Indonesia's Transmigration Programme -
An Update

Foreword

1. Structure of the study

2. Introduction

3. Transmigration and Indigenous Peoples

4. Transmigration in figures

5. The turn of the tide

6. Reorganisation of Transmigration Ministry: Institutional and Policy Changes

7. Implementation of Policy Reforms

8. International Development Assistance and Transmigration

   A. The World Bank

   B. Asian Development Bank (ADB)

9. Who works on the Transmigration issue?

10. Conclusion

Foreword

This report provides an update on the transmigration programme in Indonesia. As Indonesian politics today are so dynamic, some changes may have taken place by the time it has been published.

During the process of preparing this report, the Department of Transmigration was merged to become the Ministry of Transmigration and Population (SMTP). This then became the Ministry of Transmigration and Manpower following the August 2000 cabinet reshuffle.

The bureaucracy, however, moves more slowly than political events and there is a dearth of up-to-date published information on transmigration from the department responsible. The report is based on a review of literature from official sources (mainly Indonesian Government, the World Bank and ADB) and a few personal interviews with activists and transmigration officials. The paper also draws liberally on media sources to fill the information gaps.

I. Structure of the study
The introduction consists of a brief overview of the historical background, objectives and controversial issues linked with the Indonesian transmigration programme. The investigation focuses on :

1. a compilation of quantitave data (performance indicators);
2. a discussion of the factors triggering political and institutional changes in transmigration politics in the post-Suharto era;
3. updating information about the involvement of IFIs (World Bank and ADB) in transmigration;
4. an overview of current research activities or contacts;
5. conclusions and recommendations.

II. Introduction
Transmigration is not a new policy. Originally initiated under Dutch colonial rule during the early 20th century and taken over by the Indonesian Government after independence, transmigration had three main goals:

1. to move millions of Indonesians from the densely populated inner islands (Java, Bali, Madura) to the outer, less densely populated islands to achieve a more balanced demographic development;
2. to alleviate poverty by providing land and new opportunities to generate income for poor landless settlers;
3. to exploit more effectively the "potential" of the "outer islands".

III. Transmigration and Indigenous Peoples
When environmentalists and human rights advocates launched their international campaign against transmigration in the mid-1980s, a focus of their concern was the impact the programme was having on the country's indigenous peoples. A special issue of The Ecologist magazine exposed the Indonesian Government's policy of denying the rights of indigenous peoples and of forcibly integrating them into the national mainstream. The magazine showed how forced relocation of indigenous peoples to make way for logging and agricultural schemes was coupled with the integration of indigenous peoples into transmigration settlements. Transmigration sites, it alleged, took over indigenous lands, without their consent or compensation, and obliged them to change their ways of life and submit to re-education programmes to wean them from what the government thought were 'backward' ways. Resistance was met with violence and abuses of human rights. The campaigners pointed out that the World Bank's support for transmigration directly violated the Bank's own policy of respect for indigenous peoples' rights, which it had adopted in the early 1980s.

The campaigners called on the Bank and other donors such as the World Food Programme, UNDP, European Union and the Dutch, German and British governments to halt funding the programme. At the time, the World Bank denied the validity of these criticisms arguing that the programme had social benefits and was developed in conformity with World Bank policies. Nonetheless, shortly after these complaints, the Bank switched its support for the programme, halting funds for new settlements and providing further loans only for the 'second-stage development' of existing sites.

However, notwithstanding the Bank's public denials that there were any problems, subsequent official investigations into Indonesian government policies and laws regarding indigenous peoples showed that the campaigners' charges were well founded. An investigation by the UNDP and World Bank showed how Indonesian forestry and land laws denied indigenous peoples rights and thus facilitated the take-over of their lands by other interests. Later studies carried out for the World Bank showed that this process of dispossessing indigenous peoples was applied systematically throughout the archipelago. Transmigration was shown to be the single most important cause of the country's forest loss, estimated at 1.2 million hectares per annum in 1991.

In 1994, the Bank completed a review of its involvement in the first three phases of transmigration. The review provided shocking evidence that, exactly as the campaigners had alleged 10 years previously, the Bank's projects had had 'major negative and probably irreversible impacts' on some indigenous groups and had been pursued contrary to Bank policies and even contrary to the advice of project staff. By then it was too late to change the projects to address the problems faced by these peoples as the projects had long been closed. The World Bank board also rejected the idea of a remedial project to try to restore the affected groups' livelihoods.

