Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
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Placing Claims to Land: The Grounds of Religious and Ethnic Conflict at Lake Lindu, Central Sulawesi 1
Among the first of the governmental reforms that have been initiated in the period since the downfall of former
President Suharto's New Order, an era identified by the very term Reformasi2 (literally, Reformation), has been
the legislation concerning regional autonomy (UU No. 22 Tahun 1999 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah, UU No. 25
Tahun 1999 tentang Perimbangan Keuangan Antara Pemerintah Pusat dan Daerah [GOI 1999]). Responding to
the demands of various provinces for greater control of their revenues, most importantly a greater proportion of
the profit from the exploitation of local resources (e.g. natural gas in Aceh, oil in Riau, gold and diamonds in
South Kalimantan, copra cloves, and chocolate in North Sulawesi, gold and copper in Papua [formerly Irian
Jaya]), this legislation, according to the introduction to the published edition, seeks to meet the `challenge of
global competition' (`tantangan persaingan global') and to `emphasise democratic principles, the role of
society, equality and justice, as well as improving the potential and variety of the regions' (`menekankan pada
prinsip-prinsip demokratis, peranserta masyarakat, permerataan dan keadilian serta memperbaiki potensi dan
keanekaragaman daerah' [GOI 1999: V]). Although most of the elements enumerated in the legislation are to be
enacted at the level of the province (propinsi) and regency (kabupaten), one chapter of the legislation is also
oriented to the granting of reform at the administrative village (desa) level. In fact, in many ways the village
level is seen to be that which most corresponds to the official definition of an autonomous region, as a
comparison of the wording of definitions for `autonomous region' (daerah otonom) (chapter 1, paragraph 1,
sentence i) and administrative village (desa) (chapter 1, paragraph 1, sentences o & p) reveals:
i. An Autonomous Region, hereafter called a Region, is a unit of legal society that has fixed regional
boundaries [and] has authority to order and take care of the local interests of society according to its
own initiatives based on the aspirations of society in their ties to the United State of the Republic of
Indonesia (Daerah Otonom, selanjutnya disebut Daerah, adalah kesatuan masyarakat hukum yang
mempunyai batas daerah tertentu berwenang mengatur dan mengurus kepentingan masyarakat
setempat menurut prakarsa sendiri berdasarkan aspirasi masyarakat dalam ikatan Negara Kesatuan
Republik Indonesia [GOI 1999: 4])
o. An administrative village or what may be labelled with a different name, hereafter [simply] called a
Village, is a a unit of legal society that possesses authority to order and take care of the local interests
of society based on the local origins and customs and traditions that are acknowledged in the National
System of governance that exists at the regency region.
p. The territory of the village is a territory that has as its main activity agriculture, including the
management of natural resources, along with the system of territorial functions [including] a place of
rural settlement, the rendering of government services, social services, and economic activities.
(o. `Desa atau yang disebut dengan nama lain, selanjutnya disebut Desa, adalah kesatuan masyarakat
hukum yang memiliki kewenangan untuk mengatur dan mengurus kepentingan masyharakat setempat
berdasarkan asal-usual dan adat istiadat setempat yang diakui dalam sistem Pemerintahan Nasional
dan berada di Daerah Kabupaten.
p. Kawasan Perdesaan adalah kawasan yuang mempunyai kegiatan utama pertanian, termasuk
pengelolaan sumber daya alam, dengan susunan fungsi kawasan sebagai tempat permukiman
perdesaan, pelayanan, jasa pemerintahan, pelayanan sosial, dan kegiatan ekonomi [GOI 1999: 4-5]).
Decentralisation and the reassertion of regional autonomy are thus crucially dependent upon the reorganisation
of village-level institutions.
Chapter XI (GOI 1999: 35-40) of the legislation explicitly concerns the village level of autonomy. This section
details how villages can now be created, eliminated and united with the agreement of the regency government
and the provincial parliament. It also sets forth all the requirements for a village head (kepala desa),
significantly acknowledging that the village head should fulfil all these requirements `in conformity with local
1
Written by Greg Acciaioli
2 All italicised foreign terms are in Bahasa Indonesia, unless otherwise noted in following square
brackets (e.g. [D] stands for Dutch, [T] for Tado, the language of the `indigenous' Lindu people.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
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custom that has been regulated in the regional [provincial?] regulations' (`yang sesuai dengan adat istiadat yang
diatur dalam Peraturan Daerah' [GOI 1999: 37]). Significantly, such village-level institutions as the LKMD
(Lembaga Ketahanan Masyarakat Desa or Village Society Security Institute) and LMD (Lembaga Masyarakat Desa
or Village Social Institute) are not mentioned at all, indicating the possibility of eliminating these nationwide
institutions that had been called into being within the auspices of the national village standardisation linked to
the 1974 regional government legislation (Undang-undang Nomor 5 Tahun 1974 tentang Pokok-pokok
Pemerintahan di Daerah) and 1979 village government legislation (Undang-undang Nomor 5 Tahun 1979 tentang
Pemerintahan Desa). Instead, all that does rate mention is a Village Representative Body (Badan Perwakilan
Desa), the precise constitution of which is left purposefully vague. What is not vague is the designation of its
first `function to protect local customs and traditions' (`berfungsi mengayomi adat istiadat' [GOI 1999: 39]).
Indeed, paragraph 111 states the primary duty of the regency government regulations as a whole to `recognise
and honour the rights, origins and customs and traditions of the village' (`wajib mengakui dan menghormati
hak, asal-usual, dan adat istiadat Desa' [GOI 1999: 41]). This acknowledgement of the centrality of local custom
(adat) constitutes one of the most significant re-recognitions of the autonomy legislation in the current era of
Reformasi.
The Customary Society (Masyarakat Adat) Movement
Concurrent with this legislation, in fact both influencing its emphases and further gaining momentum from its
enactment, has been the nationwide movement for the reassertion of the rights of `customary societies'
(masyarakat adat). Although an incipient movement fostered by several NGOs from the early 90s, this
movement came of age with the holding of the `Congress of Archipelagic Customary Societies' (Kongres
Masyarakat Adat Nusantara or KMAN) held in Jakarta, from the 15th to the 22nd of March 1999. The fact sheet
that this congress issued to publicise its aims concentrated upon the efforts of these societies to gain
recognition for various types of rights that they felt had been unjustly usurped by the New Order government:
By means of various policies and laws that it has issued, the state has unjustly and undemocratically
expropriated rights of origin, rights over customary territory, rights of upholding a value system,
ideology and customs and traditions, economic rights, and most importantly the political right of
customary societies to defend and develop their special cultures. The apparatus of policies and laws
that force uniformity and have hegemonic qualities have been produced and used systematically to
strengthen and defend national sovereignty, placing it over the sovereignty of customary societies
[Dengan berbagai kebijakan dan hukum yang dikeluarkan, negara secara tidak adil dan tidak
demokratis telah mengambil-alih hak asal usul ,hak atas wilayah adat, hak untuk menegakkan sistem
nilai, ideologi dan adat istiadat, hak ekonomi, dan yang paling utama adalah hak politik masyarakat
adat untuk mempertahankan dan mengembangkan kebudayaanya khas. Perangkat-perangkat kebijakan
dan hukum yang memaksakan uniformitas dan bersifat hegemonistik ini diproduksi dan digunakan
secara sistematis untuk memperkuat dan mempertahankan kedaulatan negara atas kedaulatan
masyarakat adat [KMAN 1999a: 1]).
