Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

374 SESSION VI
the balance of power between authoritarian elites and
movements for rural democratization. A possible outcome
is increased government accountability in contested
policy arenas, which will spread to other issues. The
probable outcome –– as autonomous, representative
organizations consolidate –– is the peasants’ increased
capacity to articulate their interests.” (Fox: 2004, 83-
84)
I thank you for many reviewers who have selflessly
offered me their comments to improve this article: Dr.
Edward Aspinall from the Department of Political and
Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian
Studies, Australian National University; Dr. Abdul
Rahman Embong of the IKMAS-UKM; the farmer
organisers Leslee F. Inso, Herdi Mismuri, Arif Budiman;
Nagasi farmer leader Ka Lito Estama; Fr. Anoran, Harry
Olac and Ramon Pedro of the NCPERD in Bago City,
Negros Occidental. I am also grateful to the Asian
Public Intellectuals Program that has made this research
possible. This article is an abridged to original one, see
http://democracyandpeace.blogspot.com.
1 Ingram and Mann (1980) as quoted by David Meyer
(2001).
2 The on-going Philippine agrarian reform program
(CARP) has lasted over a dozen years, while the
Indonesian one that unfolds particularly after the
1998 regime change has not actually materialized as a
comprehensive program led by the government.
3 I took the data from the Planning Service of the DAR’s
headquarter in Q.C., in Sept. 2004.
4 I discuss the selection with the Bandung-based agrarian
reform observer and activist Noer Fauzi Rahman.
5 I base on Feranil (2003)’s account.
6 Feranil 2003:43.
7 In her note, organiser Leslie F. Inso wrote nearly by
the important event of land survey implementation,
“The community organizer was having a problem on
the thinning attendance of the peasant members during
meetings and activities in the local and national level. A
problem that became worse as time goes by. Most of the
peasants found assurance when their lots were surveyed
and was lazy to join other activities and the reason that
the NGO did not have other programs to offer but was
limited to LTI campaign and local governance.”
8 There was also a case when a secretary had to be
toppled down after strong team working of different
parties behind peasant social movement propelled from
the centre in the capital down the diverse regions in the
Philippines, organiser Leslie F. Inso’s report.
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
9 I base this observation on public reports on NPA-related
clash incidents during 1988-2004 that I compiled from
the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s and the Manila Times’
news reports.
10 Franco 2003: 24.
11 Goldstone 1997:20 as quoted by Tarrow 1998:149;
see also Feranil 2003:11 in which he maintains that
Government’s counter-insurgency policy has influenced
peasant organisations to abandon the revolutionary
route toward agrarian reform.
12 Nationwide, Jakarta-based Kompas daily, 15 May 2000.
13 Interviews with Cibenda peasant leaders, August 2005.
14 Interview with Ibang Lukmanuddin, the secretary
general’s deputy of the SPP. When Lukmanuddin
asked the peasants not to continue cutting down the
plantation’s trees in order to ease the tension, one
of the leading peasants from Ciècèng village simply
refused such demands, saying that he “will take all its
consequences.”
15 Interviews with Adi Rohman from Ciècèng village
and Nanang Junaedi from Cibenda village who were
jailed for several months for criminal charges of burning
police’s truck and shrimp hatchery’s building.
16 Tarrow 1998:112 quoting Christian Smith, 1996.
17 This observation is also supported by the fact that
fewer land occupation actions taken place in lowlands
at least in Java.
18 Some Cibenda villagers opened land in Selasari village,
a farther localities. This action has not motivated other
peasants to follow.
19 I base the figure that is confirmed by the NGO
circles as a publicly-perceived more trusted opinion,
as compared to the government’s. The meaningful
processes of land transfer underpins the argument of
this comparison. NGOs and peasant groups in the
Philippines mostly take less notice of the government’s
figures of agrarian reform accomplishment. While in
Indonesia, the government having no longer firm grip
on the people is nearly regarded as the beaten opponent
who admits loss.
20 Interview with Nissa Wargadipura, the director of the
Yapemas in Garut, W. Java, September 25, 2005.
21 Interview with Boedhi Wijardjo, former head of the
division for land and the environment of the YLBHI,
Yogyakarta, 21 August 2005.
22 See Will Kymlicka, 1990: 71 (I use Indonesian version).