Although foreign support for transmigration dwindled as these problems became clear, transmigration continued. The failure of the dry land farming schemes encouraged the government to direct the migrants into PIR (mainly oil palm) and HTI (timber) plantations. The forced takeover of indigenous peoples' lands carried on. Today, indigenous peoples who lost lands to transmigration are seeking reparations and are demanding that their rights to land be restored. The full legacy of this country-wide institutionalised theft of indigenous lands has thus yet to be felt.

IV. Transmigration in figures
One of the most obvious signs of change is the decrease in the total number of people to be resettled under the transmigration programme. According to figures issued by the transmigration authorities, only 2,265 families were to be resettled in the fiscal year 2000 . Of those, 1,260 families were displaced people or refugees who belong to a new category of transmigrant (see Appendix 1 for the description of the different types of transmigrants). This number is a significant cut-back compared with past years and indicates that government-sponsored transmigration has all but collapsed (Table 1). The number of unofficial spontaneous transmigrants (i.e. uncontrolled migrants) is probably high, but no official data exist.

Table 1: Transmigration Figures 1950 - 2000/01

	Pre-Repelita 1950-69	Repelita I 1969-74	Repelita II 1974-79	Repelita III 1979-84	Repelita IV 1984-89	Repelita V 1989-94	Repelita VI 1994-99	Repelita VII 1999-2000 (by Nov 99)
Target (families)	-	38,700	250,000	500,000	750,000	550,000	600,000	16,235
Families actually moved	100,000	36,483	118,000	535,000	230,000	n/a	300.000	4,409
No. of people	500,000	174,000	544,000	2,469,560	1,061,680	n/a	1,500,000	22,000

Sources: 1 Donner 1987; 2 Suratman & Guiness 1977; 3Gardiner 1992; 4Ministry of Transmigration Staff (number 2,3 & 4 are quoted from Fearnside 1997); 5Own estimate based on figures from SMTP 2000 and Sunderlin 1999; 6 Departemen Transmigrasi dan PPH 1999

Between 1949 and 1974, the Indonesian government resettled 674,000 people through transmigration. With the consolidation of the Indonesian administration, growing experience and massive financial support from the World Bank and other international donors, another 3.5 million people were resettled to transmigration sites on the ´outer islands` by 1990. By the early 1990s the annual volume of transmigrants had started to decrease because of the substantial decline of international financial assistance.

The development target for REPELITA VI (1994-99) was to relocate 600,000 families, consisting of 350,000 government-sponsored families and 250,000 spontaneous transmigrant families. Before the economic crisis hit Indonesia in mid-1997, the government envisaged the resettlement of 316,000 families as part of the highly controversial Swamp Rice Mega Project in Central Kalimantan over a period of six years. The project, however, collapsed in the same year and less than 27,000 families were resettled in 1997-1998 (20,000 of them to Central Kalimantan). The original target for the following year was to resettle 86,000 families mostly to Eastern Indonesia, but it is certain that this could not be realised as a direct consequence of the economic crisis, political unrest and social conflict.

Appendix 2 gives a summary of the official resettlement figures in the period 1994/1995 – 1999/2000 (Table A1) and resettlement by type and schemes (Table A2). Although the official figures for 1997/98 and 1998/99 are missing, it can be estimated that during REPELITA VI fewer than 300,000 families were resettled through government- sponsored transmigration. The latest figures (2,265 families) for the current financial year suggest that the transmigration programme has been reduced to a marginal level. The era of large-scale resettlement under the term "transmigration" may well have come to an end.

V. The turn of the tide
Transmigration was a geopolitical cornerstone of Suharto's Indonesia. Despite mounting domestic and international criticism the programme continued almost unaffected and with few policy changes until the end of Suharto's reign in mid 1998. In fact, one of the biggest failures of the transmigration scheme happened on the eve of Suharto's fall from power, when the government plan to convert 1 million ha of peat wetland in Central Kalimantan into a major rice growing area collapsed, leaving a trail of destruction over a vast area (see box 1). Despite mounting evidence that the Central Kalimantan mega-project was another transmigration disaster, little would have changed if the financial crisis in 1997 had not finally led to long overdue change in political leadership.

The political and economic turmoil in Indonesia over the past three years has triggered an unprecedented momentum for political and institutional reform in Indonesia. Pressure for reform of the transmigration programme has been determined not by a perceived need to change the programme but by major changes in other policy areas, such as decentralisation and economics. The cumbersome transmigration bureaucracy has had little time to respond to these pressures.

The latest cutback in annual transmigration volume and recent political and institutional changes have been shaped by:

• substantial financial constraints as result of the economic crisis;
• tight control of government spending through the IMF's structural adjustment programme and increased influence of the IMF-led creditor group over domestic budget decisions;
• decentralisation/regional autonomy;
• the new phenomena of political and environmental refugees.