This congress, three years in the planning, marked a milestone in the mobilisation of various traditional
societies throughout the archipelago to demand a recognition of their rights and achievements, their claim to
local autonomy in relation to the national government. Besides rejecting such exonyms as `wild dry field
workers' (peladang liar), `wild cutters [of the forest]' (penebang liar), `most isolated tribes' (suku terasing),
`primitive societies' (masyarakat primitif), and other terms declared derogatory constructions of the New
Order3, KMAN reaffirmed the definition of a `customary society' (masyarakat adat or MA), the endonym of
choice, that had first been put forth as a working definition at a workshop of the Network for the Defence of
Customary Societies (Jaringan Pembelaan Hak-Hak Masyarakat Adat) in Tana Toraja in 1993:
`social groups that have ancestral origins (which have persisted for generations) in a specific
geographical region, along with possessing a value system, ideology, economy, politics, culture, society
and region [i.e. territory] of their own' (`kelompok masyarakat yang memiliki asal-usual leluhur (secara
3 In fact, the Department of Social Affairs (Departemen Sosial or DEPSOS), recently demoted from its
ministry status by President Abdurrahman Wahid, has officially changed its nomenclature for the
societies that had been the target of such program as resettlement (resetelmen) or local transmigration
(transmigrasi lokal) from masyarakat terasing (`most isolated societies) to masyarakat adat terpencil
(`remote customary societies') (John Haba, personal communication, 21/12/99).
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turun temurun) did wilayahnaya geografis tertentu, serta memiliki sistem nilai, ideologi, ekonomi,
politik, budaya, sosial, dan wilayah sendiri' [KMAN 1999b])
The congress also initiated a new stage in identity politics, an enlargement of the scale of cooperation and
action, formalised at the congress by one of its major outcomes, the formation of the Alliance of Archipelagic
Customary Societies (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara or AMAN). Among its other outcomes was the
articulation of a number of demands directed at the national goverment, the particular list depending upon the
session reported. Among these were a list of `twelve economic demands of customary societies':
The Economic Commission of the Congress of Customary Societies has succeeded in compiling 12
demands of customary societies that are going to be forwarded immediately to the national legislature.
Following are the 12 demands:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Recognition of the customary adat council and eradication of the village society institute and
the village society security institute.
Conversion Land, that is the remainder of land with Western rights over it, is to be returned to
the customary society.
Withdrawal of all laws, presidential decisions, regulations and letters of explanation that cause
loss to or weaken the rights of customary societies.
The management system and JPS [Jaringan Pengamanan Sosial or Network of Social Security]
have to be returned to the management of the customary society.
Rejection of a monoculture farming system.
All natural resources and their management have to be returned directly to the customary
societies.
All development activities have to involve customary societies.
The formation of a treasury institute to manage the finances of customary societies.
The rejection of catching fish by means of potassium, dynamite, or large trawling nets in the
waters of customary societies.
The withdrawal of forest concessions, industrial plant concessions and similar concesssions as
well as all the regulations that are in force for them and the return of customary society land
to the local customary society.
Rejection of the dual function of the armed forces.
Rejection of the existence of monopoly practices that weaken the economy of customary
societies.
(Kongres masyarakat adat Komisi Ekonomis berhasil menyusun 12 tuntuan masyarakat adat yang akan
segera disampaikan kepada Dewan Perwakilan Rakyuat, berikut adalah kedubelas tuntutan tersebut:
1.
Pengakuan lembaga MA dan penghapusan lembaga masyarakat desa (LMD) dan lembaga
ketahanan masyarakat desa (LKMD)
2.
Tanah Konversi yhaitu bekas tanah hak-hak Barat agar dikembalikan kepada MA.
3.
Mencabut segala undang-undang, kepres, PP dan SK yang merugikan dan melemahkan hak-hak
masyarakat adat.
4.
Sistem pengelolaan dan JPS harus diserahkan.
5.
Mengolak sistem pertanina monokultur
6.
Segala sumber daya alam, harus dikembalikan dan pengelolaannya diserahkan langsung kepada
masyarakat adat.
7.
Segala kegiatan pembangunan harus melibatkan masyarakat adat.
8.
Pembentukkan lembaga keuangan yang mengelola keuangan masyarakat adat.
9.
Penolakan penangkapan ikan dengan cara potsium, dinamit atau pukat harium [sic--harimau?]
di perairan masyarakat adat.
10.
Mencabut HPH, HTI dan lain-lain serta peraturan yang berlaku untuk itu dan mengemabliskan
tanah masyarakat adat kepada masyarakat adat setempat.
11.
Menolak dwifungsi ABRI
12.
Menolak adanya praktik monopoli yang melemahkan perekonomian masyarakat adat. [KMAN
1999c])4
4 A subgroup of female representatives -- according to one estimate there were 20 females at the
congress out of 231 customary society representatives from 22 provinces, as well as about 50
representives of nongovermental organisations (NGOs or Organisasi Non-Pemerintah or ORNOP) --
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
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As is clear in both this list and the declaration from the fact sheet quoted earlier, the most general political
demand made by the Congress participants, one under which many of the others could be classified, was a
claim for recognition of the `sovereignty of customary societies' (kedaulatan masyarakat adat), sovereignty
being a term previously reserved for the State as a whole (as in the agrarian legislation of 1960 treated below).
Some delegates linked this demand explicitly to the drive for greater regional autonomy (otonomi daerah), and
some, especially from West Papua, Aceh and Riau, even to the need for independence (kemerdekaan), but for
many this demand concerned primarily the need to eradicate the unitary village structure imposed by the new
order in such legislation as that of 1974 (UU Pemerintahan Daerah) on regional administration and of 1979 (UU
Pemerintahan Desa 1979) on village administration. Even the `economic' demands articulated by the KMAN
Economic Commission called for the abolition of such imposed institutions of village governance as the village
society institute (lembaga masyarakat desa or LMD) and village society security institute (lembaga ketahanan
masyarakat desa or LKMD). Although the government-formulated Pembina Adat system implemented beginning
in 1994 attempted to construct an articulation of national governmental and local customary structures at
provincial and regency levels (Sakai n.d.), such efforts were often largely in line with appropriation of the forms
of adat to give apparent ratification to governmental programs still imposed from above.5 However, within the
90s, especially since the dawn of Reformasi, some indications of the actual reassertion of the autonomy, if not
sovereignty, of adat institutions have indeed become part of an emergent governmental landscape among
groups now more publicly identifying themselves as masyarakat adat.
