Kami Export 34. AIPP Report 4web Final 1

Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Key Issues in Sustainable Development: From Our Common Future...
II. Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Key Issues

in Sustainable Development: From
Our Common Future to the Future We
Want: What Happened in Between?
Photo credit: Christian Erni
A. Key Issues in the Past and Present
In Rio and Johannesburg (1992 and 2002), indigenous peoples reported their situation
and their proposals for human and sustainable development. These are contained
in the Kari-oca Declaration and Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter, and the Kimberley
Declaration and the Indigenous Peoples’ Plan of Implementation on Sustainable
Development.42 The situation of indigenous peoples worldwide was characterized as
one of centuries of deprivation, assimilation, and genocide.
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Development Aggression as Economic Growth: Report of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact
Deprivation came in terms of rights—the non-recognition of the right to traditionally-

owned and managed land, territories and resources, and to development. The
dominant concept of development has meant the destruction of land and in many
cases indigenous peoples are exterminated in the name of a development. The concept
of terra nullius or “Doctrine of Discovery” has been used in domestic laws to deny
indigenous peoples’ ownership of ancestral lands and territories. Internal colonization
of indigenous peoples by the state is seen through the notion of majority rule and/or
national development and security to decide the future of indigenous peoples. There
had been a worldwide move to remove indigenous peoples from their lands, forcing
them out from their traditional territories in order to facilitate “development.”
Forests that have been nourished for centuries and form the material base for
indigenous peoples’ sustenance were being destroyed in the name of development
and environmental conservation but do not actually benefit human beings. The
logging concessions and incentives to the timber, cattle and mining industries
have been negatively affecting the ecosystems and the natural resources on which
indigenous peoples depend for their survival and identity. Encroachment, exploitation
and appropriation of indigenous peoples’ lands and resources have led to their
impoverishment and hunger. Unsustainable extraction, harvesting, production and
consumption patterns lead to climate change, widespread pollution and environmental
destruction, and eviction from lands—creating immense levels of poverty and disease.
As the world leaders again meet to discuss sustainable development, the concerns
expressed by indigenous peoples 20 years ago are still burning issues. Two decades
after governments committed to comprehensively address economic growth, social
justice and environmental protection, economic globalization remains one of the
main obstacles in the recognition and respect of the rights of indigenous peoples.
Transnational corporations and developed countries impose their global agenda on
the negotiations and agreements of the United Nations system, the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and other bodies, which
reduce the rights enshrined in national constitutions and in international conventions
and agreements. The activities of multinational mining corporations on indigenous
territories have led to the loss and desecration of lands, caused immense health
problems, interfered with access to and occupation of sacred sites, destroyed and
depleted Mother Earth, and undermined indigenous cultures.
Development in indigenous lands and territories is commonly decided by those who
are unfamiliar with local conditions and needs, without the consent of those who own
the land. In many instances, governments have socially engineered the process of
seeking consent from indigenous peoples by creating artificial entities such as “District
Council” or “Tribal Council,” which then “give” consent to a project.
In the following section, key issues for indigenous peoples with cases from different
countries are presented. These are mostly large-scale projects, such as dams, mines
or plantations, that impact on the lives of indigenous peoples. The collection of cases
is by no means complete, but rather tries to give a sense of the scope of the projects’
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destructive potential. All these cases raise the issue of lack of free, prior and informed
consent (FPIC), non-recognition of the existence of indigenous peoples and their
collective rights to their exercise land, territories and resources, amidst the exercise
of eminent domain by the state.
B. Large-scale Dams: Blood Dams
Photo credit: AIPP
By virtue of the geographic location and the hydro resources of their lands and
territories, indigenous peoples in Asia had been sacrificed for the post-World War
II reconstruction and development drives of the then emerging nation-states and
continuing until the current drive to gain “developed nation” status. Development had
been equated with economic growth, and economic growth is fueled by energy. Dams
offered, and offer until now, the so-called “cheap” and “clean” energy and irrigation
for cash crop production. Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and livelihood sources have
been taken away in order that more will be fed, factories will run, cities will be aglow,
homes will have lights. BUT, indigenous peoples have no food, no light, no home, no
livelihood, no land, no spirit tree, no sacred grove.
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“Large dams have had serious impacts on the lives, livelihoods, cultures and spiritual
existence of indigenous and tribal peoples. Due to neglect and lack of capacity to
secure justice because of structural inequities, cultural dissonance, discrimination and
economic and political marginalization, indigenous and tribal peoples have suffered
disproportionately from the negative impacts of large dams, while often being excluded
from sharing in the benefits.”43
The World Commission on Dams (WCD) came out with their ground-breaking report
entitled “Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making” in 2000,
which clearly identified the lack of free, prior and informed consent of indigenous
peoples as a key issue in dam projects in indigenous territories. The cases that are
included in this report are all of this type. In many instances, indigenous peoples
are promised good opportunities in the relocations sites but in the end, they end up
with much less or nothing at all. The more sinister impact of physical displacement
for indigenous peoples is not only their deprivation from the river and ecosystems
and forests where they depend on their traditional livelihoods but from the river and
ecosystems that shaped their culture and worldview, which may be tantamount to
ethnocide. In dam projects funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), several
eligibility requirements for resettlement programs are discriminatory to indigenous
peoples, e.g., no title-no compensation and citizenship requirements. Many
indigenous peoples have no legal title to their lands. All these sacrifices are continuing
and this paper cannot accommodate all the information on all the dams in Asia in
which indigenous peoples have had to give up lands, lives and futures.
Despite the horrendous human costs of large-scale dams, governments, international
financial institutions, banks and business are pushing for the continued construction of
such infrastructure. Worse, hydropower is now seen as “clean energy” to be promoted
as part of climate change mitigation. This human rights-blind development paradigm
is not clean. If diamonds can be labeled blood diamonds, why not dams, which takes
away the right to life of indigenous peoples and other affected communities? The
exploitative and oppressive manner in which indigenous peoples and other affected
communities have been treated in the building of large-scale dams, which in real
terms is a deprivation of their right to life, requires that these kinds of dams be labeled
BLOOD DAMS. The findings of the WCD on the impact of large dams on indigenous
communities rings so true today as it did more than 10 years ago:
“… (indigenous communities) ended with lower incomes; less land than
before; less work opportunities, inferior housing; less access to the resources
of the commons such as fuel-wood and fodder; and worse nutrition and
physical and mental health.”44
Currently, many indigenous peoples in Asia are fighting for their lives against
government hydropower plans being forcefully built on their rivers, threatening their
lives, indicative of the lack of their FPIC. People in Northeast India are fighting against
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several dams. The Tipaimukh Dam Project proposed to be built in the Barak River
in Manipur will directly submerge about 311 km2 of indigenous territory, covering
90 villages with 1,310 families, mostly Zeliangrong and Hmar tribes (some 15,000 of
them), and also 27,242 ha of their forests and cultivable land. Violence has erupted
in the Siang District due to the strong opposition of Adi and Galo tribes to the
construction of the Lower Siang Hydro Electric Project on the Siang River.45 Twenty-
three of their villages on the banks of the Siang River will be directly affected by the
project threatening their right to life, land and livelihood—their very survival. Apart
from those directly affected, the project will have profound and adverse effects on
local ecology, biodiversity and fragile way of life of the state’s 20 plus indigenous
tribes. There are more than 80 other such projects planned in the other state of
Arunachal Pradesh alone. India has declared the Northeast as the “powerhouse of
India”46 with 168 large dams being planned in the region with at least 48 actively
under consideration, besides 900 mini and micro-hydroelectric dams.47 Most victims
of development-induced displacement and project affected peoples are tribals—
about 40 percent of them48 (Menon, et al. 2003).
Along the lower Mekong River, one of the world’s longest last stretches of free-flowing
rivers, 12 dams are being planned for construction, with some actual preparatory
works being mostly in Laos. Already in the upper Mekong, China has 17-19 dams in
operation, under construction or consideration.49 Aside from the ecological implications
of damming the length of the Mekong River, the impact of these dams on millions of
people who depend on the river is unimaginable. The 2,800km-long Salween River in
Burma, the second longest river in Southeast Asia and so far uninterrupted by large
dams, may not deserve that designation anymore. From its headwaters in China, the
Salween cleaves Burma and Thailand. Five large-scale dams are being proposed in
the Salween of Burma, and 13 in its upper part, called the Nu River in China. Apart
from hydropower, the waters will be diverted to Thailand.50 In Burma, an estimated
six million people depend on the Salween for their lives. Along the Burma-Thailand
border, at least 13 ethnic nationalities have their homelands along the river.51 Lao PDR
wants to claim the title as the “battery of the Mekong.”52
In the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, indigenous communities from the Kayans, Kenyahs,
Kajangs, Kelabits, Lun Bawangs, Ibans, Penans, Bidayuhs, Kedayans, Trings, and Ukits
are demanding immediate resolution of all outstanding issues of importance to
people affected by the dams that are already in place or currently under construction,
as a consequence of the construction of the Batang Ai, Bengoh and Bakun large-scale
dams. More importantly, they are demanding that government stop all planned 12
megadams in the state and instead hold a referendum on dam construction.53 The
Bakun Hydro Electric Project, Southeast Asia’s largest dam, affected 12,000 Kayan,
Kenyah, Ukit, and Penan peoples, while 69,000 ha, including 23,000 ha of virgin
rainforest, were destroyed.54 The Batang Ai dam, built in 1982, displaced 3,00055 Ibans
from 26 longhouses.56 Government neglect and broken promises, and the hardships
faced after the relocation are bitter lessons that are still fresh in peoples’ collective
memories. For this reason, some 250 families (about 1,500 people) from four villages
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Source: http://www.salweenwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=60.
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affected by the Bengoh Dam rejected government resettlement plans and instead
resettled themselves on other parts of the their traditional territory upstream of the
Kiri River that will not be included in the 8.72 km2 of land that will be submerged by
the dam.57
The Himalayas, which is home to all of the world’s eight highest mountain peaks, has
also the most glaciated large areas in the world, outside of the North and South Poles.
This makes it the repository of huge stocks of water that form the headwaters of some
of the largest rivers in Asia—the Brahmaputhra, Indus, Ganga, and Irrawady—and
whose basins are home to millions of people. The hundreds of rivers originating from
the Himalayas is then seen as one of huge potential in hydroelectric energy generation
in the region. Currently, massive plans are underway in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and
Bhutan to build hundreds of dams in the region in the next 20 years, possibly making
the Himalayas as the region with the highest concentration of dams in the world. The
consequence of the damming of the rivers of the Himalayas will have tremendous
human and ecological costs, with grave implications for the culture and identity of
local peoples, who are often distinct ethnic groups small in numbers.58
1. Philippines: Repeating historical injustice
The three dams along the Agno River, Benguet Province, Cordillera
In 1948, the Ambuklao hydroelectric dam project was conceived to be constructed in
Ibaloi territory along the Agno River, the longest river system in the island of Luzon,
Benguet Province, Philippines. Construction of Ambuklao Dam started in 1952,
and before it was made operational in December 1956, another dam started to be
constructed 19 km downstream at Binga. Binga became operational in 1960. The
energy generated from the dams and the waters it kept were meant to serve the
energy and irrigation needs of the lowlands.
Apart from displacing about 200 families from self-sustaining Ambuklao villages, it
permanently destroyed 500 ha of their productive irrigated rice field, vegetable
farms, orchards, forests, habitats, and watersheds when the waters submerged the
valley they called home. The government, through the National Power Corporation
(NPC), offered scandalously low prices for their lands, which most people refused.
Those who accepted were never fully paid. No relocation plan was put in place. In
Binga, 150 ha of farmlands belonging to 100 families were completely submerged,
and no compensation nor relocation were promised. Worse, the government invoked
Public Land Act of 1905, which declared the Binga Ibaloi homeland as public land
and therefore the original inhabitants were considered “lessees” on public land, their
ancestral land. They were thus not entitled to compensation or resettlement. Until
now, the issues of uncompensated properties submerged and covered by the dams,
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the non-relocation of those displaced, and compliance to provisions on employment

