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Indonesian victims of Japanese
aid
By Noboyuki Takahashi
Part 1: The
scandal of Japanese aid to Indonesia
Before
construction began, with official Japanese assistance,
of the Koto Panjang dam in the area of the border
between the Indonesian provinces of Riau and West
Sumatra, local inhabitants could fulfill their basic
needs on fertile land that produced rubber, coconuts,
coffee and other agricultural products. But that way of
life soon ended as they were forcibly evicted to make
way for the project and moved to barren land.
The local government had promised them
compensation in the form of rubber plantations and water
facilities. But there were only a few young rubber trees
that needed more than six years to produce, and a well
provided by the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Overseas
Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF, now merged into the
Japan Bank for International Cooperation, or JBIC)
offered muddy water. Unable to grow enough rice to feed
themselves, they were forced into the labor market under
harsh conditions. Women were forced to leave their
children untended and unschooled as they went to other
villages to toil in the rubber plantations; some even
turned to prostitution.
Mrs Imar, a 50-year-old
woman with three children from Tanjung Pauh village, had
to work to help her husband in the Gambir plantation to
shore up the family income. But with a salary of just
Rp10,000 (about US$1) per day, she could not afford
education for the children even though one of her sons
was a top student.
As the dam project that had
led to their plight was funded by Japanese official
development assistance (ODA) to the Indonesian
government of Suharto, the people repeatedly petitioned
the OECF and the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta for relief.
In 1991, two inhabitants representing the evicted
villagers visited the OECF's Indonesia office but were
turned away because their visit was "unofficial". One
resident even traveled to Japan to make an appeal.
Their pleas, the villagers allege in a lawsuit
against the Japanese government to be heard in Tokyo on
September 5, fell on deaf ears. They concluded that
there was no difference between the Suharto government
and the Japanese government. The plaintiffs claim that
Japanese insensitivity to their problems amounted to a
human-rights crime.
Even animals were affected
by the project, and they too will be represented at the
court case next month. The Indonesia Environment Forum
(Wahana Lingkungan Hidup, or WALHI) claims that animals
indigenous to Sumatra, including elephants, tigers and
tapirs, lost their habitats and face extinction in the
region.
The dam was completed in 1996. A
fact-finding delegation from Japan reported that
although the power project had a capacity of 114
megawatts, it is only supplying 17MW. The delegation
concluded that the low power consumption would make it
impossible for the Indonesian government to repay its
debt for the project to the Japanese government. Tokyo
Electric Power Service Co, a contractor of the Koto
Panjan Dam project, and whose main business has been the
study, planning and supervision of power plants and
equipment since 1960 as a subsidiary of Japan's biggest
power company, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc, responded
fluctuation of energy supply is not unusual in a power
plant such as Koto Panjan, and that although its output
sometimes dips to only 17 MW, at other times is near
full capacity. However, an onsite study led by Professor
Kazuo Fumi of the Faculty of Law, Nigata University,
found that the water level in the reservoir was below
the point at which it could supply full power of 114MW,
only one out of three generators was working in the late
afternoon, and all three generators had worked
simultaneously on only a single occasion.
Particularly after the oil shock of 1973,
successive Japanese governments maintained close ties
with the Suharto administration. The ODA trial is
expected to shed light on this relationship and expose
the structure of Japanese foreign-aid policy in Asia,
and identify the real beneficiaries and the victims.
Besides the Foreign Ministry itself, the trial
will focus on the two major Japanese contractors in the
dam project, Hazama Corp and Tokyo Electric Power
Services Co. The former has been involved in a
corruption scandal since 1993, especially over its
connection with a Japanese construction minister, a
prefectural governor, a mayor and other public
officials. Hazama and other Japanese general
construction firms are well known with their huge
contributions to Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic
Party.
Under the Suharto dictatorship, besides
Hazama Corp and the Tokyo Electric group, Japanese
trading houses, Japan Indonesia Oil (partly invested by
Toyota Motor Corp) and other Japanese companies
flourished. Meanwhile the Suharto family enriched itself
with its businesses, backed by the Golkar party,
bureaucrat institutions and a national system that has
been revealed to be locked in KKN, the Indonesian
acronym for corruption, collusion and nepotism. It is
becoming clearer that KKN was not merely a domestic
issue, but was reinforced by external factors, including
yen loans. In fact, neither the endemic corruption of
the Suharto regime nor its violence against its own
people was any obstacle to the flow of Japanese money
into Indonesia until the Asian financial crisis.
Hazama Corp recorded a loss of 1.6 billion yen
($13.3 million) with total debt of 262.6 billion yen in
the fiscal year that closed at end of March. The company
claims an official four-pillar environmental policy
under president Fumiya Yamato. The last pillar
stipulates "not only respecting the laws of environment,
but we also support and participate in environment
conservation and revitalization activities by
administration, academics, industries and local
communities". I asked the company's view on the results
of its Koto Panjang Dam project. A public relations
official replied: "Not as a bid winner but as a
constructor, we just followed the orders of our patron.
Hence there is nothing to comment about."
(©2002
Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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