As is also clear in the list of economic demands KMAN delegates centred many of their demands upon regaining
control of their own resources, including, most importantly, their land, especially the customary communal land
(tanah ulayat) that the national government had considered vacant national land and opened to concessions
controlled by outside firms (Gesuri et. al. 1999). In fact, of the twelve demands, four (demands 2, 5, 6, and 10)
explicitly refer to land or the use of natural resources related to it. The second and tenth demands call
explicitly for the return of land to the control of customary societies, in fact, calling for a re-recognition of the
status of customary land (tanah adat). However, in a changed natural and social landscape, one rendered more
complex by such policies of the national government as transmigration, both national and local, in areas like
Central Sulawesi, these demands centring upon land have turned out to be among the most difficult to realise.
The Pre-Reformasi Framework of Indonesian Land Law
The basic outlines of Indonesian land policy were set out in the agrarian legislation of 1960 (Undang-undang No.
5 Tahun 1960 tentang Peraturan Dasar Pokok-pokok Agraria) (GOI n.d.) The framework of agrarian law still in
effect throughout the first decade of Indonesian independence had been established by the Dutch agricultural
law (Agrarische Wet, [D]) of 1870, which, along with various laws of the preceding decade abolishing the
compulsory cultivation by `natives' (Inlanders [D]) of pepper, clove, nutmeg, tea, cinnamon, tobacco, sugar,
and coffee, previously mandated by the `Cultivation System' (Cultuurstelsel [D]) (Ricklefs 1981: 118), ushered in
the `Liberal Period'. The 1870 colonial agrarian legislation, along with various declarations and regulations in
the following decades, opened up land to foreign investment, resulting in an efflorescence of foreign-owned
(largely Dutch) plantations producing tea (in West Java), sugar (in East Java), tobacco (in eastern Sumatra) and
other products. Explicitly noting the need to supercede these Dutch colonial laws (GOI n.d.: 4-5), the 1960
Indonesian agrarian legislation was very much a nationalist endeavour to limit land ownership to Indonesian
nationals; many of its paragraphs are devoted to distinguishing various categories of land ownership and land
use, as well as specifying just who can own or make use of these categories of land.
However, as also stated in its preamble, this legislation was also, at least overtly, an attempt to overcome
separation, imposed by the Dutch colonial policy of dualism, between Western law (hukum barat) and local
customary laws (hukum adat) in agrarian land laws (i.e. `hukum agraria tersebut mempunyai sifat dualisme,
dengan berlakunya hukum adat di samping hukum agraria yang di didasarkan atas hukum barat'). Indeed, its
also demanded the cessation of measures that degraded `customary women' (perempuan adat), ranging
from exclusion of women from meetings with government representatives to military intimidation by
rape.
5 For the example of how the government has appropriated the pallontara in South Sulawesi for such
purposes, see Acciaioli (1997).
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opening opinion (pendapat) explicitly notes the necessity of the existence of a national agriarian law that is
based upon customary law concerning land, which is simple and insures legal certainty for all of the Indonesian
people, without neglecting the elements that are dependent upon religious law' (`perlu adanya hukum agraria
nasional, yang berdasarkan atas hukum adat tentang tanah, yang sederhana dan menjamin kepastian hukum
bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia, dengan tidak mengabaikan unsur-unsur bagi seluruh rakyat Indonesia, dengan
tidak mengabaikan unsur-unsur yang bersandar pada hukum agama' [GOI n.d.: 1]). However, once its central
stipulations (ketentuan-ketentuan pokok) begin to be listed, it is clear that this legislation sought to supersede
local customary law (hukum adat) as well. Its opening paragrah establishes that `all earth, water and air [lit.,
the firmament]' (`seluruh bumi, air dan ruang angkasa') belong to the Indonesian nation and constitute the
nation's riches (GOI n.d.: 5). On the basis of this assertion and the relevant paragraph (section 33, paragraph 3)
in the national constitution (Undang-Undang Dasar), a crucial passage in section 2 asserts that `the land, water
and air, including all the natural riches to be found in them, are controlled at the highest level by the State as
the organisation of power [or authority] of all the people' (`bumi air dan ruang angkasa, termasuk kekayaan
alam yang terkandung di dalamnya itu pada tingkatan tertinggi dikuasai oleh Negara sebagai organisasi
kekuasaan seluruh rakyat') (GOI n.d.: 5-6). This `right of control' gives the State the authority (wewenang) to:
(a)
order and organise the allocation, use, preparation and preservation of the earth, water and
air;
(b)
determine and order the legal relations between people and the earth, water and air;
(c)
determine and order the legal relations between people and legal actions regarding earth,
water and air
(a)
mengatur dan menyelenggarakan peruntukan, penggunaan, persediaan dan pemeliharaan
bumi, air dan ruiang angkasa tersebut;
(b)
menentukan dan mengatur hubungan-hubungan hukum antara orang-orang dengan bumi, air
dan ruang-angkasa;
(c)
menentukan dan mengatur hubungan-hubungan hukum antara orang-orang dan perbuatanperbuatan hukum yang mengenai bumi, air dan ruang angkasa [GOI n.d.: 6])
These ultimate rights accorded to the State are intended to facilitate the state achieving the people's prosperity
defined as encompassing `nationalism, safety, and independence within the society and legal State of a free,
sovereign, just and prosperous Indonesia' (`kebangsaan, kesejahteraan dan kemerdekaan dalam masyarakat dan
Negara hukum Indonesia yang merdeka, berdaulat, adil dan makmur' [GOI n.d.: 6]).
The ascription of ultimate sovereignty to the state in matters concerning the control and use of resources is
precisely what the current customary society movement has sought to contest. In practice, the 1960 agrarian
law has resulted in all land that is not given over to inhabitation or used in permanent cultivation,
encompassing both wet-rice (sawah) cultivation and tree crops, being declared State Land (Tanah Negara) and
thus subject to State allocation to determine its usage. Thus, for example, temporarily unallocated fallow
swidden fields and forest areas which local peoples had used for gathering wood, rattan, medicinal herbs, and
other resources, could be, and have often been, declared by the State as open land that could be used for such
purposes as transmigration sites, forestry concessions and others. In such decisions the status of `customary
land' (tanah adat), much of which covers precisely these types of uncultivated land subject to locally regulated
(i.e. by the stipulations of local custom [adat]) resource extraction, has been by and large ignored6; in a
manner curiously resonant with notions of terra nullius (L) in Australia (Campbell and Wilson 1993: 56-60), land
not permanently cultivated, largely land not subject to individual ownership, was often regarded as `empty' and
hence available for uses deemed fit by the State.