of locals in the powerplant have not been addressed properly. But the story does not
end here.
The steadily rising level of silt in the dam reservoirs and along the Agno River upstream
of the dams is covering a wider and wider area around the dams and continues to
destroy more rice fields. This situation threatens to displace more communities, even
17 km away from the predicted edge of the reservoir due to rising water level and
accumulation of silt upstream along the Agno River. The displacement of the Ibalois,
particularly those directly affected in Barangays (villages) Ambuclao and Tikey, claimed
their experience is an act of historical injustice.
Again, the story does not end there. In 1998, despite opposition from communities,
the government started to build another dam along the same river, the San Roque
Multipurpose Dam, one of the largest dams in Asia.59 The construction affected 2,500
families, including displacing 660 families, as 4,000 ha of their lands were expropriated.
More than 10,000 gold panners from the downstream province of Pangasinan were
economically displaced while around 20,000 indigenous peoples of Itogon, Benguet
are expected to be adversely affected by the operation of the dam due to siltation
build-up.60 At the start of the construction, over 160 families have already been
forcibly displaced despite lack of a resettlement site, the fully-equipped resettlement
site that the same NPC promised.61 Thousands downstream were predicted to be
affected by flooding, which was proven to be true. In 2004 and 2009, several towns of
downstream provinces were severely flooded due to water releases from the dam.62
2. Bangladesh: Unresolved historical injustice
Kaptai Dam, Chittagong Hill Tracts

The Kaptai Dam in the CHT in the southeastern part of Bangladesh, was built on the
Karnafuli River in the heartland of indigenous Jumma peoples for electricity, flood
control, irrigation and drainage, and navigation. It was commissioned in 1962 with
funding from the United States Agency for International Development in the then-
Pakistan. It flooded 1,036 km2 of lands, submerging 54 percent (21,853 ha) of the
best arable lands of the valley and large parts of Chengi, Kassalong and Maini valleys
containing lush paddy fields and vegetable gardens, including the original Rangamati
where the Chakma chief’s palace was located. The reservoir created a vast 550 sq
miles of lake. It displaced about 100,000 Jummas, among whom were about 40,000
Chakma (1/6 of their then population) who were forced to migrate into India; and
about 20,000 other Jummas had to take refuge in Myanmar. Serious conflicts arose
between the refugees and local communities in Arunachal Pradesh.
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The Kaptai Dam completely damaged the agro-based main economy of the CHT,
destroyed the economic backbone of the indigenous Jummas, and brought about
a permanent disintegration of the Jummas on one hand, and led to the inroads of
Bengali Muslim population into the Buddhist region in large numbers, on the other.
It created jobs and business opportunities for the Bengali Muslim while the uprooted
Jummas were neither compensated properly for their lands and homesteads nor
provided land for their rehabilitation as resettlement plans were not part of the
project. Land shortage and the transmigration policy have led to persistent conflicts,
including sexual violence against indigenous women, between the oustees and the
Bengali settlers that take on an ethnic character. Military occupation accompanied
the construction. Of the many demands of the Jummas for a resolution to their plight,
until today, only 66 temporary army camps (including a brigade out of 543 camps)
were withdrawn so far. The rest of the temporary camps are yet to be dismantled.
Out of 12,222 families, 9,780 families of repatriated Jumma refugees are yet to be
reinstated in their lands, homesteads and orchards and many villages of the returnees
are still under the occupation of the settlers. Besides that, more than 90,000 internally
displaced Jumma families still have not yet been rehabilitated. In contrast, Bengali
settlers have been included as IDPs (internally displaced persons), violating the
provisions of the CHT Peace Accord.
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3. Laos PDR: Ethnocidal tendencies

Particular importance is being placed in the case of Laos for this report. Laos is one of
the most ethnically- and culturally-diverse countries in Asia, if not the world. Diversity
is greatest in the remoter uplands, the homelands of many of the indigenous peoples
who have very small populations, and coincidentally where national biodiversity
conservations areas (NCBAs) are concentrated. In one NCBA, 28 languages have been
identified, which is more than 12 percent of Lao’s known linguistic diversity within
only 1.5 percent of the country’s land area.63
Houay Ho Dam, Champasak and Attapeu Provinces: Endangered people

