[Kabar-indonesia] 5 of 11: HRW: Indonesian Military's Economic Activities

[Joyo at aol.com]

-5 of 11-

HRW: Indonesian Military's Economic Activities 
continues...

Example 2: Military Coal Mining and Human Rights in
South Kalimantan

When PT Arutmin, an Indonesian-owned mining company
with operations in South Kalimantan, was faced with
illegal mining in its concession areas, it turned to
the security forces for help.252 After the police
response proved inadequate, the company engaged the
military—through a loose partnership with an army
cooperative—to help control illegal mining at its
Senakin mine.
Army Cooperative Regularizes Illegal Mining

The role of the army cooperative was to act as an
intermediary to help reduce the illegal mining
activities of local residents who used heavy equipment
to mine tons of surface coal. The active-duty soldiers
who worked in the cooperative were to organize the
unlicensed local miners and ensure they turned the
coal over for delivery to the company. In exchange,
the army cooperative got to earn a profit from the
resale of the coal.253

Neither the army cooperative nor Arutmin responded to
Human Rights Watch's requests for information. A
representative of the contractor for Arutmin's
operations at the Senakin mine, however, publicly
explained the set-up under which the military (and
police, at another mine location) organized illegal
miners with the concession-holder's permission:

I actually wouldn't even call it illegal [mining] now.
It is semi-organized subcontracting direct to Arutmin,
who have now got the whole thing under control.254

Once the army cooperative had a financial stake in
coal mining operations, it soon slipped into a realm
outside the rule of law. Soldiers not only channeled
to the company the coal mined by the illegal miners,
as envisioned, but demanded bribes from the miners to
allow black market coal sales. The army cooperative
also exploited the miners. Soldiers demanded bribes,
paid the miners a fraction of the value of the coal,
and often did not pay them for months at a time.
Moreover, the soldiers used coercion and violence to
enforce their cooperative's control. Miners told Human
Rights Watch of beatings and other abuse.255

The account here focuses on military abuses committed
against coal miners who were controlled by the army
cooperative under this arrangement. As explained to
Human Rights Watch by several miners, the regional
army cooperative for South Kalimantan, Puskopad B,256
issued permits to miners granting them permission to
mine on the Arutmin concession,257 required them to
sell the mined coal back to the cooperative for it to
resell to Arutmin at a large profit, and used
intimidation and force to keep the miners in line.
This was lucrative business for Puskopad, which paid
the miners only about half the market value for their
coal (approximately Rp. 38,000 to Rp. 44,000 [$4.18 to
$4.84] per metric ton, compared to the Rp. 75,000 to
Rp. 85,000 [$8.25 to $9.35] local price on the open
market in late 2004).258

The miners, however, had little choice since their
status was tenuous. Despite the permits granted by
Puskopad, with the presumed agreement of the company,
the miners were still operating outside the law and
were subject to arrest by police.259 One miner
explained:

The Puskopad guarantee is not 100 percent. Since I
have a work permit from Puskopad to mine on the
Arutmin site, it's almost like I'm a legal miner. But
the police will come and say I'm not authorized.260

A third miner put it more bluntly:

The TNI takes advantage of the guarantees so they can
get the fee for the coal, but they do not protect us
from the police.261

Puskopad also facilitated illegal mining outside the
agreement. Miners said they were able to pay Puskopad
a fee (Rp. 13,000 per ton, or $1.43) so that Puskopad
would not block them from selling coal they had mined
on the open market.262 One miner explained:

If you don't pay the royalty to Puskopad you can't
sell the coal on the open market. If you don't pay the
royalty you'd get taken away. Everybody knows you have
to pay so no one even tries to sell [on the open
market] without paying.263
Exploitation and Abuse of Miners

Miners who spoke to Human Rights Watch said these
arrangements trapped them in an exploitative
relationship with the army cooperative. They said that
the low price the cooperative paid them for their
coal, in combination with the various fees it charged,
made it very hard for them to make a living. They also
complained of payments that often were made months
late, leaving them to live hand-to-mouth. Several of
the miners felt they were being taken advantage of and
some decided it was not worth it to mine for Puskopad
on the Arutmin concession.

A former miner explained why he got out of the
business: "There are too many procedures. You also
have to give money, lots of it, if you want to mine
there."264

A more serious concern for the miners was that
Puskopad enforced its economic interests with an iron
hand, relying on intimidation and violence. All of the
miners with whom Human Rights Watch spoke had been
subjected to various forms of mistreatment by
Puskopad. These cases arose when the miners acted in
defiance of the permit arrangements or when they
attempted to avoid the additional payments demanded by
the cooperative for allowing the miners to sell coal
on the open market.

