Isolated Islanders or Indigenous People: The Political Discourse and its Effects on Siberut (Mentawai Archipelago, West-)1

Gerard A.Persoon

(Leiden University)

Abstrak

Di tingkat global, posisi penduduk lokal ( indigenous people) telah berubah dengan cepat selama lebih dari 20 tahun. Deklarasi-deklarasi dan kebijakan berkaitan dengan hal itu telah diterima—atau masih diperdebatkan—oleh institusi multilateral dan lembaga-lembaga pemberi donor. Lembaga-lembaga yang peduli terhadap kelestarian lingkungan telah pula mengadopsi kebijakan kebijakan berkaitan dengan penduduk lokal itu. Di , sebagai bagian dari proses demokratisasi, wacana berkaitan dengan penduduk lokal pun telah berubah, walau Indonesia masih belum sepenuhnya siap menerima wacana internasional itu. Kelompok-kelompok minoritas mulai mengacu pada perdebatan tentang klaim atas hak pada sumber-sumberdaya alam. Terjadi pula perubahan dalam kebijakan berkenaan dengan penduduk lokal yang menjauh dari program-program pembangunan yang ‘seragam’ (uniform) sifatnya. Terbuka pula kesempatan bagi pengembangan bentuk-bentuk kepemimpinan yang baru di antara kelompok-kelompok itu, karena kondisi di dunia serta interaksi dengan agen-agen resmi memerlukan kemampuan- kemampuan lain dalam hal ketrampilan berkomunikasi. Dalam tulisan ini penulis mengulas interaksi di antara wacana-wacana dan tindakan- tindakan dalam pelaksanaan hukum lokal, nasional, dan internasional pada penduduk lokal dengan memfokus pada situasi di Pulau Siberut. Selama bertahun-tahun orang Mentawai telah menghadapi pengaruh-pengaruh hukum asal dari luar wilayahnya. Hal itu bermula dari administrasi kolonial Belanda, dan dilanjutkan oleh orang-orang Minangkabau yang— sebagai pegawai pemerintah dan administrasi di pulau itu—memiliki pengaruh yang besar atas sistem-sistem peradilan desa, dan hak-hak penduduk setempat versus pendatang. Birokrasi Indonesia melalui berbagai kementeriannya memiliki dampak yang besar atas pulau itu. Dalam kurun waktu terakhir, melalui campur tangan eksternal, kegiatan pariwisata dan pembuatan film oleh perusahaan asing, kesadaran etnis di antara orang-orang Mentawai sebagai penduduk lokal pun mulai tumbuh. Hal itu menuntun munculnya suatu bentuk ‘representasi’ baru di dunia luar, dan pandangan yang baru tentang tradisi-tradisi lokal. Tetapi, perolehan hak-hak kepemilikan atas sumber-sumberdaya alam dan kesempatan pemasaran yang baru telah memicu terjadinya konflik internal yang serius. Tampaknya, interaksi di antara hukum internasional, nasional, dan lokal tidak hanya menciptakan kesempatan-kesempatan baru, tetapi juga menciptakan kevakuman hukum, administrasi, dan kekuasaan yang baru.

1 This article is a revised version of the paper presented at the panel ‘Interdependencies of International, National and Local Law’ at the 2nd International Symposium of Journal ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA: ‘Glo- balization and Local Culture: A Dialectic towards the New Indonesia’, Andalas University, Padang, 18–21 July 2001.

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 25 During a recent meeting of the DPR of the newly founded kabupaten Mentawai Archipelago (West Sumatra) it was decided that the new bupati who was to be elected soon, should be of (ethnic) Mentawaian origin and he should be a Christian.2 These criteria are in themselves a clear reflection of the preference for a person of local origin over a Minangkabau, as the dominant ethnic group of West Sumatra but also against fellow Mentawaians who adhere . This is considered as contrary to the interests of the indigenous people of the islands. The criterion of is interesting because Christianity was brought to the islands from outside and it was more or less imposed upon the Mentawaians as the original religion was condemned as paganism, or a primitive animistic religion. The fact that Christianity is now taken to be an important aspect of Mentawaian cultural identity vis-à-vis the Minangkabau reflects the interaction and internalisation of external pressure by the present generation of Mentawaians. Moreover the election of the highest official for the kabupaten emphasises a level of unity and social organisation which the inhabitants of the Mentawaian islands have never had before. In the past they were classified as an ethnic group based on considerations of linguistic and adat law nature. They were never organised at this level. In other words, the present administrative innovation is likely to produce a new sense of ethnic awareness but might also lead to internal boundaries that have never existed before.