The Houay Ho Dam is located at the Boloven plateau, a high mountainous area in the
south of the Laos.64 The plateau is rich in biodiversity, and supports a wide range of
plants and wildlife. It is also a culturally affluent area, and is home to two Mon Khmer
language-speaking groups of indigenous peoples, the Jrou and the Hueny/Nay Heun.65
The Houay Ho dam construction started in late 1994 and by 1997, its reservoirs
started filling up. In 1996 even before the dam was finished, the Lao government
started another dam, Xe Pian Xe Nam Noy Dam on the other side of the Houay Ho
across the plateau. As the reservoir filled up, about 2,500 ethnic Nya Heun and Jrou
peoples from 11 villages who were living in the dam’s watershed or reservoir areas,
as well as areas on the Boloven plateau that would be affected by the Xe Pian Xe
Nam Noy Dam, were moved to resettlement sites in Pak Song District, where there is
insufficient arable land and fresh water supplies. The disruption caused by relocation,
and the separation from their ancestral lands and traditional communities, has led
many villagers to abandon their traditional cultural practices.
In 2003, a visit to the Houay Kong resettlement area found eight villages, mainly
Heuny, that were relocated there covering 475 households of 1,752 people, of which
849 are females. The available information on the Nya Heun indicate that they are
a threatened people with only a population of 5,150 in the 1995 census.66 They
inhabited 30 villages in southern Laos, primarily in the eastern part of the Boloven
plateau mostly in Champasak province, and others are found in Attapu and Xekong
provinces and in Pakxong, Bachiangchareunsouk, Xaisettha, and Laman Districts. Their
general territory is within the Se San and Se Kong basins, one of the four biodiversity
hotspots in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. There is no evidence that there are Nya
Heun people living outside of Laos.67 The people are animist and thus hold strong
beliefs with respect to nature and the spirits of nature and in nature, like the spirit of
trees, water, thunder, and mountains. Shamans regularly conduct propitiation rites for
the protective spirits and the offended spirits are identified through a ritual involving
rice and the organs of a chicken. For natural disasters or epidemics, special ceremonies
are conducted for healing.
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A matter of urgent concern is that for the Nya Heun people, the possibility of the Xe
Pian Xe Nam Noy Dam being built in their same homeland in the Bolaven plateau
will completely obliterate their ancestral lands, leading to ethnocide. In 2008, reports
were made that the displaced Nya Heun families from the Houay Ho Dam in Laos
were suffering from severe lack of food, shortage of arable land and insufficient clean
water.68
In the 200369 study, it was found that at least half (50%) of the people, especially
elders, want to return to their native lands, or even near them, but the government
refuses to allow them.70 They miss most the old fertile lands, the large productive fruit
trees and their co-existence with nature. They are worried daily about their decaying
traditions because they do not live together now as in the old villages and have no time
to bond either. Many are scattered selling their labor so that they end up living day to
day, with not much food to eat. An old woman in the resettlement village stated: “I
miss my former village and I want to return to it because I used to live there for a long
time. I’ve left behind the trees that I used to collect fruits from every year. I miss them
a lot. Whenever I think of them, I cry a great deal. Here in the resettlement village, we
cannot eat any fruits because they are stolen before they are ripe.”
The artificial merging of villages of peoples with different cultures, in a limited space, in
a contrived environment, with not enough livelihood and not enough food, is creating
many social problems. For instance, because many do not have enough to eat, some
resort to petty crimes like stealing of chickens, metal roofing sheets, and agricultural
products. In the old village, this is unthinkable as food was available in the forest and
rivers. The displaced ethnic people feel humiliated, which has led to social decay and
many disputes and quarrels, ultimately, disempowerment. The villagers do not trust
their neighbors anymore. “Before the dam was built, we used to have enough to eat.
We fished the rivers, collected vegetables in the forest and had plenty of rice. We lived
on our own without having to depend on aid or support from anyone else. Now in
the resettlement areas, we are totally impoverished and dependent on others,” a Nya
Huen man lamented in 2003.
Dams in the Mekong of Laos had been controversial because these affect the other
riparian countries of Cambodia and Vietnam. One of the controversial ones, the
Xayaburi Dam, which would have impacts on the Tonle Sap lake of Cambodia and the
Mekong part of Vietnam, has recently been cancelled as of latest news.71
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C. Mines: All mine they force to get
Asia, particularly ASEAN,72 is rich in mineral resources and mining is one of the
ASEAN region’s fundamental economic sectors. ASEAN claims there is a vast wealth
of important industrial ores and precious metals yet to be explored and exploited
throughout the ASEAN member-countries and that many important and large
international mining ventures are in the region.
Indonesia possesses some of the world’s largest deposits of nickel. This represents more
than 12 percent of global production, ranking second to Russia. The US Government’s
Geological Survey ranks Indonesia seventh in the world in terms of gold production
and sixth in terms of reserves. Total proven and probable reserves are 4,200 tons,
with much of the wealth located in Papua, the ancestral domain of Papuans. Sizeable
potential gold deposits are also located in Java, Kalimantan and Sulawesi (the last
two being predominantly indigenous peoples’ territories). At the 11th session of
the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, representatives from
Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN), the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the
Archipelago, presented the issue of mining and indigenous peoples. Although good
progress in terms of policy has been made, there is the fundamental issue of the
development framework of the government, which is focused on land concessions
and extractive industries. It was reported that approximately 1.5 million ha of land
are converted for mining per year, leading to increasing poverty among indigenous
peoples and locking them out of permits and high-paying jobs in the mining agencies,
and increasing environmental damage and pollution in the indigenous lands where
mines operate. It was also reported that more than 100 cases of criminal persecution
of indigenous activists against landgrabbing are ongoing and it is felt that the
government will not follow up with concrete protection of indigenous lands and its
inhabitants.73
Malaysia’s iron ore potential, and reserves of bauxite, coal, tin, and gold is expected
to contribute to national industry growth expected to be US$68 billion by 2015,
from $43 billion in 2010. Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the homeland of various
ethnic minorities, are believed to hold the world’s third largest reserves of bauxite,
put at some 5.4 billion tons—but it could be at least double this figure. Vietnam has
enormous coal reserves and is the world’s second largest exporter of anthracite coal.
The Philippines, in addition to Indonesia, has huge resources of nickel, along with
high grade chromite deposits, an abundance of copper, and significant gold deposits.
Thailand is the world’s second largest exporter of gypsum after Canada. The region
is also rich in mineral resources with some minerals being significantly large in terms
of reserves. Half of the global tin resources currently come from only three ASEAN
countries—Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
The Philippine gold ore reserves are estimated at four billion tons, the third largest
in the world. Its 7.9 billion tons of copper ore deposits are the fourth largest in the
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world and its 815 million tons of nickel ore represent the fifth largest globally. Gold
and copper are mainly concentrated in Northern Luzon and on the eastern side of
the island of Mindanao, almost all in indigenous peoples territories. It is estimated to
possess at least $1 trillion of untapped mineral resources and much of the country’s
300,000 km2 of land is yet to be appraised for its mineral content. To date, 1,046,350.87
ha or three percent of the Philippine’s total land area have mining applications.
Myanmar has not undergone a full geological survey for more than 75 years but
most of the mineral wealth is located in the ethnic states. The Shwe Gas Project, for
instance, is located in Arakan State and its planned pipelines will traverse Shan State
(Shan people). Despite the campaigns to stop the gas project due to its environmental
and human rights impacts, Myanmar is pushing through with the project. India has
significant mineral resources of metallic and industrial minerals. The country’s reserves
and resources of barite, bauxite, chromium, coal, iron ore, limestone, and manganese
ore were among the 10 largest in the world, and those of bauxite accounted for 6.8
percent of the world’s supply. In terms of production, the country was among the
world’s eight leading producers of aluminum, barite, bauxite, chromium, coal, iron
ore, kyanite, manganese ore, mica (sheet), steel, talc, and zinc (Ministry of Mines,
2011, p. 144–145).74
Out of 4,175 mines in India, 3,500 are located in indigenous peoples’ homelands (as
of 1991). The major mines in Northeast India (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur,
Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura) are coal, natural gas, oil, and limestone; while Assam
and Meghalaya have large coal deposits. Among the displaced persons by mining
projects, more than half of them belong to the “scheduled tribes.”75 More than half of
these numbers are in indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands. Jharkhand in central India
has about 29 percent of India’s coal reserves and 14 percent of its iron ore reserves.
Jharkhand supplies about nine percent of India’s fuel minerals.76
Apart from a favorable investment climate in minerals, the region also offers some of
the necessary infrastructure. For instance, Malaysia is also home to significant refiners
and smelters, including Malaysia Smelting Corporation, the world’s second largest
supplier of tin metal and is thus expected to support more mineral extraction. In the
Philippines, a potential giant venture will be Sumitomo’s $3 billion nickel ore project
in Surigao del Norte in the south, which would be the largest nickel processing plant
in the country.77
ASEAN as a body and its member countries are intent on making mining development
a vital factor in their economic growth. Efforts are being made at the regional
level, through the ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Plan 2011-2015, to freely open up
this sector for investments. One of the strategies it has adopted under this plan is
“Facilitating and Enhancing Trade and Investment in Minerals.” Under this, its program
includes creating a climate conducive for trade investment in minerals, and providing
a favorable policy environment that aims to see the harmonization of mineral policies
among the member countries.
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Legislation ensuring the commitment of foreign companies to long term projects is a

vital factor in the region’s mining development. Some countries have already made
changes in their laws and policies to attract investments in the extractive industries.
Cambodia’s new mining laws have created more certainty for investors and have
speeded up the grant of mining permits. As a result, the government expects mining
investment to reach US$6 billion by 2012, compared to US$2.5 billion in 2010.
Indonesia’s 2009 law on mining of minerals and coal and its supporting framework of
regulations, are designed to provide investors with the necessary regulatory certainty
to stimulate new investment in the sector. Changes to the country’s regulatory
framework allow mining in some previously protected areas, the decentralization of
the grant of mining concessions to local governments and a clampdown on unlicensed
mining activities. Investment in the Philippines’ mining potential has been aided by
a court decision confirming the right of foreign companies to retain 100 percent
ownership of their investment to exploit the country’s mineral resources.
The large-scale destructive mining operations in indigenous territories have been
a curse for many indigenous peoples in Asia. In several communities, like the Ibaloi
and Kankanaey communities in the Cordillera, Philippines, small-scale mining for gold
had been a traditional supplementary livelihood source way back before Spanish
colonization. With the entry of large-scale corporate mining, these resources, including
their lands, have been taken away from them. At the same time, the large-scale mining
operation for decades are now causing disasters, depletion of water resources, and
lack of sustainable livelihoods of indigenous peoples in the mined-out areas.
Of the corporate mines currently operating in indigenous territories in Asia, there
had been no free, prior and informed consent obtained before the mines entered the
communities. In recent past, governments have even provided security services to
these companies. In Indonesia, the military has been part of the operating expenses
of mining corporations as security forces for their operations. In the Philippines, so-
called paramilitary “investment defense forces” have been allowed by the President
for the same purpose.
The cases below highlight some of the cases, which are reflective and at the same
time provide some specific situations, of the struggle of indigenous peoples against
large-scale destructive mining activities. Wherever they are, mines have brought
about the destruction of sacred site, mountains, landslides and subsidence, air and
water pollution, sedimentation of rivers rendering farms unproductive depriving
indigenous peoples of livelihoods. They also brought commercial entertainment
culture, commodification of and sexual violence against women.
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1. India: Against a giant
Orissa, Kalahandi District

