Isolated Islanders or Indigenous People: The Political Discourse and its Effects on Siberut (Mentawai Archipelago, West-Sumatra)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 Indonesia, 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 Islam. This is considered as contrary to the interests of the indigenous people of the islands. The criterion of Christianity 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 Indonesians 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