Introduction
The following discussion was written based on
interviews conducted by Jurnal Bersatu (Journal of
Unity) editorial staff with a number of people’s
organisations. The spectrum and “political
groupings” along with the sectors and class of
organisation were several of the considerations in
the choice of the groups that were interviewed.
Nevertheless there were two organisations – the
People’s Movement Alliance for Agrarian Reform
(AGRA) and the United People’s Party (PPR) who on
the eve of the publication of this journal were
unable to be interviewed.
Peasant Organisations
3. Rully, Indonesian Farmers Union (SPI)
The situation for farmers over the last years has
become increasingly difficult because of the
liberalisation of the agricultural sector that
continues to be promoted by the government. Likewise
at the moment, the government is pushing farmers to
change their patterns of planting and food
cultivation for the needs of industry, such as agro-
fuel crops, but without providing any price
guarantees, so that farming activities have become
like gambling, now planting a certain crop because
they say the crops is good, but when they are
harvested the price is no longer good. Not to
mention the problems of disasters such as floods
that have quite a significant influence on
agricultural production, which should be overcome by
the government by providing guarantees or insurance.
The principle issues facing farmers
Because of its history, SPI was established out of
land problems and its members are small-scale
farmers or farmers without land, so what has become
the principle issue or program for SPI has been
agrarian reform, particularly land ownership. Only
after dealing with this can we discuss other issues
such as technology, seed and so forth. There are
other peasant organisations that have taken up the
problem of agrarian reform because of the ownership
structure or the behaviour of land owning companies,
which are very unjust and need to be overhauled to
become fairer.
The state of the peasant movement 10 years after
Suharto
Currently there are a number of peasant
organisations at the national level and the
communication that exists between several of these
organisations is quite good. In terms of principles,
they are all in agreement about how to pursue
agrarian reform. The differences that exist are
about approach. But for the political struggle, more
joint discussion is indeed needed in order that the
peasant movement can grow strong enough to pressure
the government.
Peasant movement unity
Peasant movement unity, if indeed this has become an
organisational goal, could be built both from above
and from below. The SPI itself, in order to overcome
fragmentation and move towards unity has already
changed from a federated to a unionist structure and
is currently carrying out a further organisational
overhaul. With regard to unity between peasant
organisations, the need actually exists, but the
obstacle lies with the issue of trust, which is
indeed not a finished product that will simply
materialise, but must be tested through joint work,
developing maturity and mutual respect. In addition
to this, the issue of different groups claiming
authority over a given support base must be
resolved, because there are indeed farmers who are
members of more than one peasant organisation. The
SPI itself has already suggested to other peasant
organisations that this problem could be resolved by
dividing up areas of work and though mutual
consolidation, because the peasant movement will not
develop if it only works to take away each other’s
base of support.
Multi-sector unity is also needed because the
farming sector cannot advance by itself if it wishes
to carry out comprehensive reform. There is an
interrelationship between farming sector problems
and other sectors. For example, there are farmers
whose family members are migrant workers and it is
important to push the migrant labour movement to see
the roots of their problems, such as why they go
overseas to become migrant workers. Here of course,
communication is needed, meetings and discussions so
that the struggle can have a common view and aim.
The SPI itself has been pushing for the
establishment of a fisherpeople and workers
organisations, specifically for migrant workers. But
it also needs to be understood that although we have
already reached this stage, is there still a need to
strengthen the individual sectors first or are we
able to pursue both at once.
Aims of the struggle
The goal of the SPI’s struggle is agrarian reform
towards a structure that is more just in the
agrarian sector. Here, agrarian reform is not just
limited to land distribution, but also how it can be
sustainable, meaning there must be support in terms
of seed, prices and infrastructure. With regard to
the question of the state, unity is needed not just
to reform socio-economic development, but also to
change its political form in the direction of
democratic and populist politics in order to counter
the powers of capital.
Political parties
We must indeed take political power and the
discourse on a party has become one of the
discussions within the SPI. But there has yet to be
an organisational decision whether or not to form
our own political party, join an existing party or
take the extra-parliamentary road. The most
important thing for the SPI at the moment is no
mater what the means to carry out this reform, there
must be internal organisational consolidation,
because if the organisation is in order and united,
whatever decisions are taken they will be easy to
undertake. The SPI is not closed to the possibility
of building a party jointly with other organisations
because unity is indeed important to fight the
current political system and oligarchy.
The 2OO9 elections
In organisational terms, the SPI has yet to
determine its political stand with regard to the
2009 elections. Although personally, Rully is of the
view that the 2009 elections will disrupt the work
of consolidating the people’s movements, because the
liberal system of politics makes the people think
pragmatically. Here, the 2009 elections need to be
addressed, for example, by pushing the people to
speak, through their organisations, which they will
not participate in the elections, if for example,
land is not provided to farmers or workers’ wages
are not raised to a reasonable level. This could be
conveyed not just through demands, but also by
boycott actions. In addition to this, golput (white
movement, abstaining from voting) voters have to be
consolidated into a political movement. If the
people cannot be pushed to the point of boycott
actions, the minimum in the 2009 elections is
political eduction and achieving victories,
including among others proving land to farmers. With
regard to activists that have joined the traditional
political parties, their goal appears to be more one
of personal gain rather than organisational
interests.