In Kalahandi District, Orissa State, the 8,000-strong Dongria Kondh live in villages
scattered in the Niyamgiri Hills, their sacred mountain. They call themselves Jharnia,
meaning “protector of streams,” because they protect their sacred mountains and
the life-giving rivers, all of which their entire life is built. They see themselves as the
guardians of the hundreds of perennial streams that flow from Niyamgiri Hill.78 The
reason for this abundance of streams is the presence of bauxite, the base material
for aluminium. The mining giant Vendata sees this as wealth to be scooped out of the
earth through open-cast mining.
The Dongria Kondh live by the resources available from the hills through subsistence
horticulture. In defense of their land, the Dongria Kondh launched a sustained
campaign at all levels to stop the mining, and through various fora to fight Vedanta,
as they were already living with the hazardous impacts of the Vedanta aluminum
refinery plant, which was built without their free, prior and informed consent. As a
matter of fact, it was built through deception. Vedanta’s open pit mine would destroy
the forests, disrupt the rivers and spell the end of the Dongria Kondh as a distinct
people. India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests blocked Vedanta’s bid to open
the bauxite mine and also its plans to expand its alumina refinery. It is appealing the
case in the Supreme Court. The latest in the Dongria’s struggle is that the Minister
of Environment and Forests held in abeyance Vedanta’s plea to pursue the mines.79
Because it is not cancellation, there is no reason for the Dongria Kondh to slacken
their vigilance.
2. Philippines: Mined-out
Altogether, 65 percent of the Cordillera region is covered with various mining
applications, as large mining continues to operate in Benguet province. Six of the
national government’s 23 priority projects are located in the Cordillera region. While
some mining TNCs (transnational corporations) have temporarily exited the Cordillera
due to people’s opposition, new ones have made their presence known.
Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC) runs the first large-scale mine in the
Philippines, located in Mankayan, Benguet, the ancestral lands of Ibaloi and Kankanaey.
The Lepanto mine is barraged with environmental and wage issues since it started in
1936. The expansion of the mines to adjacent provinces is now being widely opposed
by the potentially affected communities. The mining operations caused a number of
violations of indigenous peoples’ rights. For example, the mine has been in operation
34
since 1936 without any consent from the local community. The mines of LCMC have
dislocated the indigenous Kankanaey and Ibaloi peoples from their ancestral lands
and traditional livelihoods.
The mining patents granted by the government to LCMC have deprived indigenous
communities of their rights to ownership and control over their ancestral lands and
resources, which are the basis of their continued existence and identity. In terms of
livelihood, mining concessions have taken over lands used by indigenous peoples for
Photo credit: AIPP
Photo credit: CPA
35
their traditional livelihoods—ricefields, vegetable gardens, swiddens, hunting, and

grazing livestock. Additionally, the impacts of the Lepanto mine on the environment
are tremendous. Continuing subsidence of town above the mines have been
experienced, leading to destroyed houses, schools and their compounds, and even
deaths. Siltation due to mine tailings have destroyed the productivity of farms along
the Amburayan and Abra rivers. The loss in aquatic life is a major change in the life
support system of the communities who rely on the river for daily food. Health impacts
on the surrounding indigenous communities have been extensively documented.80
Contamination of water, soil and air contributes to increased toxic build-up in people’s
bodies. Asthma and other respiratory problems often affect local communities as well
as mine workers.81 LCMC is also well-known for its unfair labor practices and labor law
violations. The extensive violations of the worker’s rights encompass illegal dismissals,
retrenchments and indefinite work suspensions for employees. Recently, it partnered
with one of the world’s large mining companies to expand its operations further into
indigenous territory, raising the specter of continuing issues of land, water, traditional
livelihoods, and culture.
D. National parks/plantations/economic land

concessions/timber, pulp and paper industries
Lands of indigenous peoples have historically been considered “vacant,” “unoccupied,”

“sparsely populated,” although these had been heavily forested and surely biodiverse,
and homelands to indigenous peoples. In the name of national patrimony, all lands
within national borders are claimed in the name of the state. Because of the vast
lands and forest resources in indigenous territories, and the sparse populations in
these, the governments look at these areas simply as resources to be exploited and
the indigenous peoples who are forest dwellers and forest-dependent as objects that
can be moved here and there; and whose homelands can simply be appropriated for
other uses and given to others. Indigenous peoples are seen to have no better use of
these resources apart from being the source of their subsistence and the state and
corporations are supposed to have more sensible use that will contribute to national
development and coffers. The granting of concessions for tree plantations for fast-
growing trees, and now biofuels, for national parks, mines, resorts over farmers’ and
indigenous peoples’ villages, farmlands and forests, has caused a lot of human rights
violations, environmental degradation, food insecurity, and lost opportunities for
people-centered and driven sustainable development.
Thus, even without indigenous peoples’ knowledge, they have become squatters
in their own lands. The state has appropriated lands, forests and minerals under its
jurisdiction. Policies on the establishment of national parks and protected areas have
caused forced relocation, destruction of livelihood, and arrest of many indigenous
36
Photo credit: AIPP
villagers living in these areas. This resulted to increased food insecurity, poverty and
alienation of indigenous peoples from their lands and resources that they have taken
cared of for so many generations.
What is trivialized is the cumulative collective knowledge that has been developed
through time that enabled indigenous peoples to inhabit such environments and
sustainably enabled them to develop unique societies. What has become reality are
the appropriation of indigenous peoples’ forest homelands as national parks, logged
out of its timber, concessioned out as plantations, resource mines, and other extractive
industries. Discrimination against indigenous peoples in Asia is so rife it is tantamount
to killing them off. They are treated as incapable of deciding for themselves what
to do with their lives, not even entitled to be informed of plans in their homelands.
Their knowledge of and contribution to natural resource management is considered
unscientific. Since they are small in population, they do not have to be factored in
the national development agenda, and their lives can be willfully disregarded in the
pursuit of national development. Their cultures are “minor” so these can be ignored,
even eliminated. The experience of indigenous peoples losing their lands, territories
and resources needs volumes to be documented.
One of the main producers of pulp and paper in Southeast Asia is Thailand. This status
was achieved with the blood, sweat and tears of farmers and indigenous peoples.
The Thai government’s most brutal plan to promote the establishment of tree
plantations started in 1991, when the then-military government launched the “Land
Distribution Programme for the Poor Living in Degraded Forest Areas,” a project
known by its Thai initials as Khor Jor Kor. The project was to be implemented by the
military’s Internal Security Operations Command and aimed to evict 2,500 villages from
reserve forests over an area of 2.24 million ha in northeast Thailand. Thai and foreign
companies would then be able to lease the land for eucalyptus plantations. Massive
pro-democracy protests in May 1992 in Bangkok forced the military government to
resign. In the following months, thousands of affected villagers protested throughout
northeast Thailand and eventually farmers resettled under Khor Jor Kor were allowed
to return to their land.82
37
1. Cambodia: The kingdom of economic land concessions
Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie, Stung Treng, and other Provinces

As of 2007, the government granted 97 economic land concessions in 16 provinces and
municipalities of Cambodia.83 Only 59 concessions, however, remained operational
for an area covering 943,069 ha in 15 provinces, which “constitutes approximately
5.2 percent of the total land area in Cambodia, and 14.5 percent of all arable land in
Cambodia.” Most of these are in indigenous territories and do not include concessions
less than 1,000 ha. These lands and forests are converted to rubber plantations,
ecotourism, and other economic activities.84
38
At least 25 economic land concessions are known to affect indigenous territories in

Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie, Stung Treng, Oddar Meanchey, and Kompong Thom,
provinces where there are a significant number of indigenous populations. Other
concessions were granted over indigenous lands, e.g., in the provinces of Kompong
Speu, Pursat and Preah Vihear. The alienation of lands from indigenous peoples have
come through force, intimidation, deception, and political patronage. In Mondulkiri
province, the affected communities include the Bunong indigenous peoples; in
Ratanakiri, the Jarai indigenous peoples.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights records show that at “least five percent
of Cambodia’s total land area is subject to a conflict or has been in the last four
years.”85 The nature of the conflicts is mostly disputes on economic land concessions,
ownership/control of lands, land grabbing, and forced eviction. Related human
rights violations are confiscation of property and illegal destruction, arbitrary/illegal
arrest or detention/violation of rights of an accused in relation to detention, physical
assault/injury, violation of rights to privacy, violation of rights to own land/retain
property, threat, including death threat, failure to provide fair and public hearing by a
competent, independent and impartial judiciary, limitations on assemblies/gatherings
in public, physical assault/injury, confiscation of property and illegal destruction, and
illegal logging, among others. All too often, the case is overturned and the indigenous
peoples who are the victims are cited for other crimes like illegal logging for using
their traditional forests. Most of these cases have not been acted on. In some cases,
the victims are forced to accept negotiated settlements, the value of which are far too
low when compared to the value of their lost lands and the opportunities. Oftentimes,
this also meant giving up their lands.
39
2. Malaysia: There is oil in them thar hills
Sabah and Sarawak state

Malaysia is considered as one of the world’s megadiverse countries. Approximately
60 percent of its total land area is still forested. This includes permanent reserved
forests (PRF), stateland forests, national parks, and wildlife and bird sanctuaries. The
remaining 40 percent are covered by agricultural crops, rubber plantations, oil palm
plantations,86 urban areas, and other uses. Malaysia is the world’s second largest
oil palm producer after Indonesia; 4.6 million ha of oil palm plantations and most
expansion is now occurring in Sabah and Sarawak; by 2002, expansion in Peninsular
Malaysia was down to the last 340,000 ha of conversion forest.87 Sarawak government
plans to double the area under oil palm with a target of 60,000-100,000 ha per year
on customary lands.
The government announced that it will spend “24 million ringgit (US$7.7 million) in
2011 and 2012 to counter criticism over the social and environmental impact of palm
oil.”88 This is to protect about 4.5 million ha of oil palm plantations in its territory,
and its future plans of increasing this hectarage by about a million more hectares of
indigenous forest lands in Sarawak. These plantations do not include those planted to
rubber and castor oil.
40
3. Indonesia: Pulped to death
Siberut Island, West Sumatra Province and others