Financial Constraints
Economic crises in developing countries usually lead to a decline in government spending on directed settlement programmes. In the case of Indonesia, the transmigration budget for 1998/99 was reduced by 22% in nominal terms (and even more in real terms) from the previous pre-crisis year. Throughout much of that year the administration was paralysed as macro-economic uncertainties meant that the national budget had to be revised. Funding cuts caused postponements and delays to programmes and projects, and forced the transmigration administration to cut the operational budget. The budget for the fiscal year 2000 was further cut by 50% from Rp. 1.1 trillion to Rp. 541 billion. These drastic cutbacks reflect the dire situation of Indonesia's economy. From March 1998 to March 2000 the national debt increased from 23 percent of GDP to 91 percent. As a result, the government lacks funds for basic urgent needs like mitigating the social effects of the economic crisis or maintaining the infrastructure in many parts of the country. Consequently, the budget of the transmigration programme, which is no longer high on the government's agenda in the post-Suharto era, is shrinking. Since it is unlikely that Indonesia's debt crisis will be solved in the short-term, there is little prospect that current financial constraints to transmigration will be reversed soon. In the early 1990s, the lack of financial resources was overcome by encouraging the participation of self-financing transmigrants and foreign aid. These options are not available anymore: the financial crisis has further impoverished large sections of the society and supporting Indonesia's highly controversial transmigration programme is certainly not a priority for foreign donors. As far as we know, no research has been published concerning the impact of the economic crisis on transmigrants themselves.

IFIs and transmigration
To combat the economic crisis and to manage its spiralling debts Indonesia is relying heavily on loans from the international financial institutions (IFIs) and bilateral creditor nations grouped in the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI). The IMF, the largest lender to Indonesia, attaches conditions to its loans, which may directly influence budget decisions on and policy changes to the transmigration programme. For instance, to achieve the balance of foreign debt payments, the IMF demands strict budget austerity and the elimination of state subsidies. Government-sponsored transmigration, which involves considerable public spending, including state subsidies to support transmigrants and which has failed in the past to reach economic targets, does not measure up to these requirements.

It has been suggested that IMF loans may be used to compensate the shortfall of the transmigration budget. This is theoretically possible since IMF money is not traced once it has entered Indonesia. The present situation is, however, that almost all new loans are being swallowed up in paying debt interest on old loans so there is no IMF money left for bolstering the transmigration budget or indeed any other departmental funding.

Decentralisation
Regional autonomy is one of the most significant reforms in the new post-Suharto Indonesia. It is based on two laws passed by the interim Habibie regime. Local Government Act No.22/1999 gives the regions greater power and responsibilities over the use of national assets, and the Revenues Allocation Act No.25/1999 which changes the financial relationship between central and local government. (See also DTE 46or campaigns page for more on regional autonomy)

Decentralisation has been a major source of domestic pressure to reform the transmigration programme. Direct consequences and implications for the transmigration programme include :

• the loss of revenues to the central government: decentralisation reverses the present system whereby all revenues from the provinces are made over to the central government. In future, the lion's share of revenues will remain in the provinces which means that Jakarta will have even less money to fund a centralised transmigration programme;
• the loss of decision-making power: during the Suharto era the transmigration programme was top-down oriented, i.e. decision-making was highly centralised with no possibility of participation by local communities. Local autonomy legislation gives districts and provinces greater responsibilities and affords local assemblies (DPRD), provincial governors and village councils more decision-making power. The legislation is supposed to encourage local democracy;
• the lack of local political support for transmigration: provided communities can express their concerns effectively through local institutions which exert political power, it will be extremely difficult to open new transmigration sites in many areas. For example, in Aceh, West Papua and Maluku the indigenous populations are unwilling to accept any transmigrants. In many districts, local politicians may prefer to allocate scarce financial resources to support poor local communities rather than help transmigrants. On the other hand, local communities in some areas, like West Kalimantan, may still be susceptible to government promises that it will improve local infrastructure if villagers will accept new transmigration sites.

The new phenomenon of political and environmental refugees
Suharto's thirty- three year dictatorship stored up huge problems for Indonesia's future. They included the annexation and brutal occupation of West Papua, the invasion and reign of terror in East Timor, and long-term military repression in Aceh. The Suharto regime failed to create a pluralistic society to reflect the ethnic diversity of the archipelago. Its corrupt and highly centralised economic system led to growing disparities in the distribution of land and wealth. In the power vacuum following the fall of Suharto in 1998, these problems resurfaced with vigorous intensity, leading to conflicts which – even when eventually resolved as in the case of East Timor – have created a climate of increasing uncertainty and political and regional instability in Indonesia. This instability has direct links with the transmigration programme and is also affecting its future direction.

