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Indigenous land deforested by Toba Pulp Lestari @ AMAN Tano Batak
On July 22, 2024, five members of the Tano Batak indigenous community were abducted by individuals driving security cars belonging to Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL), a company producing pulp and paper. The villagers were sleeping when they were taken and forced into the cars.
The incident happened in the village of Buntu Pangaturan, in North Sumatra (Indonesia). Local Indigenous communities have confronted Toba Pulp Lestari for decades, a company controlled by the owner of Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), the second-biggest Indonesian paper group.
The company obtained land from the government traditionally owned by the local indigenous communities and converted it into pulp plantations.
Also, the village where the kidnapping happened had been impacted by TPL land grabbing, with the related trail of conflicts. According to a social conflicts mapping by EPN and partners, TPL is involved in conflicts with 26 villages in North Sumatra, over 39,734 hectares of land.
“AMAN condemns this kind of violence, abducting people while they are sleeping without giving them a chance to defend themselves. This is a clear human rights violation!” said AMAN Secretary General Rukka Sombolinggi.
“The abduction of these people seems to have been planned. ” said Jhontoni Tarihoran from AMAN Tano Batak. “The kidnappers drove two security cars belonging to PT Toba Pulp Lestari. They came to the residents’ house while they were sleeping, then kidnapped them.”
According to eyewitness reports, around 50 individuals in plain clothes and driving two cars belonging to Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) security cars and one Colt Diesel truck arrived in the village of Sihaporas, catching the inhabitants in their sleep. The abducted villagers ended up in a police station, where they are still under arrest despite their abduction being illegal.
Recently, EPN, together with local and international partners, investigated a major case of deforestation in Indonesia, where another company, PT Mayawana Persada, apparently related to APRIL, has cleared more than 33,000 hectares of rainforest in Borneo, an area nearly half the size of Singapore. Yet another company, similarly linked to APRIL’s owners, is building a huge pulp mill in the eastern corner of Borneo, where the last intact forests lie. Half a million hectares of tropical rainforest are directly at risk in APRIL-linked forestry concessions in Borneo and South and West Papua.
APRIL should publicly recognize its involvement in all these operations and take responsibility for their impacts.
In the case of the recent abuses in North Sumatra, APRIL and TPL should immediately step towards conflict resolution:
- Publicly request the release of the five community members who were illegally detained.
- Start a credible investigation about the use of TPL cars in the abduction and publicly release its results.
- Recognise the ancestral rights of the Indigenous Sihaporas community, as well as all other communities whose traditional land has been encroached on by plantation operations.
- Resolve social conflicts in an open, transparent, and inclusive way, based on the principle that local communities have the full right to regain all their traditional land if they want to.
- Ensure full restoration of ecological damages in customary territories, especially in the area of water sources.
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