Since the late 1980s, Indonesia’s pulp industry has been responsible for clearing at
least 1.7 million ha of natural forest.
By the end of 2007, of the 10.4 million ha of HTI (wood plantation) licenses issued or
pending, 6.0 million ha were allocated for pulp projects, including these in indigenous
territories: Papua - 1.6 million ha, South Sumatra - 1.0 million ha, East Kalimantan -
793,000 ha, Riau 653,000 ha, and West Kalimantan 485,000 ha. Riau has suffered the
most destruction—it has lost at least 65 percent of its forest cover in the last 25 years.
In Siberut Island, despite half of its area (190,500 ha) being declared a national park
(1993) and Man and Biosphere Reserve (1981), logging remains a serious threat,
even to its smaller neighboring islands. The indigenous Mentawaians continue to
face encroachment by profit-seeking outsiders and major threats to their livelihoods.
Whatever is left of the island and its outer islands, these are now being logged. PT
Salaki Summa Sejahtera has a concession (HPH) covering 49,440 ha in North Siberut.
KAM, a cooperative of Andalas University, has a concession of 49,640 ha slightly further
south. HPH concession has 83,330 ha held by Minas Pagai Lumber Corporation, on
the neighboring islands of North and South Pagai. The indigenous culture and unique
biodiversity are pressured by these externally-driven and unsustainable economic
practices.89
4. Malaysia: State machinations to divest Orang Asli of their territory

The Malaysian government proposed an amendment to the National Land Act that
would have easily divested the Orang Asli of their territories. As a response, the Orang
Asli organized a march in March 2010 to protest this as they claimed that they have
customary rights to 129,000 ha of land. The proposed amendment provides them with
only 50,000 ha and does not include their traditional hunting and gathering areas.90
More than 2,000 Orang Asli assembled at the Prime Minister’s Department, Putrajaya,
in Kuala Lumpur to present a petition, endorsed by more than 12,000 Orang Asli
throughout Peninsular Malaysia, but the government did not allow them to submit
their petition by not meeting them.91
5. Thailand: The forest is the tree and the tree, the forest
Thailand hosts 409 protected areas, 27 marine national parks, 10 Ramsar92 sites, 2
World Heritage sites and 4 biosphere reserves. The percentage of protected areas
41
accounts for 20 percent of the total land area. The total forest area (2000) is 14,762,000
ha, with 9842,000 ha of natural forest and 4,920,000 ha of plantations accounting for
29 percent of the total land area.93
The Thai 1961 National Park Law is framed within a conservationist approach, which
adopts the Western concept of wilderness, where protected areas are completely
free of people and land use, even when forest-dwellers and forest-dependent people
had been there before the promulgation of the law. However, an estimated 460,000
people currently live and depend on the land and resources that the government has
set aside for ecological values or tourism potential. Between 2002-2006, 89 percent
of the forest-related conflict cases and human right violations filed in various legal fora
were related to the management of protected areas and national parks.94
Arrests for violation of forest and wildlife conservation laws are common in Thailand.
In 2006, for example, five Lisu people were arrested by the officers of the Wildlife
Preservation Authority and the OmKoi District Administrative Authority in OmKoi
district in Chiang Mai province for violating the Forestry Act and the Wildlife
Preservation and Protection Act. Those who were arrested were actually residents
of that area from 1989 to 1994 but had been resettled by the government to an area
not suitable for cultivation with the promise that they will be given compensation and
alternative sources of income. The authorities however failed to honor these promises
and the villagers had no other choice but to move back to their original village and
start cultivating their fields again.
Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary95

The two-million-rai Thung Yai forest has been the ancestral home to some 2,000
Karen in six scattered villages. They were been evicted with military force in favor of
mining companies. The local mafia, on the other hand, can freely destroy the pristine
Thung Yai forest with state approval. “The local godfathers are turning our ricefields
into sweet tamarind and parkia (sataw) plantations. We’re evicted to make way for
money barons,” said Karen peasant Tao Paopo of Takianthong village. They all have
similar tales to tell of eviction by the military and ethnic violence. At Salawa village,
for instance, a group of drunken soldiers reportedly used knives to threaten Karen
women to move from the forest. At Lai Wo, armed troops reportedly forced the Karen
peasants to demolish their farm sheds.
6. Indonesia: Mines over forests

Indonesia has 50 National Parks covering 16.4 million ha (including 7 marine national
parks) and 527 nature reserves and game reserves covering as much as 28.3 million
ha. Forests in Indonesia cover 88,495,000 ha.
42
Batang Gadis National Park, Mandailing Natal (Madina) District, North

Sumatra
In early 2004, local officials in the Mandailing Natal (Madina) District of North Sumatra
made history by declaring a 108-ha swath of forest as protected area under a new
scheme allowing local bupati or district heads to designate land for protection. In
April of the same year, the national government declared this area the Batang Gadis
National Park. The park is the headwaters for the surrounding communities and it
includes the Sorik Merapi volcanic crater.
Aside from being among the planet’s most diverse floristically, and hosts some of
the endangered species like the Sumatran tiger, Asiatic golden cat, leopard cat and
clouded leopard, it is also part of a larger critical watershed that supplies the water
needs of some 400,000 people and irrigates 42,100 ha of paddy fields. It also serves
as headwater for the 46,817.8 ha of coffee and rubber plantations.
The indigenous peoples of Madina come from different ethnic groups but are
predominantly Mandailing, Melayu and Minang. PT Sorik Mas Mining (SMM) holds
a concession covering 66,200 ha in the national park and by virtue of the emergency
regulation signed in 2004 by the Indonesian president, Sorik Mas Mining has been
allowed to continue its projects within the Batang Gadis forest.
All the time, the local government and people of Mandailing Natal had been calling
for the cessation of all mining activities inside the park. Illegal logging is reported to
have become more prevalent due to Sorik Mas’s mining activities. Gold exploration
by the company has also scarred the area, leaving 400 large pits close to villages.
The Ministry of Forestry invoked the Minister Decision No. SK-126-MENHUT-II/2004
dated 29 April 2004 about Functional Change and Appointment as Protected Forest
of 108,000 ha area in the Batang Gadis National Forest to exercise jurisdiction over
the case. This was, however, challenged at the Supreme Court by SMM. In December
2011, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of SMM forcing the Ministry of Forests to
revoke the said Minister Decision, which will lead SMM to be allowed to mine within
the national park.
E. Special concerns
Indigenous peoples in Asia face common issues but also have issues that are specific
in some countries. Again, because of their vast lands and sparse populations, and thus
their dispensability, toxic and hazardous wastes can be dumped in their homelands.
Their territories are seen as areas where excess population in highly-urbanized regions
can be relocated. On the other hand, they are also seen as national security risks who
43
have to be hamletted permanently where they can be monitored and purportedly

be provided with government services. The cases below provide some of the specific
issues that some indigenous peoples face.
1. Taiwan/China: Nuclear waste
Orchid island, Southeast Coast

The Yami people are battling the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island, a
small tropical island 60 km (30 nautical miles) off the southeast coast of Taiwan/
China. The inhabitants are the 4,000 members of the Tao (or Yami) tribe. In the 1970s,
the island was designated as a possible site to store low and medium grade nuclear
waste. The island was selected on the grounds that it would be cheaper to build the
necessary infrastructure for storage and it was thought that the population would not
cause trouble. Large-scale construction began in 1978 on a site 100 m (330 ft) from
the Immorod fishing fields. The Tao tribe alleges that government sources at the time
described the site as a “factory” or a “fish cannery,” intended to bring “jobs [to the]
home of the Tao/Yami, one of the least economically integrated areas in Taiwan.”96
When the facility was completed in 1982, however, it was in fact a storage facility for
“97,000 barrels of low-radiation nuclear waste from Taiwan’s three nuclear power
plants.”97
For the past 13 years, Taiwan has stored more than 90,000 drums of nuclear wastes on
an island of only 45 km2 and more than 2,000 indigenous Tao peoples. Under pressure
from the media and scrutiny of experts and local people, the officials of the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC) and Tai Power have recently acknowledged that the drums
used to contain the wastes are found to be rusted and the contents showing signs of
pulverization. The condition can cause contamination once filtration of water occurs.
It has been told by local residents who work at the storage site that contaminated
water has been periodically and secretly released into the nearby ocean. Under fierce
protest from the Tao peoples and pressure from the press, AEC in 1992 “promised to
stop any explanation98 (sic) of the existing facility and complete removal of the facility
by the year 2002.”99 However, with the facility expected to be full by August 1995,
the officials at Tai Power decided to proceed with an expansion plan to add six more
storage channels within the existing site.
The Tao people are angered by the continued deception from the authority and
cannot withstand any further shipment of nuclear wastes that are threatening the
integrity of the environment and the survival of the people. The Tao people do not
receive any benefit from nuclear power but have instead endured the serious danger
of nuclear wastes.100 They have stood at the forefront of the anti-nuclear movement
and launched several exorcisms and protests to remove the waste they claim has
44
resulted in deaths and sickness. The lease on the land has expired, and an alternative
site has yet to be selected.101
2. Vietnam and Laos: Sedentarization program