Yet, the 1960 agrarian legislation itself is crucially ambiguous in this regard. On the one hand, in section 3,
paragraph 4, it asserts that any form of customary control over land and other resources is only in virtue of a
direct bestowal by the State:
The above-mentioned right of control by the State can be placed at the disposal [lit., authorised] of the
autonomous regions and customary societies, in so far as it is necessary and is not in conflict with
national interests, according to the decisions of Government Regulations (Hak menguasai dari Negara
tersebut di atas pelaksanaannya dapat dikuasakan kepada Daerah-Daerah Swatantra dan masyarakat-
6 In some cases compensation has been paid to people designated as customary owners, but not at any
market rate.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
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masyarakat hukum adat, sekedar diperlukan dan tidak bertentangan dengan kepentingan nasional,
menurut ketentuan-ketentuan Peraturan Pemerintah [GOI n.d.: 6]).
In this paragraph any form of local control is seen as a delegated authority from the State, ultimately subject to
the test of consistency with what the State defines as national interests. Of course, the sections that define
those necessities that the State can invoke to determine the allocation and use of land are rather broadly
defined, in keeping with the rights of control listed above and the following purposes listed in paragraph 14:
a.
for the needs of the State;
b.
for the needs of worship observances and other sacred needs, in accordance with the
foundation of monotheism;
c.
for the needs of the centres of social life, the social and cultural needs of society and other
aspects of welfare;
d.
for the needs of developing the products of agriculture, livestock and fisheries and those
parallel with them;
e.
for the needs of developing industry, transmigration and mining
(a.
untuk keperluan Negara;
b.
untuk keperluan peribadatan dan keperluan-keperluan suci lainnya, sesuai dengan dasar
Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa;
c.
untuk keperluan pusat-pusat kehidupan masyarakat, sosial, kebudayaan dan lain-lain
kesejahteraan;
d.
untuk keperluan memperkembangkan produksi pertanian, peternakan dan perikanan serta
sejalan dengan itu;
e.
untuk keperluan memperkembangkan industri, transmigrasi dan pertambangan [GOI n.d.: 9])
But section 5 of the very same legislation appears somewhat to reverse the order of legal empowerment,
declaring the basis of the agrarian law which is in operation to be existing customary laws, although also noting
the need for lack of conflict with national interests:
The agrarian law which is in force for earth, water and air is customary law, as long as it does not
conflict with national and State interests, which are based on national unity, with Indonesian socialism
combined with the regulations that are contained in this legislation and other legislation, all of these
with the aim of heeding the elements based on religious law (Hukum agraria yang berlaku atas bumi,
air dan ruang angkasa ialah hukum adat, sepanjang tidak bertentangan dengan kepentingan nasional
dan Negara, yang berdasarkan atas persatuan bangsa, dengan sosialisme Indonesia serta dengan
peraturan-peraturan yang tercantum dalam Undang-undang ini dan dengan peraturan perundangan
lainnya, segala sesuatu dengan mengindahkan unsur-unsur yang bersandar pada hukum agama [GOI
n.d.: 7])
Indeed, it is precisely these ambiguities that the customary society movement plays upon in the current move to
restore customary land (tanah adat) as a recognised category of land over which local societies can exercise
rights.
Case Study: Re-emerging Local Autonomy among the Lindu People of Central Sulawesi
In the forefront of the movement at the provincial level toward the re-empowerment of local customary (adat)
institutions have been the Lindu people of Central Sulawesi. The male co-head7 of the provincial branch of
AMAN is a young Lindu man, while the head of the independent (but often cooperating) organisation AMASUTA
(Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Sulawesi Tengah) is also a Lindu man. Both of these men, while hailing from different
villages and differing widely in their outlooks upon the proper constitution of adat councils, have had
considerable experience working with NGOs (LSM or Lembaga Swadaya Masyarakat)8, a factor that is significant
in assessing the prominent role of the Lindu people in this movement generally. In the Lindu case the context
for this transformation was first set by the official declaration of the region surrounding the Lindu plain as the
7 Responding to demands of the female KMAN delegates, provincial branches of AMAN are supposed to
have both male and female co-heads. For the province of Central Sulawesi, the female co-head comes
from the Luwuk region of the eastern tip of the province.
8 LSM is the term used alternately with ORNOP or Organisasi Non-Pemerintah (lit., nongovernmental
organisation) to translate the English term nongovernmental organisation (NGO).
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 7
Lore Lindu National Park in 1982.9 Although the regulations for this park were not effectively enforced until
later in that decade, several parties of officials were sent to warn residents that such activities as collecting
rattan in the surrounding forest included in the park and extending wet-rice fields (sawah) and coffee gardens
(Watling and Mulyana 1981: 36) were no longer allowed. Although many of these strictures exercised a greater
impact upon more recent migrants to the area who were still in the process of opening fields, including both
spontaneously migrating Bugis from South Sulawesi and migrants from Pipikoro, Kulawi and Winatu who had
come to the area under local transmigration schemes within Kulawi district (Acciaioli 1989), Lindu people also
felt that these regulations were an assault upon their ways of using and protecting the environment as given in
adat, but were somewhat mollified when the area surrounding their villages was granted `enclave' status within
the park.
However, the real catalyst to this resurgence began in 1988, with the announcement of the plans of the Central
Sulawesi governor to build a dam at the mouth of Lake Lindu, as part of a comprehensive hydroelectric project
(PLTA--Proyek Listrik Tenaga Air) to supply the future electricity needs for the industrialisation of Palu and its
immediate surroundings.10 As the feasibility study for this plan revealed that the water level of the lake would
rise over 7 meters, it was made clear that almost all wet-rice fields surrounding the lake would be inundated.
Plans were made for the local transmigration of the Lindu population to a new site to the west of the Palu
River. By the beginning of the 90s funding had already been obtained from the Asian Development Bank for this
project, and in accordance with the dictates of development projects, including the demands of governmentmanaged parks elsewhere in Indonesia, and indeed throughout the world (Clay 1985: 3), the inhabitants of the
plain were informed they would have to make the sacrifice of moving for the greater good of the people of the
Palu region. It was a sacrifice they were not prepared to make.
Whereas the Bugis migrants to the Lindu plain threatened to take up arms to defend their rice fields and coffee
stands rather than leave, the Lindu people followed a different path. The early 90s were also the period when
the surveillance ethos of the New Order with regard to NGOs was beginning to yield to a more permissive
attitude. The Lindu people were among the beneficiaries of the blossoming of the NGO movement in Indonesia
in the 90s. Spearheading the drive to assist the Lindu people was the Palu-based NGO, Yayasan Tanah Merdeka
(The Foundation for Free Land) or YTM. In association with a network of other NGOs, some Jakarta-based (e.g.
