Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

John McCarthy, Christopher Barr, Ida Aju Pradnja Resosudarmo, and Ahmad Dermawan 33
– preferably ‘sons and daughters of the region’ (putera daerah) – should now take
key positions in provincial and district governments and in companies active in the
regions (Suara Pembaruan, September 19, 1998).
Actors in the districts and provinces sought to reverse the injustices and
inequitable development left behind by Soeharto’s three decades in power. In many
areas, villagers demanding the return of land and forest resources appropriated by
timber, mining, and plantation companies began taking direct action by blocking
roads, seizing heavy equipment, and demanding compensation from firms involved.
In some cases, these actions escalated into violence, including for instance the burning
of logging camps or physical assaults on timber and mining company employees
(Wulan et al. 2004; Cohen 1998).
District and provincial politicians, students and business-people also began to
focus on policy and legal reform, demanding the decentralisation of decision making
and fiscal powers and the revision of land and forestry laws. Non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) took up these calls, seeking the creation of new laws that
would revitalise land reform, recognise adat institutions and customary land tenure,
and facilitate community based forest management. Many groups demanded the
cancellation of forest concessions and agricultural and timber plantation licenses.
In addition, there were calls for an end to the national government’s long-standing
transmigration program, in which large numbers of people had been moved from
the densely-populated islands of Java and Madura to less-populated islands such as
Sumatra and Kalimantan (McCarthy 2000).
As the clamour for reform gained momentum, many provincial leaders
demanded immediate autonomy. Some announced that they were considering steps to
require companies operating within their jurisdictions to pay directly to the provincial
governments the corporate taxes and natural resource royalties that had theretofore
been collected by the central government. In the most resource rich and disenchanted
provinces of Aceh, Riau, East Kalimantan, and Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), some
even discussed ceding from the unitary republic of Indonesia. By late-1998, the
central government leadership began to discuss the fear of national disintegration
(Suara Pembaruan, September 19, 1998).
In counterpoint to the sound and fury of popular politics, academics, officials
and NGO activists considered the underlying problems in seminars and newspaper
articles. Commentators described how, from the Soekarno period onwards, the
political culture of the Indonesian state had developed a monolithic approach
to governance that, in the name of national unity, subsumed the very diversity
celebrated in the national motto, ‘unity in diversity’ (Warren and McCarthy 2002).
As one writer noted, ‘centralism’ (sentralisme) was “a special feature of the New
Order [regime]” (Suara Pembaruan, April 5, 1999). This term was used to describe
how powerful decision-makers in Jakarta made decisions and created regulations
regarding significant issues without consultation with the regions and with little,
if any, transparency and accountability to the people they purportedly represented.
Such practices created a uniform governance structure that impaired the ability of
regional interests to openly negotiate for their own priorities, thereby diminishing
opportunities for the expression of regional aspirations and otherwise improve their
well-being (Kompas, April 30, 1999; Suara Pembaruan, April 5, 1999).