In the 1960s, Vietnam embarked on programs to address the persistent hunger and
poverty among the ethnic minorities, particularly in the upland areas. In its analysis,
it identified shifting cultivation, which is a common livelihood source for many
indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities not only in Vietnam but also in Asia, as a
”primitive manner of production that keeps people in a backward life.”102 The solution
to poverty brought about by a “perceived” inferior system was sedentarization, i.e.,
putting the ethnic minorities in permanent settlements, practicing fixed farming. The
sedentarization program launched under General Resolution No. 38/CP (1968) has
been designed and implemented specifically for ethnic minorities in mountainous
areas.103 The government is supposed to create the conditions for a sedentary life
for these ethnic minorities in new settlements by providing houses and other
infrastructure services (roads, electricity and schools); allocating cultivated land;
introducing new technology and cultivation methods; and supplying capital and high
yielding crop varieties, and so on to upland farmers.104 By 1990, after 20 years of
implementation of the sedentarization policy, 2.8 million people had been resettled
in 26 mountainous areas.105 But aside from poverty alleviation, the sedentarization
policy also served another agenda: protecting watershed forests allegedly at risk of
being destroyed by the highlanders; improving national defense by relocating ethnic
minorities from isolated and sensitive border areas to regions under government
control; and to assimilate the ethnic minorities into the economic and social life of the
dominant society, i.e., the Kinh people.106 Although the fixed farming and resettlement
programs have achieved significant results in resettling ethnic minorities and reducing
poverty, there are issues of note to this program.
First of all, fixed cultivation and sedentarization was not done on the basis of the
people’s free will and was not suited to the local traditional practice.107 Many of them
returned to shifting agriculture as they did not have enough food. The government
itself does not have enough resources to really support the transformation of shifting
cultivators to do sedentary farming. Resettled areas often lack needed infrastructure
and do not allow for customary farming methods. The program has concentrated
more on construction, which ate up most of the funds, rather than on making the
conditions of the land fit for fixed cultivation and developing long-term strategies for
its development.
In terms of social costs, sedentarization has broken down or weakened the traditional
social and cultural structure, including system of values, religious beliefs, customary law,
languages, and local knowledge. Also affected are village intellectuals, the traditional
family form and village organization (ADB, 2002; McElwee, 1999). It has broken the
45
traditional village lay-out, common property has been replaced by private property,
plots have been fenced, and longhouses have been separated (Salemink, 1997).
Moreover, social relationships have also changed when those who have potential and
capital get rich very fast, while those who lack such conditions become poorer and are
pushed to landlessness. This leads to social stratification in the communities, which
are traditionally communal and united.108
Lack of participation, consensus, and FPIC characterized the program. For instance,
there were no adequate studies done on where infrastructures like roads, public
works, irrigation systems, terraces, and wet rice lands were to be built in order to
mitigate the effect of heavy rains, floods and the like. It was reported that heavy rains
and flash floods have destroyed 461 ha of wet rice, damaged more than 3,000 houses,
killed 317, wounded 252, and 38 reported missing.109
In the end, the sedentarization program simply removed the ethnic minorities from
their traditional forest abodes but converted these forests into plantations, cultivated
farms, and new settlements for lowland migrants. Much more forests were destroyed
while poverty still exists. The ethnic minorities were forced to integrate into the
dominant socio-cultural and economic framework, but in the end, it was the in-
migrant who benefitted from the schemes. In the same study conducted by Chinh,
a staff of the sedentarization program in one province, said: “I am afraid that if the
situation of immigration to Dac Lac continues to increase like today, and no limits for
farm land being issued, indigenous people would soon have no more land to survive
and shifting cultivation is then unavoidable.”
The Lao government has launched a comprehensive, country-wide resettlement
program where almost all of those affected are indigenous peoples. At the beginning
of the 1990s, when the program was launched, the Lao government planned to
resettle 180,000 households totaling 1.5 million people, of which 60 percent should
be resettled before the year 2000. The target has not been achieved and two new
resettlement plans have been made with a total of 211,125 people included in the
first resettlement plan for 2001 to 2005. An estimated 683 villages, with a total of
164,285 persons, were supposed to be resettled during the second plan between 2006
and 2010. Figures on the actual number of people resettled are not available. Forced
resettlement is not an official policy but part of the overall “development” program
of the Lao government. Through the program the government aims to eradicate
shifting cultivation and the production of opium, provide the resettled people better
access to services and the market, and to improve their standard of living, health, food
productivity, and food security. However, studies have shown that in most cases, the
contrary happens. Resettlement programs have led to increased poverty, malnutrition,
a higher mortality rate, and a general deterioration in the health of affected villagers.
Furthermore, they often have a negative impact on the environment, running counter
to another stated objective: the conservation of forests.110 The resettlement of
indigenous peoples affected by dams are seen as part of the effort of government to
sedentarize the rotational agriculture practitioners as it has not allowed the return
46
of some of the affected communities like those dislocated by the aborted Xe Pian Xe
Nam Noi Dam Project.111
3. Transmigration/population transfer/policies: Terra nullius à la Asia

Some governments in Southeast Asia have launched large-scale internal resettlement
programs for various purposes. This involves population transfer from heavily-
populated lowland areas to sparsely-populated highland regions, which coincidentally
are indigenous territories. This unilateral action of states is an outright violation of
the rights of indigenous peoples over their lands, territories and resources. It also
demonstrates the ignorance of policy makers of the carrying capacity of highlands,
in relation to their sustainable resource management systems, traditional livelihoods
and cultural practice, among others. Likewise, this action is now resulting to conflicts
between indigenous peoples and migrants.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, state-sponsored transmigration programs for non-
indigenous settlers were undertaken by the government of Vietnam to the Central
Highlands; the government of Indonesia to West Papua, Kalimantan and other
outer islands; the Philippine government to Mindoro, Palawan and Mindanao;
and by the Bangladesh government to the CHT. All these transmigration programs
have resulted to massive loss of land of indigenous communities and had severely
altered the demographic composition and the cultural and political landscape of the
transmigration areas in favor of the non-indigenous settlers. In several instances the
indigenous peoples were minoritized and the transmigrants became the political and
economic powers in the area. These programs have now all been abandoned but
the indigenous communities in the affected areas are still suffering badly from the
irreversible impacts of transmigration, especially the loss of political power and their
economic base—their lands.
Vietnam combined its sedentarization policy with population transfer: forced
relocation to provide services to ethnic minorities and teach them modern farming
technologies”; transmigration of lowlanders to the highlands to relieve the delta of
population pressure; and to help highland minorities and civilize112 them. However,
transmigration has placed greater stress on the ethnic populations of these areas
because the mountain environment cannot sustain a larger population.113 Migration
occurred north to south, to the Central Highlands and Mekong Delta. A total of
710,000 people migrated to the Central Highlands within the program, and 200,000
people were resettled in the northern mountainous areas. Toward the end of this
period, planned migration took place at a slower pace due to the shortage of funds
and an economic crisis, but this did not stop massive spontaneous migration. The
impact on the ethnic minority population of these transmigration policies, political
integration and economic programs has been one of displacement and conflict. The
first is the degree to which highlanders have steadily lost land through the migration
47
Photo credit: AIPP
48
of hundreds of thousands of lowland Vietnamese, or Kinh, to the region. Some of

the settlers came on their own initiative, but many came through state-sponsored
transmigration programs that had both economic development and national security
goals. Highlanders’ resentment over the loss of land was compounded by the fact that
they found themselves lost out to the migrants in education, employment, and other
economic opportunities.114
In the world’s largest demographic engineering program that was intended mainly to
relieve overcrowding especially in the islands of Java, Bali and Madura, the Indonesian
government moved landless farmers and other peoples from the crowded central
islands of Java and Bali to the outer islands of Irian Jaya, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and
Sulawesi. Between 1903 and 1990, the Transmigration Program resettled more than
3.6 million people at government expense in the outer islands.115 Transmigration was
a central policy of the Suharto regime. Between 1950 and 1986, 698,200 families
(about 3.5 million people) were moved, most of them to Sumatra.116 The program
entailed huge financial, social, environmental, and human rights costs. The World
Bank funded this program through seven projects totaling $560 million. In terms of
population decongestion, the program has been declared a failure: the government’s
then transmigration department acknowledged that transmigration virtually made no
dent in the population pressure on Java.117 However, the social and environmental
impacts have been irreversible.
An impact evaluation conducted by the Operations Evaluation Department of the World
Bank concluded that “Transmigration had a major negative and probably irreversible
impact on indigenous people, particularly the Kubu Rimba. With the extensive
forest clearing now underway in T2118 as part of the development of the uncleared
areas to oil palm, the Kubu Rimba have been (and are being) displaced.”119 What
underpinned the transmigration policy of Indonesia is that the islands were “virtually
empty” or “underpopulated,” and the notion that indigenous people are “backward”
and “primitive.” The natives are supposed to learn what are considered advanced
agricultural techniques from the Javanese newcomers, whose intensive farming
methods are generally not suited to the vastly different soils and climatic conditions
of the islands. As a matter of fact, one of the effects of the transmigration policy was
more deforestation because the transmigrants cleared forests for farming, while the
indigenous peoples considered these part of their homes and source of subsistence.
Some indigenous peoples responded militantly to this invasion of their territory as the
policy did not get the FPIC of the host communities. Tensions between transmigrants
and the local populations grew and became violent in some parts. In late 1996/
early 1997 and as late as early 2002, the conflict between the Dayaks and Madurese
migrants on the island of Kalimantan saw hundreds of people killed, including young
children, many of them hacked to pieces and decapitated. Hundreds of thousands of
Madurese fled their homes. Many are still living in cramped conditions in temporary
camps.120
49
Indigenous communities regard transmigration as a major threat. In the submission

to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the Netherlands-based West
Papua Volksfront said, “it is because of the transmigration projects and activities of
transnational corporations that Papuans are forced to leave their ancestral homeland...
Jakarta’s homogenizing approach to development, i.e., the creation of a centralized
state, poses a threat to the lifestyle and culture of the Papuans and therefore creates
antagonism and social unrest.”121
Until now, there had been no solution nor closure to the problems created and
exacerbated by this fatal program, which include land disputes, deforestation and
massive environmental damage, and social tensions.
F. International Financial Institutions and development

aggression
The international financial institutions (IFIs) were established to assist developing

