{"id":71495,"date":"2021-11-03T01:56:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ekuatorial.com\/?p=71495"},"modified":"2021-11-04T01:49:55","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T18:49:55","slug":"indigenous-group-faces-eviction-for-new-bali-tourism-project-in-north-sumatera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ekuatorial.com\/en\/2021\/11\/indigenous-group-faces-eviction-for-new-bali-tourism-project-in-north-sumatera\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous group faces eviction for ‘New Bali’ tourism project in North Sumatera"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In mid-August, when Mangatas Togi Butarbutar visited an ancestor\u2019s grave in this village on the shores of Indonesia\u2019s biggest lake, he had to tread carefully.<\/p>\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis story also appeared in Mongabay Indonesia\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

Though the area had long been claimed by his Indigenous community, known as the Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar, construction of a government office building was in progress. Heavy machinery could be seen on newly opened roads. Signs reading \u201cThe Caldera Resort\u201d indicated that the location would be developed into a luxury tourism destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is our ancestral land where we have lived for eight generations, but now we have been intimidated with eviction,\u201d Mangatas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indonesia is a vast archipelago replete with beaches, mountains, rainforests and scores of distinct ethnic groups. Yet despite its natural and cultural riches, the country lags<\/a> many of its Asian neighbors in tourism revenue. To change that, President Joko Widodo has announced a plan to establish 10 new tourism hubs, dubbed \u201c10 New Balis\u201d after the nation\u2019s most famous tourist destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these hubs is Lake Toba, a giant volcanic crater lake in North Sumatra province to be ringed with new tourism developments<\/a>, including the Toba Caldera Resort in Sigapiton. That project will feature<\/a> a five-star hotel, a luxury shopping mall, an amusement park and a golf course, among other facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mangatas says his people have inhabited the area for the past two centuries, since before Indonesia existed as a nation. Now, they have been plunged into conflict with the Lake Toba Tourism Authority, known by its Indonesian acronym BPODT, the government entity established to manage the project. <\/p>\n\n\n

\"Yudha
<\/span>Yudha Pohan\/Mongabay Indonesia<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Mangatas Togi Butarbutar together with the local community show the location of the grave of their ancestor, Ompu Ondol Butarbutar, which is around the land that the BPODT will build into a luxury resort area.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

According to Mangatas, who is leading the Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar\u2019s legal pushback against the project, members of his community have been evicted from their homes and had their farmland destroyed to make way for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the vast majority of Indonesia\u2019s hundreds of Indigenous groups, the Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar\u2019s land claims aren\u2019t recognized by the state. With the help of NGOs, some communities have obtained formal recognition<\/a> of their land rights under a process established several years ago, but they remain few and far between. The process remains murky and can take years to navigate, and many communities are unable to do it successfully<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacking formal recognition of their claims, groups like the Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar are legally considered to be squatters on state lands, with little recourse when officials earmark their territory for development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nurpeni Butarbutar is a community member who says her land was grabbed by the project developers. Late last year, plots of corn and coffee she tended were razed by a bulldozer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey said it was for road construction. All my corn and coffee was destroyed, the BPODT destroyed it,\u201d said Nurpeni, 52, sobbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conflict in the name of developing \u201cworld-class tourism\u201d adds to the long grief caused by the customary land conflict in Sigapiton that has flared since 1952, when the government requested the community\u2019s land for reforestation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1975, the district forestry service came again, asking the descendants of Ompu Ondol Butarbutar, the ancestor of Mangatas, Nurpeni and dozens of household heads, to hand over of their land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their land was then planted with pine trees, but by the 1990s, they were logged for timber and paper production, leaving it barren. Seeing that, the community retook control of the land and planted crops there.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Yudha
<\/span>Yudha Pohan\/Mongabay Indonesia<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Nurpeni Butarbutar, a representatives of the Sigapiton Indigenous community still struggling to restore their customary land, show summons from the police. She was accused of managing and occupying land without a permit on her customary land. Nurpeni\u2019s field was destroyed for the construction of a road to a tourism site built by the Lake Toba Authority Executing Agency.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

In 2013, the forestry service returned and said the community could farm on the land but had to sign a statement declaring their status on the land as borrowers, because the land was state forest area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The villagers were shocked and refused. \u201cHow can we borrow our own customary land?\u201d Mangatas told Mongabay. \u201cSince when did this [our ancestral land] become a [state] forest area?\u201d He says the community submitted a formal request to the nation\u2019s forestry ministry asking for the area to be rezoned, but never received a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New problems arose in 2016, when the government formed the BPODT to manage the tourism project in Sigapiton and two neighboring villages. Asserting their historical claim to the area, villagers began to protest, followed by dozens of village meetings and demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petitions they sent to the forestry ministry and the BPODT were discussed at two meetings in Jakarta chaired by Indonesia\u2019s chief investment minister, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, and attended by other officials and some representatives of Indigenous groups, including Mangatas, in mid-2018. But their efforts were ultimately in vain. After that, Mangatas said, \u201cWe waited and waited but we got no response at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BPODT continued the development of the tourism project. While waiting for the results of the 2018 meeting, villagers began to receive threats of eviction from the agency, and their farmland land was razed with bulldozers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year, when the BPODT built a road to another development within the larger tourism megaproject, called The Caldera\u2013Toba Nomadic Escape, dozens of Indigenous women clashed with police<\/a> during a demonstration in which they removed their clothes to the point of almost being naked in protest at the project.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mangatas Togi Butarbutar, a representative of the Sigapiton Indigenous community still struggling to restore their customary land, show summons from the police. He was accused of managing and occupying land without a permit on his customary land.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

The BPODT has reported some villagers, including Mangatas and Nurpeni, to the police for various offenses, accusing them of illegally cultivating land, burning land within the development area, and stealing pine resin<\/a>. Some residents have been detained and imprisoned. Residents have also received letters of eviction, forcing them to vacate their houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be removed from here for tourism development,\u201d Nurpeni said. \u201cIf our fields are destroyed, where will our livelihoods come from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pitch to China<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Luhut, the investment minister, has reportedly sought to court Chinese backing for the broader tourism initiative in Lake Toba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2020, while the land dispute in Sigapiton was ongoing, he invited<\/a> the Chinese ambassador to Indonesia, Xiao Qian, to visit The Caldera\u2013Toba Nomadic Escape, which is already built on a hilly area with a view of the lake. In January, he met<\/a> with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the same spot to pitch him on investing in Lake Toba\u2019s tourism sector<\/a>. Luhut also sought to attract<\/a> Chinese investment in Indonesia\u2019s tourism sector during his own visit to China in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 23 Chinese companies have already invested in North Sumatra as part of the country\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), according to data<\/a> from Indonesia\u2019s Investment Coordinating Board, or BKPM, including a power plant project near Lake Toba. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these projects, like a zinc mine to the west of Lake Toba<\/a> and a hydropower project<\/a> being built in the only remaining habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, have drawn criticism for threatening the environment and Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shohibul Anshor Siregar, a researcher at Muhammadiyah University of North Sumatra, said the BRI and other development projects would cause problems if they went ahead without respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples. To avoid potential social conflicts, he suggested the Indonesian government involve communities as shareholders in projects involving foreign investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say from the calculation that each family head sells their land for Rp 1 billion [$71,000], half of which is invested as shares in the company that will operate. That way, people will own the company and enjoy its benefits,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven if the government involves Chinese investment in Sigapiton, the community should be involved and become actors, not spectators in their ancestral lands,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither the investment ministry\u2019s communications chief, Khairul Hidayati, nor Luhut\u2019s spokesperson, Jodi Mahardi, responded to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n