The Toba Batak and Toba Pulp Lestari: Seeking remedy through the International Labour Organisation

Ompu Ronggur, a community of the Toba Batak, a highland people of North Sumatra with an ancient tradition of resin tapping from their agroforests, found in 2004 that all of their traditional territory had been allotted to a pulp and paper company, Toba Pulp Lestari, for establishing Eucalyptus plantations.

Their repeated appeals to the Government for return of their lands have been ignored. TPL continues to clear their lands and forests, destroying their resin trees and other resources, thereby undermining their traditional occupations, and leaving them significantly impoverished.

With the help of the Toba Batak organisation, AMAN Tano Batak, the Indonesian Plantation Workers Union, SERBUNDO, and the international human rights organisation, Forest Peoples Programme, Ompu Ronggur has filed a complaint (‘representation’) with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) alleging that the Indonesian Government has violated its obligations under ILO Convention 111, one of the ILO’s core conventions which protects workers from discrimination. By failing to protect the traditional occupations of the Toba Batak of Ompu Ronggur, which are underpinned and sustained by the lands and natural resources in their traditional territory, and favouring the interests of industrial plantations, the Indonesian Government is contravening ILO C 111 as well as numerous other human rights standards it has agreed to uphold through ratifying international treaties.

The people of Ompu Ronggur want their government to:

 

"Respect our rights, our customary lands, the lands belonging to Ompu Ronggur need to be returned. Our survival depends on these lands. Things are now very difficult and only look like they will get worse. There is no more land left and our ability to maintain and practice our traditional occupations, our

livelihoods, are already very restricted, and in some cases impossible."

 

Since the complaint was submitted, in August 2019, and although the ILO has accepted the submission, TPL has continued to clear Ompu Ronggur’s lands and forests.  Faced with this act of bad faith, the community has asked ILO to proceed to a ‘decision on the merits’ before it engages further with the government to resolve the land dispute. The case, which is emblematic of the situation of indigenous peoples throughout Indonesia, could be decided in 2020.