countries to provide social and economic development to their constituents. However,
impositions of the western model of development have lead to disastrous results in
many of their projects and development program interventions.
The projects of IFIs have had a record of massive violation of human rights of indigenous
peoples in Asia. In many countries where these projects have been imposed,
indigenous peoples had been subjected to displacement, loss of traditional livelihoods
and systematic violation of human rights. Behind the gross human rights violations is
the denial of indigenous peoples’ rights to their lands, territories and resources and to
free prior and informed consent to projects on development and human development.
Among them, the projects related to dams, environmental conservation and highway
construction largely have had adverse impacts on indigenous peoples.
While both the World Bank (WB) and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) have
their own Social and Environmental Safeguards, their provisions in respecting
the collective rights of indigenous peoples are weak and their implementation
have been problematic. While there were projects that were implemented better,
compared to those implemented in the 70s and 60s, the desired positive impacts of
the implementation of these safeguards in ensuring environmental protection and
prevention or minimal social adverse consequences have not been achieved from the
perspective of indigenous peoples. The ADB has undertaken a review of its safeguards
in 2008-2009 and issued a revised Safeguard Policy Statement that includes an
improved Indigenous Peoples Policy. The ADB IP Policy now includes the application
of the FPIC of indigenous peoples on projects that affect their land, territories and
resources, their cultural heritage and on their potential displacement. However, the
50
respect for the collective decision-making process of indigenous peoples remains weak
with the definition of consent as broad community support. Further, the commitment
of the ADB partners and staff to implement the ADB IP Policy conscientiously is yet to
be tested.
The World Bank, on the other hand, is currently reviewing its Social and Environmental
Safeguards. In 2011, WB released an independent review122 of the implementation of
Operational Policy (OP) 4.10 for the fiscal years 2006-2008 during which the revised
OP was in effect.
A summary of the conclusions reached by the review team are as follows:123
1. Although Bank-financed projects have made substantial progress in meeting
the requirements of OP 4.10, some areas of substantial improvement are
needed. Of 132 projects that triggered OP 4.10, 22 percent were in the South
Asia Region while 30 percent were in the East Asia and Pacific Region. Of the
132 projects, 15 were earmarked for indigenous peoples compared to the 12
during the 1993-2004 period. There is some evidence to suggest that there
may be some shortcomings in the screening process in order to determine
whether OP 4.10 should be triggered or not. This means that some indigenous
peoples have been denied their availment of the provisions of OP 4.10;
2. Projects can be classified as proactive (“do good”) projects, which seek to
benefit indigenous peoples or projects, which raise safeguards (“do no harm”)
issues. It was found that for every five “do good” projects there was one “do
no harm” project. Additionally, projects that specifically targeted indigenous
peoples had the best compliance followed by projects with components or
measures to proactively address the needs of indigenous peoples. However,
projects with potential adverse effects on indigenous peoples showed a need
for more improvement in addressing their needs;
3. For multi-beneficiary projects where indigenous peoples are only part of the
target population, there is budget allocation for them. However, for some
projects triggering OP 4.10, which have prepared special budgets earmarked
for the implementation of an Indigenous Peoples Plan (IPP), over half of such
projects (excluding IP-targeted projects) were allocating less than two percent
of total project investment costs to the implementation of IPPs;
4. Under OP 4.10, IPPs are prepared when indigenous peoples are present in,
or have collective attachment to, project lands. This IPP should be prepared
on the basis of a social assessment and in consultation with the communities
involved. For projects involving the preparation and implementation of annual
investment programs or multiple subprojects (such as community-driven
development projects, social funds and sector investment operations), and
when screening indicates that indigenous peoples are likely to be present in,
or have collective attachment to, project lands, an Indigenous Peoples Policy
Framework (IPPF) should be prepared. IPPs will then have to be prepared
for subprojects. There is lack of expertise to determine the correct policy
instrument to apply when indigenous peoples are determined to be impacted
51
by projects. This is shown by some IPPFs being labeled IPPs and the review
points out that this confusion may have contributed to the omission in about
half of all IPPFs of provisions for the subsequent preparation of IPPs for
subprojects as required by the policy;
5. The is an increasing trend in the importance of the Energy and Mining and
Transport sectors in the Bank’s lending program and the review points out the
need for more careful screening of application of the policy in these projects,
and increased attention by Bank social staff and more effective implementation
of grievance mechanisms at the local level;
6. Regardless of which policy instrument was used, compliance with the
specific provisions of the policy showed that projects scored best regarding
the inclusion of specific and socio-culturally appropriate activities to benefit
indigenous peoples, the avoidance of involuntary resettlement (in the few
projects where this was an issue) and, consultation in project design and
provisions for consultation during project implementation. Although free,
prior and informed consultation provisions scored relatively well, evidence of
broad community support showed a lower level of compliance. Other criteria
wanting in implementation include the quality of social assessments, inclusion
of specific or disaggregated monitoring indicators, incountry disclosure of IPPs
or IPPFs, and lastly the policy provisions regarding land and resource rights
and the establishment of grievance mechanisms. More importantly, although
most projects did identify benefits for indigenous peoples, in many projects
they did not address potentially negative impacts and especially the long-term
or indirect ones;
7. There is disregard of the protection or promotion of indigenous peoples’ rights
to lands and resources, and the lack of a grievance mechanism is a matter
of grave concern. Even without legal recognition of indigenous peoples,
projects that affect land and water rights, which could have had a positive
impact on protecting or promoting the application of these rights, did not
consider measures to address the land and resource rights, which are often
the condition sine qua non for the long-term wellbeing and sustainability of
indigenous peoples‘ societies and cultures;
8. Project information and documentation of project processes is substantially
lacking. The review found that evidence of broad community and verifiable
information on how the process of obtaining support was done had been
limited and is another area that needs substantial improvement.
After some years of withdrawing from funding large dams since the 1990s, the
WB recently reentered the business by “adopting new high-risk infrastructure and
energy strategies.”124 Its private equity arm, the International Finance Corporation, is
also involved in promoting dams, and has partnered with the public sector for dam
financing. This same modality is being promoted by the ADB, the so-called public
private partnerships (PPPs), in doing business. These developments increases the
need to strengthen the safeguard measures and to demand for genuine FPIC process
52
for affected indigenous peoples in the context of respecting their rights over their
lands, territories and resources, and to self-determination.
The following cases are examples of the experiences of indigenous impacted by
projects supported by IFIs.
1. Laos
Khammouane Province, Vientiane and Xieng Khouang Provinces

The government of Lao PDR (GoL) considers hydroenergy as the main thrust of growth
and economic development. It aims to transform the country into “the battery of
Southeast Asia” by harnessing the power of rivers. To achieve this goal, IFIs, e.g. the
WB and the ADB, are providing support to the GoL for hydropower projects. In its
power development, GoL includes 55 new large dams, seven of which are under
construction and nearly 15 more at advanced planning stages. Thirty (30) new more
dams are expected to be completed by 2020. In the experience of large dams such
as Nam Thuen 2 (NT2) and Nam Ngum 3 (NN3), indigenous peoples in the affected
communities suffered serious economic and social dislocations, in addition to loss of
biodiversity.
The NT2 dam in Khammouane province directly affected more than 110,000 people
by destroying livelihood options, fisheries, flooding of riverbank gardens, and water
quality problems. Indigenous peoples in the Nakai plateau (6,200 of them), had been
resettled to accommodate the reservoir. The Vietic peoples, the most vulnerable of
the indigenous peoples in Laos, were forcefully relocated in resettlement villages in
violation of the WB and ADB’s own policies on indigenous peoples. It is reported that
many of them have died as a result of living in a (resettlement) village,125 for both
psychological and physical reasons. As of today, affected indigenous families in the
resettlement villages have not gotten land and other forms compensations for the loss
of their properties as promised.
The commitments remain either completely unfulfilled or partially fulfilled. Due to
loss of land and natural resources, food security has remained a major concern of
the affected indigenous peoples. Although the material needs for housing, electricity,
roads, schools, and health centers are provided at the resettlement villages, there is
no guarantee that the people’s livelihoods will be recovered and become sustainable.
The poor quality of the land in the resettlement sites continues to cause problems for
villagers, who are unable to grow sufficient food to feed their families, and to pay for
the electric bills. The long-term production of the reservoir fisheries is in doubt, and
outsiders are encroaching on the villagers’ community forest areas. Meanwhile, NN3
dam in Vientiane and Xieng Khouang provinces, which is expected to be completed by
53
54
2016, will submerge an area of 3,769 km² affecting Lao-Tai (42%), Khmu (33%), Hmong
(25%), and Yao indigenous groups.
2. Northeast India
Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland

