Victims Become Offenders: Land Ownership Conflicts between Indigenous Peoples and Mining Corporation
Abstract:
An area designated as a mining area with business actors granted mining business permits, residents (indigenous peoples) cannot hinder or interfere with mining business activities even if they are the owners of the land-based on the local wisdom values of the community. Indigenous peoples, who are actually victims, instead are designated as perpetrators of crimes. This study aimed to analyze mining land conflicts between indigenous peoples and mining companies. The main focus of this study was whether Article 162 of the Mining Law protected indigenous peoples in the event of a mining land conflict and how the court’s decision responded to a mining land conflict. This study adopted a socio-legal research approach studying the formulation of legal provisions in the Mining Law, the debates and economic interests that lie behind them, and analyzed legislations and court decisions related to mining land conflicts. The results revealed that, in the event of a conflict over mining land with customary law communities, the Mining Law was more concerned with the economic interests of mining companies that were given mining business permits. The perspective of judges was more concerned with formal legal proofs of land ownership, to determine that the mining companies had offended Article 162, which the indigenous people did not possess. This study recommends that the concept of free, prior, and informed consent needs to be adopted in the Mining Law as was adopted in the Plantation Law by emphasizing that violating the concept has implications for punishment for the perpetrators.
Keyword:
Indigenous people; Mining corporation; Land conflict; Free, Prior and informed consent; Criminalization