Yayasan Sejati) and some of international scope (e.g. WALHI), as well as the local branch of the Lembaga
Bantuan Hukum (Legal Aid Institute), YTM, working with representatives of the three Lindu villages,
prominently among them members of the village adat councils, was able to mount a series of legal challenges to
the PLTA Palu III project. These efforts culminated in a visit to a series of ministers in Jakarta in 1995, from
whom representatives of YTM, together with a select group of Lindu elders and youths, were able to gain
government assurance that the PLTA project could not proceed on the grounds that it had not been included
within any 5-year plan (Repelita or Rencana Pembangunan Lima Tahun) drawn up by the MPR (Majelis
Perwakilan Rakyat).11
9 Originally the Lindu plain was to be incorporated into a somewhat differently configured national
park, the Lore Kalamanta National Park (Blower et. al. 1977), based upon the Lore Kalamanta Game
Reserve, first established in 1973. The regulations of the original game reserve were only desultorily
enforced during the 70s, with the boundaries of the proposed national park being eventually considered
unsatisfactory. It was replaced by the Lore Lindu National Park, a composite of three formerly separate
Reserves: Suaka Margasatwa Lore, Kalamanta, Hutan Wisata/Lindung Danau Lindu, and the Suaka
Margasatwa Lore Kalamanta extension (Watling and Mulyana 1981).
10 Ironically, it is precisely to forestall such projects that national parks, such as the Lore Lindu
National Park, are supposed to have been erected, for `"the development of dams and other structures
for irrigation or hydroelectric power,"...[and] all these forms of "exploitation" are prohibited "in an
area...to be considered a National Park"' (Eilers 1985: 7, quoting the UCN 1982:xix). This irony has not
been lost on the Lindu people and upon the NGOs (see below) with whom they have been cooperating.
Sangaji (2000) provides a comprehensive chronicle of the Lindu dam affair from the perspective of the
NGO that was instrumental in the project's defeat.
11 Besides being based on interviews with elders at Lindu and with Drs. Arianto Sangadji, the head of
YTM, this section also summarises (all too briefly) the bound collection of 161 newspaper clippings
collected by WALHI (n.d.) on the Lindu PLTA case, as well as material in Sangaji (2000).
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 8
However, the culminating trip that YTM organised for the Lindu contingent to visit the national legislature (DPR
or Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat), National Committee on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the central office of the
national electric company (PLN or Perusahaan Listrik Negara), the forestry minister, and the minister for mines
and energy was not the only such experience for the Lindu elders. Earlier YTM had organised a visit to the
Kedung Ombo site in Central Java, where Lindu elders had had the opportunity to converse with Javanese who
had experienced the full effect of a dam project, also one involving enforced local transmigration, and to
develop solidarity with them. Indeed, this has been one of the primary aims of the YTM strategy: the
development of a feeling among the Lindu people that they are not alone in their struggle, but are just one
example of a people subjected to unjust depredations by a government with a history of ignoring the welfare of
`indigenous peoples' in their own land. Indeed, YTM has sought to foster identification with the struggles of
`indigenous peoples' throughout the world against development projects, such as large-scale dams requiring the
removal of peoples from their homeland, and even the dislocations of populations required by the erection of
national parks. Indeed, one informant at Lindu this last January mentioned the plight of Amazonian Indians
when discussing the situation of the Lindu people when rumours began to be heard of the new governor's
attempt to resurrect the PLTA Palu III project (Formasi Dec '99).
Such identification with `indigenous people' has allowed YTM to claim for the Lindu people the sorts of
traditional wisdom' (kearifan tradisional) that permeates discourses of and upon indigenous peoples or first
nations (Maybury-Lewis 1992). One aspect of the `traditional wisdom' of the Lindu people, as put forth in YTM
publications (Sangadji 1994, 1996), is their management of the local environment. The emergent identification
of Lindu custom (adat) as a community-based resource management system has been one of the emergent bases
for the Lindu reassertion of claims to control of land on the basis of local adat stipulations. For example,
Laudjeng (1994) outlines how the Lindu people have partitioned the Lindu plain into a number of different landuse domains (suaka [T]) that function to promote the `conservation of the region', with outsiders supposedly
requiring permission from Lindu proprietors to make use of these lands in accordance with the purposes
specified by local custom (adat). Some types of land are designated as the preserves of local guardian spirits
(tana viata [T]), and are thus prohibited for such exploitation as chopping down trees, opening gardens (i.e. for
coffee or cacao) or other uses. Middle-aged and younger members of the Lindu community, even when their
Salvation Army convictions lead them to doubt the existence of viata, point to such interdiction as evidence of
the local wisdom encoded in adat institutions regarding land. As many of these indigenous sacred areas are
located in the surrounding forest (although some can be found even in the midst of wet-rice fields, and are no
less respected), these informants point to the function of tana viata, and the encompassing system of suaka in
which it finds its place, in preserving watershed areas and thus inhibiting erosion and the sedimentation of Lake
Lindu. Indeed, many of the Lindu people explicitly point to the neglect of these prohibitions by migrants to the
area who cut down forests and open up coffee and cacao gardens willy-nilly as contributing to the increasing
shallowness of the lake and the streams feeding into it. In addition, institutions such as ombo, the prohibitions
on using specified local lacustrine and terrestial resources for a set period of time after the death of a
prominent noble (maradika), are asserted to `function to preserve the harmony of the ecosystem' (Laudjeng
1994: 160), invoking comparisons to the traditions of sustainable resource use (Colchester 1995) among
indigenous peoples and local `community resource management' systems whose successes have been extolled
elsewhere in the archipelago, most notably the sasi system found in Maluku (Panell n.d.; Zerner n.d.). All these
aspects of Lindu adat regarding land, whose virtues have recently been argued both by the Lindu people
themselves and the NGOs working in association with them, have become part of the local position in defence of
adat control of local land which developers have had increasingly to take on board when proposing new
developments for the Lindu plain. Indeed, one written response drawn up to the revised plan of the new
governor to establish a hydroelectric scheme that would not involve a rise in the water level of the lake
(Formasi, Dec '99) clearly delineates the tana suaka which is to be preserved under the jurisdiction of the Lindu
lembaga hadat.