In Northeast India, major IFIs—the WB, ADB and Japan Bank for International
Cooperation —are most active in providing support for the transportation, power
and energy sectors, trade and private sector participation, urban development,
agribusiness and tourism. Almost in all projects in Northeast India, indigenous peoples
were not properly consulted before big development projects were undertaken. One
such case is the Lafarge Surma Cement (LSC) plant, the first project of South Asia-Sub-
regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC), a dream for borderless Asia being promoted
by ADB. The LSC plant, which is actually in Bangladesh but sources its raw materials
from Meghalaya, India, affected the indigenous Khasi people in Meghalaya State of
India. As of today, the affected families have been struggling to get compensation for
loss of lands and livelihoods due to LSC. Apart from IFI projects, large transport and
energy projects have been undertaken or are being initiated by private companies
and the government agencies in Northeast India. The Tipaimukh Multipurpose
Hydroelectric Project (TMHEP) in Manipur and Mapithel Dam in Manipur are causing
serious threat to Hmar, Naga and Kuki indigenous peoples. The TMHEP will submerge
about 311 km2, including 25,822 ha of forest; permanently displace 90 villages mostly
of the indigenous Hmar and Zeliangrong peoples; and will cut down 7.8 million trees
and 27,000 bamboo groves.
3. Nepal
In Nepal, apart from financing projects of health and education, the WB and ADB
are providing money for transport and hydropower dams. These include recent two
hydropower projects—Kabeli A Hydropower and Tanahu Hydropower Project—which
are on pipeline. The detailed impacts of these hydropower projects on indigenous
peoples could not be ascertained yet. On the other hand, Yamphu (2010) suggests that
the “do no harm” projects, e.g., agriculture development projects, do not necessarily
bring in good results to indigenous peoples either due to lack of participation or wrong
categorization of the projects by the IFIs. The Yamphu, a case study on a commercial
agriculture development project financed by ADB, stated that the high value crops
(HVC), despite increase in income in the short-term, affected the traditional seeds, soil
fertility and pest management systems of indigenous peoples in Nepal.
55
4. Malaysia
Sarawak Province
The Batang Ai Hydro Electric Power (HEP) project in Sarawak was constructed between
1975-1985 in the heartland of the Iban tradition and culture, near the boundary of
Sarawak with Indonesia Kalimantan. It displaced about 3,000 Iban from 21 longhouses
who were resettled in the Lemanak -Batang Ai area on a land that was managed by the
Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority. Funded partly by the ADB,
the largest HEP in Malaysia covers some 16187 ha of land, of which 8498 ha. were
eventually flooded, destroying large areas of forests and lands held under customary
tenure, which include swidden farms, crops and ancestral lands. The resettled Iban
natives face many problems and say that they had been treated unfairly. Instead of
the 4.5 ha of cleared land that they said they had been promised, each family only
received 0.4 ha . It also turned out that they had to pay for their new longhouses when
they were informed earlier that these would be free. While some families received
cash compensation, they did not know how to deal with their newfound wealth and
squandered it away.
Most families were in shock over the new system and new way of living; many
could not cope. Land certificates were issued for each family under the husband’s
name. Women deprived became In 2009, not only the oustees but the whole of the
constituency of Batang Ai were complaining that there was no public bus transport, not
enough telephone lines, poor electricity supply, frequent water supply interruptions,
not enough health and medical facilities, roads in bad shape, poor mail services, no
banks, few job opportunities. These are just a small portion of the long list of socio-
economic woes of the 18,000 folks in the Batang Ai state constituency, even though
the Batang Ai hydro-electric dam has been running since 25 years ago.126
Asea Brown Boveri supplied equipment for the Batang Ai dam in Sarawak, built in
1975. The Asian Development Bank funded the project. The ADB has described the
resettlement of 2,800 Ibans displaced by the dam as an example of a “culturally
sensitive and economically sound program” because “the policies and plans...were
carefully investigated and prepared.”127 Others, however, are more sanguine. As
Marcus Colchester, Director of the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme, notes
in a review paper commissioned by the World Commission on Dams as part of its
assessment on the impact of dams on indigenous peoples: “The Iban were persuaded
to move in exchange for promises of free housing, free water, free electricity and 11
acres of land per family. The reality has proved a bitter experience. Not only were
they resettled on a government land scheme, but they were also forced to change
their way of life radically. Rice cultivation proved impossible on the terraces prepared
for them and they were obliged to set up as small-holders on a plantation scheme.
Incomes fell to the point that, according to one study, 60 percent of households were
56
below the State poverty line, with the majority of respondents reporting that lack of
land was their main problem.”128
The State-owned Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (SALCRA)
ran the plantation on which the Iban were resettled. Women suffered disproportionately
from the resettlement procedures. For example, compensation, which should have
been paid to both men and women as co-owners of the land, was only paid to male
“heads of household.”
5. Indonesia
PT WEDA Bay Nickel, Halmahera island, North Maluku

The Forest Tobelo (Tugutil) are the nomadic inhabitants of the inland forests of
Halmahera island whose subsistence is based on hunting and gathering, and occasional
foraging for sago (a starch extracted in the spongy center of various tropical palm
stems) in lower areas. Studies have found that the Tobelo Foresty Community can be
broadly categorized into two groups. The first group are those Forest Tobelo who have
been resettled, but may still return regularly to old sites in the Forest. The second
group remain nomadic and identify themselves as O hongana ma nywa or “forest
people.” Although total numbers are hard to determine, knowledgeable sources
estimate a total of 100 individuals.129
In 2004, the government declared 167,300 ha of this territory the Aketajawe Nature
Reserve and the Lalobata Protected Forest to protect at least 23 bird species found
nowhere else in the world. However, PT WEDA Bay Nickel (WBN) has been allowed to
undertake exploration and other mining development activities inside these national
parks. The WBN Project’s Contract of Work covers 54,874 ha, which are part of the
proposed buffer zone for the park. It contains mangrove and fresh water swamp forest,
various lowland forest habitat types, and lower montane forest. Less than half of the
total area is designated Protected Forest by the Ministry of Forestry. In this phase of
WBN’s mining operations, it has asked the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA), a specialized branch of the World Bank, to cover the project with respect
to political risks. The MIGA board approved the insurance for the feasibility phase
of the project on July 13, 2010 in the amount of $207 million for three years.130 This
guarantee covers war, civil disturbance expropriation, non-transfer, and breach of
contract.
In the Environmental and Social Review undertaken by MIGA on due diligence
conducted in mid-2010, key significant potential impacts of the project were identified
that will occur during the construction and operations phases. These impacts include
potential erosion, biodiversity, solid residues disposal, and population influx. With
57
respect to the forest dwellers, it states: “It is possible that Project activities may hamper
their movements and cause changes to livelihood patterns and distress…It may also
be possible to discover heritage sites belonging to the local indigenous groups.”131 The
planned mining area is still part of the proposed buffer zone for the park. The forests
are also the lands of the Forest Tobelo indigenous peoples, and represent important
habitat for a number of endemic and protected species.
Comparably, concerns were expressed that the project will have numerous adverse
impacts on biodiversity such as the destruction of at least 4,000-11,000 ha of moist
tropical forest, as well as the destruction of at least 2,000-6,000 ha of Protection
Forest, or up to 30 percent of the Protection Forest in the mine project area.132
The continued existence of the Forest Tobelo is now put into question with the impact
of this mining project in their territory.
Since the 1970s, successive Bangladeshi governments promoted the migration of
Bengalis to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. From 1978 to 1983, the military governments
had settled an estimated 500,000 plain settlers by providing inducements in order to
make indigenous Jumma people a minority in their own land. In 1979, the Rahman
regime created a legislative framework through the Settlement Program to allow the
entry and settlement of non-indigenous people from the plain areas of Bangladesh
to the CHT. Inducements came in cash and kind with a fixed allocation of land
settlement per family through a Tk60 million program. The official rationale for the
program was that there was land to spare in the Hill Tracts to ease the overcrowding
in the plains. This misconception of enormous amounts of available land in the CHT
was contrary to official information. The indigenous peoples of the CHT were never
included in the decision making, the program formulation or the implementation of
the settlement program. They were not inform about the specifics of the proposed
plan, including the decision to provide the settlers with land allotments. Nor was their
consent obtained or their prior claims safeguarded. Between 1979 and 1984 around
200,000 and 400,000 landless Bengali were settled in the CHT, often on land belonging
to indigenous peoples. In an area of 5,098 square miles (approximately the size of
Northern Ireland), with an original population of about 600,000, this influx of outside
settlers had a major impact. Although the government claims to have halted the
settlement program, unofficial sources indicate that families from the plains continue
to relocate to the Hill Tracts. Almost 60 years ago, the indigenous peoples constituted
more than 75 percent of the CHT population, now they account for only 47 percent.
58

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Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Key Issues in Sustainable Development: From Our Common Future...

II. Asia Indigenous Peoples’ Key Issues

Photo credit: Christian Erni

A. Key Issues in the Past and Present

Deprivation came in terms of rights—the non-recognition of the right to traditionally-

B. Large-scale Dams: Blood Dams

Photo credit: AIPP

1. Philippines: Repeating historical injustice

the non-relocation of those displaced, and compliance to provisions on employment

2. Bangladesh: Unresolved historical injustice

Kaptai Dam, Chittagong Hill Tracts

Photo credit: Christian Erni

3. Laos PDR: Ethnocidal tendencies

Houay Ho Dam, Champasak and Attapeu Provinces: Endangered people

C. Mines: All mine they force to get

Legislation ensuring the commitment of foreign companies to long term projects is a

1. India: Against a giant

Orissa, Kalahandi District

Photo credit: AIPP

Photo credit: CPA

their traditional livelihoods—ricefields, vegetable gardens, swiddens, hunting, and

D. National parks/plantations/economic land

Lands of indigenous peoples have historically been considered “vacant,” “unoccupied,”

Photo credit: AIPP

1. Cambodia: The kingdom of economic land concessions

Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Kratie, Stung Treng, and other Provinces

At least 25 economic land concessions are known to affect indigenous territories in

Photo credit: Christian Erni

2. Malaysia: There is oil in them thar hills

Sabah and Sarawak state

Photo credit: Christian Erni

3. Indonesia: Pulped to death

Siberut Island, West Sumatra Province and others

4. Malaysia: State machinations to divest Orang Asli of their territory

Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary95

6. Indonesia: Mines over forests

Batang Gadis National Park, Mandailing Natal (Madina) District, North

have to be hamletted permanently where they can be monitored and purportedly

1. Taiwan/China: Nuclear waste

Orchid island, Southeast Coast

2. Vietnam and Laos: Sedentarization program

3. Transmigration/population transfer/policies: Terra nullius à la Asia

Photo credit: AIPP

of hundreds of thousands of lowland Vietnamese, or Kinh, to the region. Some of

Indigenous communities regard transmigration as a major threat. In the submission

F. International Financial Institutions and development

The international financial institutions (IFIs) were established to assist developing

Khammouane Province, Vientiane and Xieng Khouang Provinces

Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland

PT WEDA Bay Nickel, Halmahera island, North Maluku

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