The discourse on indigenous peoples (Attwood 1996). Other countries however deny takes place in various contexts. At the interna- the indigenous peoples issue as they consider tional level organisations like the United Na- all citizens as indigenous or define them in a tions, the World Bank, the Asian Development different manner, like ethnic minorities, hills Bank, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the tribes or isolated communities. World Intellectual Property Organisation At the local level groups of people are (WIPO), and numerous other institutions have organising themselves under this banner of In- issued policy guidelines and principles that digenous People as a powerful tool to articu- should serve as operational procedures by late a new form of identity and to claim rights paying attention to the position and rights of by referring to the international discourse (Li indigenous peoples. 2000). At the national level individual countries It is clear that these discourses on indig- are struggling too with the definition and posi- enous peoples at various levels do not take tion of indigenous peoples. In some cases such place independently from each other. To men- as Colombia and the Philippines, new legisla- tion just one example: the widely publicised tion has recently been adopted to grant indig- struggle of the Punan against logging compa- enous peoples rights to varying degrees of nies in Sarawak, which took place in 1986, can, self-determination and access to natural re- among others, be considered as the start of the sources. Australia is still struggling with the discussion about the position of indigenous impact of the so-called Mabo decision which peoples in the definition of sustainable forestry. grants extensive rights to the aborigines It lead directly to a boycott of the European Union of wood from Malaysia and it finally lead 2 Ever since the Mentawai Islands obtained the status to the acknowledgement of the rights of indig- of an official kabupaten (16 September 1999), there enous peoples as one of the criteria for certifi- has been a continuous debate about the preferred char- acteristics of the bupati in the provincial newspapers cation of wood relevant for import in a number in terms of ethnic background, religion and required of mainly western countries. administrative experience.

26 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 In this paper I want to discuss the interre- (1957). This convention was still largely lations of these discourses and focus in par- based on ideas of integration of the tribal ticular on the situation in Indonesia, thereby peoples into the dominant society. It was taking the island of Siberut as an example. For replaced by convention number 169 titled a long time Indonesia ignored the relevance of ‘Convention concerning indigenous and this discourse for the national context because tribal peoples in independent countries’ all are considered to be ‘indig- (1989). Maybe because of the fact that this enous’ but due to international and local pro- convention is phrased in relatively strong cesses it is becoming an important issue at wordings, it is ratified by only a small present. In order to appreciate the situation number of countries. So far (April 2002), within the country it is necessary to pay first none of the Asian countries has done so. some attention to the global context. · The World Bank plays a very important role in relation to the indigenous peoples The international level: the global not only because of its scale of operations discourse but also because of the way the bank has At the international level there are a large dealt with this issue. Based on criticism to number of expressions of concern for the posi- bank operations in Latin America and tion of indigenous peoples in relation to hu- elsewhere in the 1970s, the bank finally man rights, the negative impact of large scale published a report on the relation between development projects (dams, roads, planta- tribal peoples and economic development, tions), effects of logging, mining and other including also some policy guidelines forms of exploitation of the environment and (1982). This report was replaced in 1991, ill-designed development projects directly after many more critical studies about the aimed at the indigenous peoples themselves. impact of the World Bank projects Mention should also be made of the negative (including its role in the Indonesian impact on indigenous people of centrally is- transmigration programmes). The bank sued nature conservation projects, in particu- issued the operational directive 4.20: larly national parks in which no human habita- ‘Indigenous Peoples’. In 1998 the bank tion is allowed. In some cases this has led to decided to re-examine its policy and also forced resettlement to other areas or reduction to pay attention to the highly varying of access to the natural resources by the indig- conditions in various parts of the world enous peoples themselves. (Satish 1999). It should also be noted that Some of the most important reflections of the bank by far preceeded other donor these concerns at the international level are organisations in paying explicit attention the following: to this problem and it has inspired many · The International Labour Organisation other organisations in their formulation of (ILO) was the first international indigenous peoples policies. organisation in the post war period to issue · The Convention on Biological Diversity a convention (number 107) on the (CBD) which was adopted as part of the ‘Protection and integration of indigenous Agenda 21 by the United Nations and other tribal people and semi-tribal Conference on Environment and populations in independent countries’ Development (UNCED, Rio 1992), pays