For example, two miners said that Puskopad patrols
forced miners to dump out truckloads of coal when they
were caught leaving without having first stopped at
the Puskopad office to pay the agreed fees.265 Another
miner was detained for several hours in September 2003
for mining without Puskopad's advance knowledge. He
said an armed patrol escorted him to the Puskopad
office, where the commander threatened to seize the
miner's equipment and demanded, "If you are in the
Arutmin site you have to report to me."266

Some of these encounters involved the implicit or
explicit threat of violence. One miner said that on
repeated occasions Puskopad patrols had threatened to
shoot him and had beaten the drivers and laborers
working with miners.267 Late at night in November
2003, as three miners and their crews were loading the
coal they had secretly mined, some twenty uniformed
and armed military personnel from the Puskopad post
approached and immediately began threatening and
beating them:

The commander (…) arrived. He threatened me. He said,
"If you do anything you'll be shot." The guns were
pointed at me, they were long guns [rifles]. The
people in our group were beaten for around fifteen
minutes until they were bruised. They used everything
to hit them—their guns, their hands, their feet. I was
in a car and they threatened to shoot me. They were
all in uniform and had guns.268  

He went on to describe that the miners and laborers
were subsequently arbitrarily detained. They were
taken to the Puskopad office, where the beatings
continued:

We were held until morning but some people who were
not taken that night were called in for questioning
the next morning. About ten people were taken to the
hospital for their injuries. One was beaten in the
ears and lost his hearing. He still can't hear
properly. Mostly people had severe bruising, and in
one case cuts to the face, from being hit with the
butt of a gun. I wasn't beaten but I was handled
roughly and was threatened.269

Explaining why they had dared take coal out secretly,
one of the miners said:

This happened because we had mined for three or four
months and never were paid, so we went out that night
to mine on our own to cover our expenses for that
time.270

Late payments were a common complaint. The miners
attributed the months-long delays to the arrangements
Puskopad made to resell the coal back to Arutmin. They
said that process involved the cooperative and company
jointly measuring out the coal, combining it with the
company's stockpile, and processing payment, only
after which would the miners be paid by Puskopad.271
As one put it, "Our community suffered over this
because we couldn't get the money and we weren't able
to eat.272
Military Denies Business Activity

In October 2005, the police chief for South Kalimantan
ordered the police cooperative in the area, Puskopol,
to suspend its involvement in mining activities out of
concern that it had become a cover for illegal mining
activity.273 As with the military cooperative, though
in different locations, Puskopol was originally
brought in by Arutmin to control illegal mining
activities as an intermediary.274 Like the military
cooperative, the police cooperative allegedly took
over illegal mining activities at these locations and
expanded them.275 The South Kalimantan police chief
acted after a local NGO, the regional office of the
Forum on the Environment in Indonesia (Wahana
Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, Walhi), urged him to crack
down on illegal mining by his forces.276

There was no such crackdown by the military. In 2004
and 2005 the army cooperative declined to meet or
discuss its role in coal mining activities with Walhi
and Human Rights Watch, which worked together to carry
out field research on the military's business activity
in Senakin. After Walhi wrote to the TNI chief in
Jakarta in late 2005 about the situation in
Senakin,277 it received a response. The response,
issued by the commander of the sub-regional military
resort command, or Korem, headquartered in
Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan (known as Korem
101/Antasari) said the TNI had investigated the matter
and found no evidence of wrongdoing.278 Ignoring the
economic dimension of the army cooperative's role in
Senakin, the TNI investigators concluded that
"Puskopad B is a partner of PT Arutmin in a
non-technical operation to prevent illegal mining and
the siphoning of coal."279 Disregarding Walhi's call
for military personnel involved in illegal mining to
be punished, the Korem commander's report concluded:

Up to now there are no TNI personnel, specifically
members of Korem 101/ANT, who participate in or are
involved directly or indirectly in illegal coal mining
activities.280

The commander's rationale that the Puskopad
cooperative simply acted to regularize illegal mining
directly contradicted the statements of more senior
military officials. When informed by Human Rights
Watch of the activities of the cooperative in Senakin,
military representatives at the TNI headquarters
asserted: "This activity is definitely outside of
[proper] cooperative activity and TNI activity so must
be stopped and will be stopped."281 The
secretary-general of the Ministry of Defense responded
similarly: "I agree that brokering is illegal for us
[military personnel] and we have to regulate that.
It's not the military itself [that is
responsible.]"282 Yet some six months after Walhi sent
its letter to the TNI chief—which it copied to
numerous other authorities, including the Minister of
Defense and military officials at the headquarters,
regional, and sub-regional levels, as well as the
regional police chief—no such action had been taken.
The only response was the Korem commander's report to
his superior that the cooperative's activities did not
constitute a business and therefore were not banned.

The willful failure to act to halt the coal brokering
activity by TNI troops made clear that, despite the
reassuring words, military business activities
continued to be officially tolerated, and at times
even justified, as they had been for years.283 The
investigation into Puskopad's activities in and near
the Senakin mine apparently did have one effect:
Within days of receiving the Korem commander's
response, Walhi was contacted by an Arutmin
representative who said that the company had decided
to end its cooperation with the military.284 As of
this writing, it was not possible to determine if the
situation had in fact changed on the ground in
Senakin.285 

-end/5 of 11... continues...

------------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------