have seen major settlements, criminal proceedings, civil liability findings, or sovereign-wealth-fund exclusions. These include the 2023 settlement of long-running litigation against ExxonMobil arising from alleged security-force abuses in Aceh, Indonesia, illustrating how unresolved allegations of violence, displacement, and environmental harm can continue to generate legal, political, and public-accountability questions decades later.
Blacklisted by sovereign wealth funds
Major sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds documented in the book, including Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, Sweden's AP Funds, New Zealand Superannuation Fund, and KLP, excluded or divested several companies examined in the book, citing concerns ranging from Indigenous rights and environmental damage to corruption and human rights risk.
Availability
Buried in Practice is available worldwide in paperback, hardcover, and ebook editions through major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Waterstones, and other online booksellers.
About the Author
John Wilson is a former Wall Street mining analyst and Wharton MBA whose investigative and documentary non-fiction explores the intersection of resource development, state secrecy, human rights, and public accountability. As an analyst, he covered major mining companies, including Freeport-McMoRan, for SG Warburg and SBC Warburg in New York. He is the author of The Untold Story of the FBI: Archives of a Wall Street Analyst, DOJ.
Contact
John Wilson
Sydney, Australia (+61- 2) 9439 1919
416950@email4pr.com
www.buriedinpractice.com
Title: Buried in Practice: Freeport in West Papua, Indonesia—and the State Department Human Rights Report That Disappeared
Author: John C. Wilson
Publisher: Resource Capital Research Pty Ltd
Publication Date: April 2026 (print and ebook)
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