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 27 explicit attention to the role of indigenous among all the members states regarding and local communities in relation to definitions of indigenous peoples. Another biodiversity conservation.3 At present it major problem is the extent to which the is the most important international legal indigenous peoples should be granted document because the CBD has been special rights compared to non-indigenous ratified by more than 180 countries. The groups and whether these rights should CBD has also installed a special working be only a temporary or a permanent group which allows representatives of phenomenon. indigenous and local communities to voice · WWF issued a statement of principles their view and concerns regarding the regarding indigenous peoples and implementation of this convention. After a conservation in 1996. Worth noticing here number of meetings which were largely is that is explicitly refers to the instrumental dominated by good intentions, the role of indigenous peoples because, as is Conference of Parties of the Convention clear in article 11 of this statement, the has agreed to submit country reports on organisation only supports indigenous the progress made in this area during the peoples in as far as their life style next meeting which will take place in the contributes to the aims of conservation Hague (the Netherlands) in April 2002. (WWF 1996). In a later document an · The United Nations declared 1993 as the integrated approach was proposed to Year of the Indigenous Peoples and at the conserving the world’s biological and end of the year it was decided that the next cultural diversity (Oviedo and Maffi 2000). decade would be the ‘Decade of the · The Asian Development Bank (ADB) was Indigenous Peoples’. One of the rather slow among the big international formulated aims was to achieve at donor agencies in issuing a policy endorsing a declaration for Indigenous statement regarding indigenous peoples Peoples comparable to the universal in spite of the fact that officially about 70% declaration of human rights in 2004. As yet, of the world’s indigenous peoples are living the working group charged with the in the Asia-Pacific region. For many years formulation of this declaration, is still faced the ADB more or less implicitly followed with big difficulties to achieve agreement the guidelines by the World Bank but after numerous meetings and consultations with various groups and representatives it came 3 Article 8(j) on the convention contains the most up with official policy statement in 1999. explicit reference to the position of indigenous peoples. The document plays attention to policy It reads as follows: ‘Each party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate, and subject to its national legisla- objectives, operational processes and tion, respect preserve and maintain knowledge, inno- operational approaches. It prescribes how vations and practices of indigenous and local commu- the bank should operate in areas where nities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diver- bank projects are expected to have an sity and promote their wider application with the ap- adverse effect on the life style or the proval and involvement of the holders of such knowl- environment of indigenous peoples. The edge, innovations and practices and encourage the eq- uitable sharing of the benefits arising from the guidelines of the bank mirror to a large utilisation of such knowledge, innovations and prac- extent the policy of the World Bank (Asian tices.’ Development Bank 1999).

28 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 · The World Intellectual Property events. Organisations echo ideas and state- Organisation (WIPO)4 has recently also ments of other organisations and try to adjust taken up the issue of indigenous peoples them to some degree to their own context and in relation to the protection of rights to political aims. They are all participants in the genetic resources, traditional knowledge global discourse. Few organisations working and folklore. It is still far from issuing in these fields and at this level can do without policy guidelines because of the highly a clear statement on this subject.6 There is a complicated state of affairs. One of the striking agreement nowadays regarding the difficulties is that countries differ widely terminology used at the international level. among themselves with regard to the Though initially terms like tribal peoples, cul- protection of these kinds of rights. Under tural minorities, indigenous communities, first these circumstances it is considered nations, fourth world, ethnic minorities, and almost impossible to achieve sound native tribes were often used, the term ‘indig- international legislation with sufficient enous peoples’ is now generally employed. This opportunities for law enforcement. Under is even so in contexts where the historical evi- the present circumstances it is dence for defining one group as indigenous recommended to aim for contractual vis-à-vis others is lacking or where various eth- agreements between the parties concerned nic groups are known to have a comparable (World Intellectual Property Organisation history of settlement. The way of thinking in 2000). terms of being indigenous or nonindigenous This list of organisations and institutions is largely inspired by clear cases of historical at the international level could be substantially colonisation, like in the case of Latin or North- extended but the message should be clear. All American Indians, Australian Aborigines or major international institutions working in the Southeast Asian Negrito groups. But the dis- field development, and nature conservation tinction is now also employed in cases where have issued statements of concern or rights of similar processes of colonisation have not taken indigenous peoples. Most of the western coun- place. Ethnic groups might have had different tries have also published policy statements to kinds of histories based on different ecologi- guide them in their development aid activities: cal circumstances, or based on different pat- United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, terns of mobility. In many cases it is the out- Denmark, Belgium and collectively the Euro- side world which employs the category of in- pean Union have among others issued policy digenous peoples also for people who main- statements.5 These are in no way isolated tain a kind of life style different from the main- stream of society (or a tribal way of life). This is for instance the case with the Pygmies from 4 The WIPO is an international organisation based in Geneva dedicated to helping to ensure that the rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are protected world-wide and that inventors and authors does not touch on the delicate issue of indigenous are recognised and rewarded for their ingenuity. At peoples within the European Union (European Union present there are 178 members states (including Indo- 1998). nesia). 6 One of the striking examples of an organisation 5 Interestingly this policy statement of the EU refers which has not issued a policy statement regarding in- only to indigenous peoples in relation to the develop- digenous peoples is the United Nations Development ment activities in other countries. In other words it Programme (UNDP).