Yet, other aspects of this `community resource management system', perhaps extrapolated from characteristics
identified from other `indigenous peoples' are more problematic.12 For example, Laudjeng (1994) mentions
12 My paper `Re-empowering the `Art of the Elders': The Revitalization of Adat among the Lindu People
of Central Sulawesi' (Acciaioli n.d.) explores more deeply the problematic nature of using the Englishlanguage category of `indigenous people' as a general translation of the Indonesian term masyarakat
adat, which I have more literally translated as `customary society' throughout this paper. Where I have
wished to distinguish the Lindu ethnic group from other peoples now also inhabiting the Lindu plain, I
have used the term `indigenous' in quotation marks to indicate the problematic nature of this
ascription.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 9
Lindu `clans' to which rights to fish in specific sites in the lake belong. However, neither my own previous field
work in the 80s nor any previous ethnographic surveys (Kaudern 1925-1944; Kruyt 1938; Davis n.d.) note the
existence of any corporate kin groups such as clans, a phenomenon highly suspect in this central Indonesian
culture area of bilateral kinship reckoning. Nor did my own field work earlier this year reveal the recent
emergence of any sort of clan structure or any other sorts of kin groups (e.g. ambilateral ramages) as an
innovative strategy to claim corporate rights to local resources in the Lindu plain as part of an `invention of
tradition' or production of `custom' (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Keesing and Tonkinson 1982; Jolly and Thomas
1992; Lindstrom and White 1993) Indeed, during my earlier research in the 80s the Lindu people did not declare
such land-use domains and assert such rights, instead allowing, though sometimes grudgingly, and perhaps
under state coercion (e.g. instructions from the district head (camat) who had directed local transmigrants to
the Lindu plain under the district resettlement scheme), other peoples who had migrated to the shores of the
lake to use its resources and to open wet-rice fields adjacent to it.
Nevertheless, the success of the Lindu people in so far defending their relations to their land against both some
of the regulations of the encompassing Lore-Lindu National Park and also the planned incursion of a hydroelectric scheme, which almost resulted in their transmigration from the region, has been achieved not simply
due to cooperation with NGOs from the provincial capital Palu and beyond. It has also rested on their own
reassertion of their adat as a viable basis for their dealing with their environment.
Conclusion: The Limitations upon Re-emergent Adat Claims to Land
Despite these successes, the reassertion of adat control over land remains limited by what is perhaps best
termed the changed `ethnoscapes' (Appadurai 1992) now characterising the social inhabitation of Indonesian
lands. In the previous section I have mentioned several times the presence of other peoples within the Lindu
plain, both spontaneous migrants, predominant among them the Bugis from South Sulawesi13, and local
transmigrants from within Kulawi district (kecamatan), in which the Lindu plain is located. In this regard the
Lindu plain is certainly not untypical. Due to the social engineering projects of the New Order state, many of
them, such as transmigration, not original, but merely intensified implementation of schemes initiated by the
Dutch colonial regime and continued at a lower level of intensity within Soekarno's Old Order, few regions of
Indonesia are ethnically homogeneous. And in contexts of ethnic heterogeneity, the question which always
arises in regard to the re-emergence of the authority of customary institutions and stipulations in local
governance is, of course, just whose adat is to have precedence?
Earlier in 2000 the noted Indonesian sociologist Professor Selo Soemardjan was designated by the government to
study just how adat might be revivified as the basis for implementing the local autonomy (otonomi daerah)
legislation in the current era. In a keynote address at a recent (August 2000) workshop and symposium entitled
`The Beginning of the 21st Century: Endorsing Regional Autonomy, Understanding Local Cultures, Strengthening
National Integration' (1-4 August 2000, Research Center, Hasanuddin University, Makassar, South Sulawesi,
Indonesia) he explained how he was seeking the basis for policy recommendations not only from his field work in
Central Javanese villages (Professor Soemardjan himself hails from Central Java), but also by returning to the
Dutch conceptualisations of the colonial Leiden School of Adatrecht, associated most fully with the work of van
Vollenhoven (van Vollenhoven 1912; ter Haar 1948). In this research endeavour he made reference to the
delineation of `customary law circles' (adatrechtskringen) and other conceptual bases of this approach.
Ironically, as evidenced by Professor Soemardjan's remarks, just as prior to the 90s, with a watershed marked
most clearly by the formation of ICMI (Ikatan Cendiakawan Muslimin seIndonesia or the Pan-Indonesian
Association of Muslim Intellectuals), the New Order's attitude to Islam -- the attempt to foster religious Islam
while stifling political Islam -- is reminiscent of the colonial Islamic policies of Snouck Hurgronje (Benda 1972)
that most Indonesian Islamic intellectuals have worked so hard to discredit, so too the resurgent recognition of
adat carries traces of the earlier colonial legal tradition promulgated most widely by van Vollenhoven.
However, Indonesia today is not easily segmented into clearly bounded `customary law circles'. As indicated
above, due to spontaneous migration and government-sponsored migration, including both the national
transmigrasi scheme and local resetelmen (transmigrasi lokal) programs implemented by the former Social
13 My PhD thesis (Acciaioli 1989) concentrates upon patterns of migration of the Bugis to Lake Lindu,
as well as their efforts to control the local economy as intermediate marketers of fish, rice, coffee and
other products and to reshape the local Lindu spiritual universe by such means as ascribing Bugis
genealogies to local guardian spirits.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 10
Affairs Department (Departemen Sosial or DEPSOS) (Haba 2000) within regencies and districts, few areas within
the archipelago are mono-ethnic, even such relatively isolated areas as the Lindu plain. And the more recent
settlers in many of these areas, especially in the case of those transported under the auspices of local
resetelmen, such as the To Lonca, To Pipikoro, and To Kulawi now resettled in the Lindu plain, are also peoples
who themselves often claim `customary society' (masyarakat adat) status. These customary societies are no
longer so exclusively linked to their territories as the definition of masyarakat adat promulgated by the KMAN,
with its criterion of `ancestral origins (which have persisted for generations) in a specific geographical region',
implies. One of the greatest challenges facing the revivification of local custom is just how the claims of
competing forms of adat within particular locales may be adjudicated.
This question has been particularly problematic in relation to land issues at Lindu, and indeed throughout the
archipelago. Aragon (n.d.) has nicely delineated how in contexts of extensive local transmigration, which,
following Appadurai and Baudrillard, she characterises as `state-imposed forms of deterritorialization' (Aragon
n.d. 16), `conflicts arise and often remain unresolved because each group seemingly tries to retain its own
criteria concerning founders and precedence' (Aragon n.d.: 17). In the Palolo Valley, a site (coincidentally,
adjacent to the Lindu plain in the mountains to the southeast of the Central Sulawesi provincial capital Palu)
that has been populated in the last half-century by peoples from throughout the Palu Valley and the mountains
surrounding it, Kaili local transmigrants from the Palu Valley base their claims to precedence on the former
inclusion of the Palolo Valley within the periphery of precolonial Kaili rajahdoms, such as Sigi in the Biromaru
area. Migrants from the more isolated Tobaku area in the mountains to the southeast of Kulawi `envision the
project territory [i.e. the Palolo Valley as a site of local transmigration or resettlement] as akin to a "wild" area,
harnessed by the state, in which they were the founding occupants' (Aragon n.d.: 17). For the Kaili, rights to
land in Palolo can be asserted on the basis of already such land being defined as already within the ambit of
former Kaili kingdoms; for the ToBaku right of first (re-!)settlement takes precedence in this territory only
recently resettled under government auspices.
