image by Mongabay
Protests in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, have become deadly. On October 7, one villager was killed and others were injured as police and protesters came into conflict.
Since September 16, citizens of indigenous Dayak village Bangkal had been protesting the palm oil plantation firm PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persad, or HMBP. They had been promised 20% of the firm’s concessions due to “plasma”, a government-mandated sharing scheme. Yet, the company has ignored the mandate, as well as demands from the local district chief and have not faced any consequences. Industries, such as HMBP, have been claiming ancestral lands and community territories with the government doing nothing to stop them. In fact, many land conflicts between companies and communities are actually ending with the communities being persecuted.
It is no different for the HMBP protests where police accounts of the October 7 conflict are differing greatly from witness accounts. Police claim protesters violently attacked them with bladed weapons, causing the police to react in turn. Police spokesman Erlan Munaji claims that the police obliged by rules of engagement and that they only carried blanks, rubber bullets and tear gas, with no live ammunition. The police are not taking responsibility for the death at all it seems as he says, “we’re in the process [of finding out] whether [the victim] died because of that [shooting]”.
Yet, evidence and eyewitness accounts of the event seem to directly contradict what the police are saying. Witnesses claim the police began to fire tear gas and shoot at protesters without provoking. Videos posted on social media show the injured victims being carried away from the police as gunshots ring out. A voice on a loudspeaker can also be overheard, saying “Prepare the tear gas! Aim for the head! Ready the AK! Let’s play!”
Indonesia is no stranger to acts of violence or false accounts of such events. In September of 1965, Indonesia underwent an attempted coup that led to mass violence and a regime change. The coup was blamed on the Indonesian communist party, PKI, although the truth is still unclear. Nevertheless, this, with encouragement from the new leadership of President Suharto and the military, led to mass killings of communists and communist sympathizers. It is estimated that at least five hundred thousand people were killed between September 1965 and March 1966. Suharto’s regime, the “New Order” that followed for the next thirty years, stayed authoritarian and militarized. Just like the protests against HMBP, the Suharto regime never shied away from excessive violence.
Indonesia had been hopeful with the fall of Suharto’s regime for democracy and little violence and it had seemingly changed. A 2019 order from President Widido had favored locals over investors. Yet, the protests we are currently seeing recall the excessive force and militarization of the Suharto regime, begging the question of what this means for Indonesia. Will Indonesia always be subject to violence? Is history doomed to repeat itself? Or can Indonesia continue to change for the better, just as people had hoped?
“Indonesian police slammed after protester demanding rightful land is shot dead” by Hans Nicholas Jong, Mongabay https://news.mongabay.com/2023/10/indonesian-police-slammed-after-protester-demanding-rightful-land-is-shot-dead/