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 29 Central Africa (Bahuchet 2001) or the sched- Initially it was aimed at the suku-suku terasing uled castes and tribes from India (Satish 1999). (primitive or isolated tribes) but later the term was changed to the somewhat ambivalent The Indonesian level: state bureau- masyarakat suku terasing to the singular form cracy of masyarakat terasing to stress the dominant Since the fall of in May 1998 the characteristic of isolation more that the plural discussion on indigenous peoples within In- ethnic nature of this group of people. At no donesia has taken a radically different direc- stage a term like ‘indigenous’ was even con- tion. For many decades Indonesia denied the sidered. The core of the development relevance of this discourse for internal matters. programme was resettlement of scattered com- All Indonesians were considered to be indig- munities into large villages within reach of the enous. Official delegations to large international government and its services and infrastructure. meetings in Geneva (UN, WIPO), Manila (ADB), Important elements of the development and or New York (UN, UNDP) refused to discuss civilisation programme were the introduction this issue and unofficial representatives of self- of permanent agriculture (instead of shifting acclaimed indigenous peoples met with big cultivation or even hunting and gathering) problems if they showed up during these meet- nuclear and permanent housing (instead of a ings or if they wanted to express their views on nomadic way of life or communal houses), ad- the negative impact of logging, transmigration herence of one of the official religions (instead or ill defined development activities. Indone- of natural religions or paganism), decent cloth- sia also did not participate in the activities of ing (in stead of loincloth), decent cultivated the UN Year of the Indigenous Peoples (1993). food (instead of foods from the wild), modern During the Orde Baru Indonesia only ac- health care (in stead of medicine men) and mod- knowledged the social problem of primitive iso- ern education (instead of no education at all). lated tribes for which an extensive develop- This programme was implemented in hundreds ment and civilisation programme was devel- of project villages across the country (see oped and implemented since the early seven- Departemen Sosial 1997 and Persoon 1994 for ties. About 1.5 million people were supposed a discussion of this programme). to belong to this category of masyarakat Since the change of power however from terasing (isolated communities), spread over Suharto to Habibie and on to Wahid and 20 provinces. This part of the population con- Megawati, there has been a wave of de- sisted of more than 200 different ethnic groups. mocratisation throughout the country. Elections Some of the better known groups are the vari- were organised on a totally different footing ous Dayak tribes, the Papuas, the Baduy, the with 48 political parties participating in the event Sea Gypsies (), the Mentawaians (Pompe 1999). Reformasi is a powerful word in and numerous others (Koentjaraningrat 1993). Indonesia and it is largely understood as in- For many years the Departments of Social Af- creased regional autonomy and de- fairs and Forestry dealt with these communi- centralisation (see van Dijk 2001). ties in an effort to bring them (back) into the With respect to the discourse on indig- mainstream of the Indonesian social and eco- enous people(s) there have also been interest- nomic life. The Department of Social Affairs in ing events which will be indicated briefly: particular was responsible for this programme. • In March 1999 a major gathering of hundreds of representatives of various