Similar conflicts have arisen in the Lindu plain itself, given the diversity of its current inhabitants. Through the
vehicle of the Lembaga Hadat se-Dataran Lindu, the recently re-empowered adat council asserted by the
`indigenous' local Lindu people to represent the entire plain14, although its members only come from the
(primarily noble [maradika {T}]) ranks of the three Lindu villages with majority `indigenous' populations, the
Lindu people have sought to re-impose their own `indigenous' adat, on the basis of their original occupation of
the Lindu plain, as the final arbiter of land issues. This endeavour has not met with universal acceptance in
Lindu. For example, in a meeting of representatives of all the villages on the plain, including those occupied
predominantly (and in on case, exclusively) by migrants, spontaneous Bugis migrants from South Sulawesi (i.e.
in Kanawu) and local transmigrants from elsewhere in Kulawi (i.e. in Puroo) the village head (kepala desa) of
the transmigrant village of Puroo rejected the Lindu adat council's move to enforce once more an adat
stipulation limiting land use and ownership to 2 ha. per individual. As this village head argued, why shouldn't a
person be allowed to have 10 ha. or more of land, as long as he was capable (mampu) of working it all. Land use
(and ultimately ownership) should be limited only by ability, as is in accord with national priorities of
development (pembangunan) and progress (kemajuan), according to this representative of the migrant
viewpoint. Lindu adat representatives responded by noting the extent to which land currently being opened by
Kulawi transmigrants from Puroo in the hills to the south of the lake is causing sedimentation of the main
stream behind their own Lindu village of Langko. The matter remains unresolved.
A similar divergence of opinion regarding control of land has also strained relations between newcomers, largely
spontaneous Bugis migrants from South Sulawesi, and `indigenous' Lindu people in Kanawu on the eastern side
of the lake. These differences have recently found more vehement expression due to the resuscitated proposal,
just announced by the new governor at the end of 1999, to build a hydro-electric project at the outlet of Lake
Lindu, a reincarnation of the the PLTA - Palu III plan whose earlier rejection was traced above. In this new
version of the project, the government promises that a smaller dam/power plant complex will not cause any
rise in the lake's water level, thus not resulting in any inundation of fields and consequent local transmigration
of the population settled in the plain. Almost all newcomers in Kanawu firmly support the plan, envisaging the
14 During the New Order period the adat council for the entire Lindu plain was largely dormant, as
cases that could still be dealt with under the terms of adat were handled individually by the adat
councils (lembaga hadat) of the three Lindu administrative villages (desa) -- Anca, Tomado, and Langko
-- in accord with the emphasis upon desa institutions enshrined in the 1974 and 1979 national
legislation on regional and village governance.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 11
possibilities for more intensive marketing of products from the plain -- rice, coffee, cacao, etc. -- to be
facilitated by the building of supply roads for vehicles necessitated by the plan. Members of the `indigenous'
Lindu community remain divided about this project: many from the more `progressive' village of Langko15
support the new project, emphasising not only the enhanced marketing possibilities, but also the greater access
to medical facilities for the seriously ill that an automobile road will bring; in contrast, a more conservative
faction from the village of Anca, one of the seven origin villages of the `indigenous' Lindu people, are more
wary, rejecting implementation until a thorough environmental impact assessment is made demonstrating the
viability of government claims for the absence of any rise in water level.
This divergence of opinion between Lindu people opposing the dam (and hence the motor vehicle road) and
migrants supporting its construction has catalysed considerable resentment on the part of the Muslim migrants,
who have coupled this obstreperousness on the part of Lindu opponents (in their view) of development
(pembangunan) with their rejection of Lindu adat claims to the land the newcomers had settled. This anger
found expression in a conversation I witnessed among these migrants while sitting in one of their households in
the round of visiting immediately following the Hari Raya Idul Fitri mosque service for the end of the fasting
month at the beginning of 2000:
Abdul16:
For 350 years we were colonised by the Dutch. Then for 3 1/2 years we were colonised by the Japanese,
but we have to add to that another 50 years that we have been colonised by our own nation
(`dijajah oleh bangsa sendiri'), by the people of the city here.17 They just go down the steps
of their house and enter their sedan [`while we have to walk to go anywhere' was the implicit
contrast]. We [here at Lindu] are still in a colonial era (waktu penjajahan), as in former times.
When we want to voice this, Palu [i.e. the government authorities in Palu] just gives us
permission for a demonstration [demo]--with banners, in an orderly fashion [but nothing gets
done]. The problem is with the NGOs, and our own children [anak sendiri, referring to the
`indigenous' Lindu people who have worked with such NGOs as Yayasan Tanah Merdeka, which
have rejected the hydroelectric project] who are at fault (bersalah). But that's actually
`sinning' (berdosa) that they're engaging in, because they're deceiving (menipu) their own
people. They're working to support (memperjuangkan) [this anti-dam, anti-road position] for
the sake of [filling] their own pockets, not for their own people. These [Lindu] people are even
more cruel than the government. It's the [Lindu] society itself that is hindering [i.e. placing
obstacles (menghambat)] the road [construction] in their working with the NGOs...They [the
Lindu people] say that this land is the property (milik) of their ancestors, the inheritance from
their ancestors (warisan nenek moyang).
Beddu:
Whose ancestors are these? (Ini nenek dari siapa?) This [land] is the right of us all; the State is the one
that owns this property; this is the inheritance of the State, of the Indonesian people, all of it.
(Ini hak kita semua; Negara punya milik dari tanah ini. Ini warisan Negara bangsa Indonesia
seluruhnya). We [the migrants] are the ones whose life is good and orderly (baik dan teratur)
here, all of the newcomers. Where are their demands going to end? We pay our taxes to the
regency officials...[Because there is no motor vehicle road here] even if people are very sick,
they have to be carried with traditional implements. It often turns out that people die in the
middle of the path, especially where the path has been disturbed by the [transport of] rotan
[these are the sections of the trail that have been partially eradicated by rotan trailing from
the backs of horses and where it is most difficult to carry people and goods without falling into
the ravine below]. X [a Lindu youth who has often worked with YTM] is the one who has most
15 Langko was a village created by the Dutch, when they forced the Lindu people down into villages
immediately surrounding the lake from their former less nucleated settlements in the hills further in
the lake's periphery.
