Jakarta-To date, four farmers of Polanto Jaya village, Donggala Regency, Central Sulawesi have to face court in State Court of North Mamuju, West Sulawesi on allegation of stealing palm oil fruits of PT. Mamuang, subsidiary of Astra Agro Lestari (AAL). Conflict with the community involving big group of palm oil corporate is not a new news. Recently, one of the subsidiaries of PT. Agro Nusa Abadi (ANA) in North North Morowali is allegedly using the military to carry out silencing of oil palm farmers in the company area, with military security posts located in the company's territory. Director of WALHI Central Sulawesi, Abdul Haris stated, "Astra Agro Lestari is one of the businessmen who controls agrarian resources so much in Sulawesi, especially Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi. With HGU and IUP areas reaching 111,304 hectares of total oil palm plantations reaching 713,217 hectares, Astra Agro Lestari topped the palm oil plantation in Central Sulawesi, followed by Smart and Kencana Agri.
This situation contributes to the increased crisis in Celebes land. The stronger business power planted by AAL in the palm oil plantation sector goes hand in hand with the various cases and agrarian conflicts that occurred in Central Sulawesi ". "Ironically, all the bad portraits of palm oil plantation industry management gets legitimation from the State, both the Central Government, and Local Government. Not surprisingly, the control over space in the Central Sulawesi region, almost 30% of them is controlled by the Corporates, while on the other hand, living space and people's governance areas are threatened and diminished ", added Haris. Criminalization case conducted by PT. Mamuan to farmers of Polanto Jaya Village and other agrarian conflicts should be questioned, considering that PT. Mamuang and other AAL subsidiaries have got the ISPO certificate, which is said to have legally binding ties; whereas in fact, in various conflicts and environmental cases. ISPO is unable to answer the agrarian structural conflict; therefore, ISPO shall be responsible for criminalization case and agrarian conflicts occurred in Astra Agro Lestari concession. Astra Agro Lestari has at least 413,138 hectares of oil palm plantations in Indonesia. In 2013, AAL has assets of approximately 15 trillion. It gets some funds from several banks such as OCBC, Mizuho Financial Group, Sumitomo Group, Mitsubishi UFJ-Financial Group, Bank Pan Indonesia, DBS, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bank Mandiri. Therefore, the funding agency also needs to be responsible for AAL actions and practices in the field that allegedly commit many violations of human rights, said Edi Sutrisno, Deputy Director of Transformation for Justice in Indonesia.
The government continues to turn a blind eye to the facts of human rights abuses and environmental destruction occurring in oil palm plantations throughout its supply chain, including those in major concessions of companies purporting to have "sustainable palm" commitments. "Rather than continuing to circumvent these facts and justify the bad practices of the company, they shall try to fix the governance of natural resources within the country and protecting the rights of farmers, indigenous peoples / local communities constantly threatened by oil palm plantations; especially, trying to negotiate human rights issues through trade negotiations such as Indonesia-EU CEPA. Human rights are not to be negotiated, but are met and protected by the state from the threat of a third party attack, in this case a large palm oil plantation corporation. Inda Fatinaware, Director of Sawit Watch emphasizes that “agrarian conflict in Central and West Sulawesi involving big group of Astra Agro Lestari illustrates the process of HGU issuance is not clear and clean among the community, Corporates receiving the HGU and the Government issuing the HGU, in this case BPN. The approach of the security apparatus and the ways in which the dispersion is used, is contrary to the President's commitment to implement the agrarian reform agenda ". Therefore, we urge the Indonesian government to immediately audit the palm oil plantation permit and review all abandoned corporate HGUs, HGU obtained by violating laws and regulations and / or conflicting HGUs with the community, Inda said in the closing press release. Jakarta, 16 January 2018.
For further information, please contact:
- Abdul Haris, Director of WALHI Central Sulawesi at082191952025 2. Khalisah Khalid, Head of Campaign and Network Development Department of National Executive WALHI at 081290400147 3. Inda Fatinaware, Director of Sawit Watch at 0811448677 4. Edi Sutrisno, Deputy Director of TuK Indonesia at 087711246094Contact Person: Malik Diadzin, Staff of Media and Public Communication of WALHI at 081808131090