30 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 ethnic groups from all over the country terasing to masyarakat adat terpencil and took place in . It was concluded with also changing some major ideas regarding a declaration aimed at ‘reconsidering the the uniform development and civilisation relationship between indigenous peoples processes. Though it may seem only a and the state’ and claiming that the cosmetic change, the influence of the government should accept the international AMAN meeting, was certainly noticeable. conventions and policy guidelines • In the last few years Indonesia has adopted regarding indigenous peoples. Explicit a number of new laws on regional reference was made to the ILO convention autonomy and decentralisation including 169 of 1989 regarding indigenous peoples. also the distribution of the revenues The state should also refrain from originating from forestry, mining and other implementing ill-designed development sectors (law 22 and 25, 1999). Also a plans. At that meeting the Aliansi completely new forestry law has been Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) accepted (law 44, 1999). All of these was officially founded (AMAN 1999 and contribute either by the actual text of the 2000). laws or in spirit to a very strong sense of • At international meetings Indonesian local ownership of natural resources. representatives of indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples in particular participate show up and speak out on crucial issues actively in the process of dissolving state in their home territories. They seek active responsibilities through the foundation of support for their struggle for land and new co-operatives active in the field of cultural identity. More than in the past they forest management, mining or fisheries. also solicit for financial support from donor • Part of this movement is also a revival of organisations and international NGOs. the old concept of adat in relation to adat • During the 1999 elections five seats in the lands, adat regulations of local justice and parliament were reserved for what is now the like. At the present moment adat called the ethnic minorities: this was a major regulations are put forward again in the breakthrough with regard to the political vacuum that is created by the abolishment representation of this part of the population or weakening of numerous centrally issued even though the political impact is bound government regulations. One of the to remain rather minimal. After internal aspects of this movement is the return to discussion representatives of the Baduy, the system of village government before the Kubu, the Dayak, the Sangir and the the implementation of the law of village Papuas took the seats. government (1979) which abolished all local • The Department of Social Affairs7 adopted forms of government in favour of the a presidential decision in 1999 (no. 111) based desa concept. changing the name of the masyarakat In short it is clear that in Indonesia there is a new society in the making even though the 7 Officially the Department of Social Affairs was at one stage dissolved but then revived again. However present situation is very uncertain, unstable during the dissolved stage, part of its functions were continued by the newly created Institution for Social present (2nd half of 2001) there is still a lot of uncer- Affairs under supervision of the president. Then it tainty regarding its mandate, funding and activities was merged with the Department of Public Health. At with regard to the masyarakat adat terpencil.

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 31 and even potentially dangerous with respect ber of kampung of about 60 to 20 desa divided to outbreaks of violence based on ethnic, reli- over two kecamatan under the kabupaten of gious or other types of differences such as the Padang-Pariaman, with its capital in Pariaman violent conflicts between the Dayak and on the mainland of Sumatra. Madurese people in Central and West In the history of Siberut the Minangkabau . Dissolving central authority might officials and migrants always considered the also jeopardise the levels of security neces- people as primitive and backward. They were sary for a civil society to continue to function supposed to be in urgent need of development. properly. Claims for increased regional au- Missionaries bringing Christianity, develop- tonomy through the establishment of new prov- ment activities in the form of the special devel- inces or kabupaten may in some cases also be opment programme for the masyarakat based on considerations of ethnic identity. terasing, logging operations and eco-tourism have fundamentally changed the conditions on The local level: the case of Siberut the island in the past few decades. The state Siberut is the largest of the Mentawaian has claimed the primary forest resources on Islands off the west coast of Sumatra. The the island for granting logging concessions population is predominantly Mentawaian since the early 1970’s even though there is no (about 25,000 people). Relatively small groups empty land on the island according to the per- of people originate from other ethnic groups ceptions of the local people. The patrilineal such as the Minangkabau, Javanese, and . groups consider even the closed canopy for- Traditionally the people lived in small settle- est as their property. ments along the banks of the rivers that cut The weak reaction of the local Mentawaian through the thick forest. People were living on people towards outside interventions is to be hunting and gathering and the domestication attributed to the lack of internal organisation of pigs and chickens. Sago is the staple food and lack of experience in dealing with more and in addition they practice a form of shifting powerful outside forces. The autonomous uma cultivation characterised by the importance of communities were simply not in a position to perennial crops. Annual crops like upland rice generate sufficient strength to resist external or corn were unknown until recently. Politically powers. There has never been a serious attempt the people of Siberut were organised in small to unify a number of uma communities for the autonomous settlements consisting of one ex- sake of resistance. Throughout the history there tended patrilineal family of up to 50 or 60 people. has always been an attitude of conflict avoid- Friendly relations were maintained with other ance by means of retreat or simply giving in or settlements within the same watershed area but fighting with the ‘weapons of the weak’. Un- people were never organised at this level. The obtrusive non-compliance with the regulations Dutch colonial administration imposed a sys- or temporary obedience has been the general tem of village heads on the traditional situa- attitude. Intimidation or threat of force has usu- tion. The estimated 250–300 uma settlements ally been sufficient to impose various kinds of were forced into a smaller number of kampung policies upon the local people or their environ- in the early 1950’s, each headed by a kepala ment. kampung. The implementation of the 1979 law Within the Mentawaian Archipelago most on the village administration reduced the num- external attention has been aimed at ‘saving Siberut’, the largest island with a good deal of