16 All names used for inhabitants of Lindu in the text are pseudonyms.
17 People at Lindu, both `indigenous' Lindu inhabitants and migrants, often point to the lack of any
motor vehicle road to the Lindu plain, thus requiring a 17 km walk of 4 hours or more, as evidence that
they are still colonised (`masih dijajah') by the State. I have most often heard this idiom used when
people are just about to begin the climb to Lindu from Sadaunta, the hamlet at the road from Palu from
which one descends from a van or other motor vehicle to begin the trek up to Lindu.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 12
often choked (paling bengkal) [our plans]. `This is the inheritance of our ancestors' -- that's not
an unconditional right. It's the government that [has the right to] orders (mengatur) us, so it's
the state that has the right to order [everything]. This fuss about only working 2 ha., calling it
`customary land' (tanah adat) if it's ever been opened [in the past]. It was all forest and jungle
here (hutan rimba), the State owns it. They [the Lindu people] are just jealous, envious
(cemburu, iri hati) because the Bugis here, we've only been here a few years, and we're the
ones who already have tractors and other things...They [the Lindu people] just don't want to
progress (maju). There's no sense of balance (keseimbangan) here [i.e. there's no sense that it's
the deserving who get the good things]; [they make their customary demands] just because
they're in the majority. The country keeps progressing, and here we're just remaining
traditional (Negara makin maju; kita masih tradisional)...Now we're `autonomous'; we can't
oppose it...
In its seething resentment over the active opposition, past and present, of some Lindu people, especially those
who have worked closest with NGOs in Palu, to the construction of the dam and its supply road and over the
Lindu adat council's attempt to re-assert control over the land the migrants viewed as their own, especially the
council's announced intention to limit people's land to 2 ha., these Bugis migrants voice their espousal of the
Indonesian state's prior definition of all land not under permanent cultivation as State Land (Tanah Negara),
land available to be opened for purposes of development (pembangunan), a purpose overriding any local
customary considerations, as assserted so saliently in the 1960 Agrarian Legislation. Celebrating themselves as
the bringers of progress (kemajuan) to the Lindu plain18, these migrants reiterate with considerable personal
conviction the developmentalist rationale that was the basis of the New Order state. They see themselves as,
and in many ways they were, the ideal citizens of that social, political and economic regime, an order that by
defining so much of the country as State Land open to exploitation by those with the nous to operate
successfully in the framework of State regulations, unhampered by adat stipulations as well, to gain access to
land and better themselves has tended to privilege those groups with long-standing entrepreneurial traditions
and networks that facilitated their economic conquest as settlers in the regions outside (rantau) their
homelands. For such peoples, as for transmigrants, local and national, who have been uprooted from their
homelands, the implementation of autonomy legislation at the village level through the re-institutionalisation of
local customary (adat) stipulations and structures is simply a new and (in their eyes) unwarranted constraint
upon their further development of their new settlements and lands, an unjust redefinition of their occupation,
and a conservative subordination to regulations and institutions they regard as alien that can only result in their
stagnation.
The Lindu case is not unique. In fact, in many regards the apparently irreconcilable interests in the Lindu
context of, on the one hand, local peoples who claim indigeneity as a warrant for the reimposition of their
customary regulation of local land and, on the other hand, newcomers who argue for the preservation of their
unfettered rights to open and continue working what they regard as State Land have been expressed quite
mildly. To their credit, over the last year the peoples of Lindu have met in a series of forums designed to give
voice to these divergent viewpoints and to work toward an accommodation of interests. The peoples inhabiting
the Lindu plain are well aware of the conflicts that are raging between locals and migrants, Christians and
Muslims, in many other parts of Indonesia, with references to such hotspots as Ambon in Maluku and Poso in
Central Sulawesi, the latter felt as all too near (about 200 km) from Lindu itself, quite commonly worked into
everyday conversations, formal speeches and sermons in both Salvation Army churches, where the `indigenous'
Lindu people worship, and mosques, where the Bugis and Kulawi Muslim migrants19 pray. Although these
continually raging conflicts, with the situation in Ambon alone now accounting for over 5000 deaths and at least
250,000 refugees over the last two years, have often been presented in the popular media as basically religious
18 In the final chapter of my thesis (Acciaioli 1989) I present a more detailed argument concerning how
the Bugis in the 80s used their conceptualisation of themselves as bringers of progress, in such forms as
the introduction of miracle rice varieties and all the associated inputs of the Green Revolution (e.g.
pesticides, herbicides, commercial fertilizers, tractors, etc.) as part of their `hegemonic strategy' to
attempt gaining control of not only the local economy, but also local political structures (hamlet and
village headship) and cultural institutions (sacrifices to the local culture hero).
19 The majority of newcomers from within Kulawi district, both spontaneous and locally transmigrated,
are Christian of various dominations, but there are a considerable number of Muslims among them as
well.
Placing Claims to Land / Acciaioli
Page 13
conflicts, Muslims and Christian engaged in Holy War, other more considered accounts have pointed to the
underlying conflicts over land and resources, including political office, that have sparked such clashes, with the
religious idiom of opposition increasingly coming into play as the conflicts have continued. As a recent article
(20 September 2000) in The Christian Science Monitor neatly put it, `[t]hough the seeds of Maluku's violence lay
in communal conflicts over land and political power, the rhetoric has solidified into that of a religious war,
complete with claims of miracles and martyrdom from both sides.' The associated conflict in North Maluku, with
its terrible escalation prompted by the slaughter of over 500 Muslims in three days by the `indigenous' Christians
of Tobelo district intent on reclaiming land, has certainly come to be phrased in almost exclusively relgious
terms, especially since the operations of the avenging Laskar Jihad forces began. But even among members of
the Muslim forces, the place of disputes over land has been central. As the commander of one Muslim militia in
Ternate put it, `We have to fight and destroy them...The Christians massacred us six months ago. It's time to
take back our land.' (The Hindu, 14 September 2000). Certainly, the tensions that have erupted in these areas
and that continue to simmer in less explosive areas like Lindu and Palolo, perhaps more representative of the
current situation in Indonesia as a whole, are long-standing. However, the implementation of regional autonomy
in the current era of Reformasi and the resurgence of adat institutions at the local level that it has faciliated
and fostered have rendered the necessity somehow to resolve competing claims to land in contexts of ethnic
heterogeneity, sites polarised by `indigenous'/newcomer distinctions, perhaps the most pressing issue facing
rural Indonesia today.
References
INTERNET:
----- Why local conflict becomes Indonesia's national war. The Christian Science Monitor (Wednesday, September
20, 2000)
----- Editorial: Religion and politics in Indonesia. The Hindu [India] (September 14, 2000)
ARTICLES AND BOOKS:
Acciaioli, Greg 1989 Searching for Good Fortune: The Making of a Bugis Shore Community at Lake Lindu,
Central Sulawesi. PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies, The
Australian National University.
Acciaioli, Greg 1997
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