32 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 rainforest and with the most traditional popu- animals, the forest would be protected. For lation. The combination of a relatively small that reason reconsideration of the island with traditional people in their intact previously issued logging concessions, natural environment has a strong attraction for and establishment of a sufficiently large western tourists as well as for donor nature reserve would be a necessary step organisations working in the field of nature (WWF 1980). After 1982 WWF terminated conservation. The relatively large number of its involvement in Siberut, leaving the international films on the ‘traditional’ condi- conservation efforts to the Indonesian tions on the island has been instrumental in department for nature conservation. attracting this kind of attention. Many of these • The Asian Development Bank has funded films were broadcast in western countries but the largest single conservation and also in Japan and . All of them por- development project on the island. It tray the harmonious life of isolated islanders in started at a time that the bank had not yet an abundant environment facing an aggressive fully formalised its policy statement outside world in search of adherents of new regarding indigenous peoples in 1994. religions, timber, or with a mission to ‘civilise However the consultants of this project and develop the primitive and indigenous were requested to act in accordance with people’. the World Bank’s statement in this Over the years Siberut has attracted a num- respect. As participation of the local people ber of organisations. To mention just the most is an important aspect of the project, a local important ones: NGO was founded using also the English • Survival International: a London-based term ‘indigenous people’ to differentiate organisation for the protection of rights of the local people from the Minangkabau, indigenous peoples. A project was Batak and Javanese on the island. implemented on the island from 1979–1982 • From within Indonesia, the Jakarta based aimed at strengthening of local land rights non-governmental organisation SKEPHI and fighting the logging companies which (Indonesian network on tropical were operating on the island. Based on conservation) got involved in the actions extensive experience in Latin America, to save Siberut from being converted into Survival International broadened its scope a large palm oil plantation. It did so through to Indonesia. Siberut was the first and up campaign and lobby activities on the till now only field project in this country. island as well as in Padang and Jakarta The situation in Indonesia proved while it also tried to link up with a number however to be radically different from that of sympathetic organisations abroad (see in Latin America with respect to the role of e.g. SKEPHI 1992). the government and the way local and • UNESCO: already in 1981 Siberut was indigenous peoples are defined vis-à-vis officially declared a Man-and-Biosphere other ethnic groups. reserve. This status should be looked upon • Simultaneously WWF was implementing as a kind of legal instrument to combine a project to save the wildlife on the island local people’s interests with nature and in particular the four endemic primate conservation. In many other cases of species. This could of course only be MAB reserves the local people enjoy achieved if the natural habitat of the special rights compared to migrants. Since

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 33 1981 this declaration did not have a great and Pagai. They reflect the interest of the out- impact on the island however. It was only side world in terms of ‘wild nature’ and ‘exotic towards the end of the ADB project in 1998/ people’. In addition to these truly Mentawaian 1999 that UNESCO started to take an active organisations, there are also a number of interest in Siberut and tried to revive the organisations that are founded and run by ideology of the Siberut Man-and- Minangkabau or Batak people. Some also claim Biosphere reserve but it can only do so to aim for the development of protection of the with the explicit co-operation of the islands but they are less outspoken about the Indonesian government and the local ethnic origin of the founders or of the members people. of the organisations. • Conservation International (CI) is an So far the Mentawaians have not been very American conservation organisation, active within the national indigenous peoples’ which is now gradually taking an interest movement. The recently established or- in Siberut because others are pulling out. ganisations suffer from internal conflicts, and Attempts to do so a few years ago were lack of cooperation. They are competing for fruitless because of the involvement of the scarce resources while the relation with the lo- Asian Development Bank. At the moment cal people on the island is relatively weak or CI is preparing plans to protect the island even nonexisting. There is certainly not a di- from being logged and converted into rect form of representation and accountability plantations by trying to lease the island’s of the actions and positions taken by the forests and compensate for the ‘losses’ for Padang-based NGO’s to the people living on not logging the trees. Beneficiaries of this the island. contract would be the government as well On the other hand it is clear that the pro- as the local people through improved cess of reformasi and the call for regional au- infrastructure such as schools, and tonomy has also reached Siberut island. At policlinics. present local people are not willing to accept In reaction to the changing conditions in the national claims on their forest resources Indonesia and on Siberut in particular but also anymore. They voice severe criticism regard- as a reaction to the way the outside world pre- ing the national park status of almost half the sents itself, a number of NGO’s have estab- island. There is also a strong feeling of resent- lished themselves on Siberut and more in par- ment regarding the fact that Andalas Univer- ticular in Padang, in an effort to protect the sity has been given a concession of almost island from the unfortunate projected futures 50,000 hectare on the island under the Land in terms of logging, establishment of oil palm Grant College arrangement. Recently founded plantations, or transmigration. Examples of village co-operatives, financed by business such organisations are Yasumi, Laggai Simaeru, people and investors from the main land are IPPMEN, and Citra Mandiri. All of them stress now willing to convert the forest into other land that they are directly or indirectly ‘represent- use types and sell the timber to saw mills in ing the indigenous people of Siberut’. Just as Padang or elsewhere. After decades of logging the outside world, most of these NGO’s have a operations by outsiders and with little benefits strong focus on the island of Siberut and far for the local people, many of them feel that they less on the other Mentawaian Islands of Sipora should make use of the newly acquired oppor- tunities to sell the timber that is located on their

34 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 land. At present however there is great con- NGO’s. The international reaction in the last cern among the people of Siberut because of two decades was largely borne out of a num- the internal conflicts. Land that used to be con- ber of accidents and clear violations of collec- sidered as common property is now being sold tive human rights. Particular cases like the or logged without the consent of all uma mem- Punan resistance against the logging compa- bers. It is predicted that there will be ‘war’ on nies in Sarawak in which the Swiss Bruno Siberut. The new opportunities offered by the Manser played a crucial role (Manser 1996), 1999 forestry law and the laws on regional au- the killing of Chico Mendes as the leader of the tonomy do not coincide with the way decisions rubber tapers in Brasil (Revkin 1990), the per- regarding forest resources used to be taken on formance of the Kayapo Indians during the the island. Incidents have already been re- UNCED conference in Rio in 1992 (Posey 1998), ported about the destruction of equipment of the case of the Chipco movement in the logging companies and the use of violence by Himalaya Mountains (Guha 1994), and the dra- the police or military.8 matic case of the hunting for human genes among the isolated Indians in Latin America in Interaction and interdependencies order to obtain patents on human blood in the between legal discourses preparation of new kinds of medicines The interaction between the various lev- (Holland 1995), have greatly contributed to the els on which the discourse regarding indig- general awareness that indigenous peoples enous peoples takes place is by no means a need protection from outside in order to avoid one-sided kind of influence from the interna- abuse, land encroachment, social misery and tional level through the national level to the blatant injustice. International governmental in- local level. In general one could say that in stitutions, urged by international NGO’s active most cases the national bureaucratic level was in this field of protection of indigenous peoples, 9 strongly influenced both by the international have been instrumental towards that end. and as well as by the local level. The depart- They have substantially contributed to the ments involved within the national bureaucra- growth of international law regarding indig- cies felt more or less forced to act because of enous peoples (Ayana 1996). international pressure or because of internal On the other hand over the years the inter- pressure as a result of claims for de- national discourse on indigenous peoples has mocratisation from local groups or their spokes- developed concepts and ideas which are now men. successfully employed by local groups in or- To a large extent it can be argued that the der to phrase their claims in an official and ac- international level was influenced initially by ceptable idiom. Or to use a concept of Morris- events at the local level which were brought to Suzuki, there is a process of ‘formatting, the the attention of politicians or the general pub- 9 lic though the media as a result of concerned Organisations which have been very active in this field are the International Working Group on Indig- individuals and a number of international enous Affairs (Copenhagen), Cultural Survival (United States), Survival International (London) and numer- ous regional and national organisations. Within the 8 The Padang based newspapers regularly cover this Asian context mention should be made of the Philip- kind of incidents nowadays while in the past they used pine based Tebtabba Foundation, the Asia Indigenous to remain unnoticed by the geneal public in the prov- Peoples Act (Bangkok), and the Asian Indigenous and ince. Tribal Peoples Network (New Dehli).

ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 35 creation of a single underlying common frame- Fauna and Flora (CITES 1973), should imple- work or set of rules’ used to coordinate local ment the protection of particular species. There sub-regimes in an increasingly interconnected is in fact a direct relation to what is agreed upon world (cited in Smith and Ward 2000). The con- at the international level and the need for a cept of indigenous peoples itself is a clear ex- nation to issue regulations at the national level. ample of this development. Other concepts that The list of protected species of plants and ani- are widely used in the rhetoric on this subject mals within Indonesia should reflect this inter- are: indigenous ecological wisdom, the spiri- national legislation, if necessary with additions tual value of biodiversity, the sustainable use based on national considerations. About half of resources, life styles in accordance with the of the island of Siberut has been declared a carrying capacity of the environment, protec- national park and numerous protected animals tion of cultural heritage, the contribution to the are to be found in the forests or coastal waters cultural diversity of mankind, self-determina- surrounding the island. To mention just a few tion, and also the skilful management of natu- of the protected species: various species of ral resources. In many cases these concepts marine turtles, the duyong or sea cow, four pri- have no clear equivalent in the local context, mate species, hornbills, sea eagle and numer- and they are hard to translate. At present how- ous other bird species. One of the trees that is ever they are successfully employed by repre- officially protected is the Aquilaria tree which sentatives of indigenous peoples at various provides the valuable agarwood or gaharu kinds of meetings. They are read into traditional (Barden et al. 2000). The people on Siberut are practices and knowledge. They provide a suit- notified about these regulations through widely able idiom to articulate new forms of identity distributed posters with pictures of the pro- that are met with sympathy in the outside world. tected species. Due to low levels of law en- Another important aspect of the international forcement, the compliance with the international discourse in terms of indigenous peoples is and national rules and regulations regarding that ethnic groups, which were hitherto never protected species is rather limited. Many of the politically organised as a social unit, are now regulations are also ill understood. The plan- implicitly invited to do so because rights are ning of the park boundaries was rather unfor- attributed to them as collective units or as tunate: the park includes a number of long es- ‘peoples’. In order to do so successfully many tablished villages. Protection of a number of of them have to overcome internal differences. animals is difficult to grasp for the local people There is one area in which there is a clear because of their relative abundance and in par- interdependence between international and na- ticular because protection rules were put in tional law but which has hitherto had little ef- place after decades of extensive logging. fect on the local system of law and regulations The number of ritual ceremonies on the and that is in the field of nature conservation. island largely determines hunting pressure for The legislation in Indonesia with regard to na- the primate species. The gaharu boom at the tional parks, and other protected areas and in end of the 1980’s almost brought the Aquilaria particular with regard the protection of endan- tree on the island to the point of extinction. gered species is highly influenced by the inter- Local rules regarding the rights of exploitation national legislation and regulations. Indone- still determine who is entitled to hunt and gather sia, as a signatory of the Convention on Inter- these resources rather than international and national Trade in Endangered Species of Wild national regulations. So in this respect there is

36 ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA 68, 2002 little if any interdependence between the two the equitable sharing of the benefits by all the systems. Because of the increased concentra- members of the communities involved. Because tion of people in the coastal zones, and the of the big differences within the communities changing life style, the hunting pressure is re- regarding the level of experience in dealing with duced but this is not to be attributed to inter- the outside world and the high level of jeal- national or national legislation. ousy among the members of the communities, Another interesting field is the relation opportunities offered by the outside world for between the various kinds of legislation that enjoying new and collective rights could eas- exist at present. Though regulations regarding ily lead to increased tensions.10 This is not nature conservation both at the international meant to imply however that this should not level (CITES, TRAFFIC etc) as well as at the be the way to move forward in the name of a national level (national park legislation, list of fair distribution of rights and privileges. It only protected species etc.) have a general validity calls for adequate attention for the social reali- for all citizens, some indigenous peoples’ poli- ties at the local level. This will also be one of cies or conventions tend to favour indigenous the biggest challenges for the recently installed peoples vis-à-vis nonindigenous peoples. Ex- kabupaten administration. amples are for instance hunting permission in case of aboriginal whaling, or permission for Acknowledgement killing animals for ritual purposes, or collection I would like to thank the editors of Jurnal of plants for medicinal reasons. Combining two ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA and Tessa legal domains however often leads to confu- Minter for making valuable suggestions to this sion, as a hierarchy in legal preference needs paper. to be determined, and it often creates unrest particularly among those who do not classify 10 The history of the allocation of government funds as indigenous and who for that reason can not for collective interests is highly unfortunate. There enjoy the special rights. are numerous stories and cases of village heads using The new forms of articulation of ethnic IDT (Inpres Desa Tertinggal) or BANDES (Bantuan Desa) funds for private interest or at best for the identity in the idiom of indigenous peoples is interest of his own uma community. The sense of likely to produce internal tensions. Recogni- solidarity and common interest above the level of the tion of rights to collective units demands ad- patrilineal group, that is at the level of a village com- munity, is still poorly developed on the island. equate internal structures in order to allow for

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