The most protracted and most popular movements for more autonomy or independence from Indonesia were, in part, a reaction to the centralising, authoritarian and corrupt practices of the Suharto regime and in response to military brutality and economic domination by Jakarta. Under Suharto, transmigration was used – alongside military repression – as a means of strengthening national defence and security. Placing transmigrants in areas where independence movements were strong – such as West Papua, Aceh and East Timor – was a tool of Jakarta's "internal colonialism". When Suharto's grip on power started to loosen, the tensions caused by this policy quickly surfaced. In Aceh, transmigration sites were attacked and new settlers received death threats from members of the Acehnese separatist movement (GAM), causing thousands of transmigrants to flee en masse to North Sumatra or return to their home villages. In East Timor, transmigrants and other non-Timorese living in the territory fled in their tens of thousands during the run-up to the referendum on independence in August 1999. While there has been no comparable mass exodus of transmigrants from West Papua, there have been reports of substantial numbers of settlers leaving the territory, as well as attacks on transmigration sites by the Free Papua Movement (OPM) - and of transmigrants sheltering in the capital, Jayapura.

In other areas, opposition to transmigrants from indigenous populations has become part of the struggle to recover cultural identity and re-establish control over resources. In 1996-97 and again in early 1999, hundreds of people died in bloody clashes between settler Madurese and indigenous Dayak communities in West Kalimantan. In February 2001, more violence was sparked in Central Kalimantan and hundreds were killed, prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of Madurese immigrants.

In Ambon the rising number of Buginese, Butonese, and Makassarese immigrants and high birth rates of Ambonese Muslims tipped the population balance in favour of Muslims during a period when Suharto was increasingly promoting islamicization in Indonesia. When Habibie succeeded Suharto the situation rapidly deteriorated and violent Christian-Muslim clashes spread. Thousands have been killed.

As a result of these conflicts thousands of transmigrant/migrant families had no other choice than to abandon their transmigration settlements or villages. However, non-transmigrant refugees from conflict areas heavily outnumber transmigrant refugees. According to SMTP figures released in January 2000, approximately 6.5 % of the total number of refugees from Aceh, West Kalimantan, Maluku and East Timor were transmigrants. Out of the total number of 73,508 refugee families in January 2000 there were 4,812 transmigrant families from various areas (Appendix 3). By November 2000, the total number had risen to 240,333 refugee families, or 1 million displaced people, sheltering in 18 provinces. Among them an estimated 120,000 refugees from East Timor were still being forced to live in refugee camps in West Timor. In Aceh, refugee numbers fluctuate according to the intensity of the Indonesian military's conflict with the GAM and the number of "sweepings" (village – to village search operations) conducted by the military. The number of refugees in camps decreased from 300,000 in December 1999 to 44,000 in November 2000. There are now 215,000 refugees reported in Maluku province, and a further 207,000 in North Maluku, equivalent to 25% of the population of the two provinces.

Environmental refugees
Not yet included are the thousands of transmigrants from the PLG mega-project in Central Kalimantan (see box 1) who are potential environmental refugees. Many of the 63,000 people who were sent to the area from other provinces face an uncertain future. The peat land is not suitable for rice cultivation, the crops are destroyed by rodents, the drainage and irrigation system is not working properly and the groundwater is highly acidic and not suitable for drinking. It is predicted that many transmigration settlements will be abandoned because the settlers are not able to make a decent living under these environmental conditions. To survive, settlers who are too poor to migrate back to their home villages have strong incentives to clear further land and become engaged in illegal logging activities.

Box 2: Integrated Economic Development Zone (KAPET = Kawasan Pengembangan Ekonomi Terpadu) The KAPET - or Integrated Economic Development Zone - is another legacy of Suharto's regime and the brainchild of then technology minister B.J.Habibie. KAPETs were introduced at the beginning of PELITA VI (1994/95) to develop the infrastructure for exploiting natural resources in Indonesia's eastern region, officially called 'KTI' (Kawasan Timur Indonesia). Transmigration – which could supply labour to areas of low population – fitted conveniently with the KAPET concept. The idea was developed as a result of government recognition that well-established infrastructure is a significant factor in attracting private and foreign investors. Thirteen KAPETs have been established across eastern Indonesia region i.e. four each in Kalimantan and Sulawesi, one each in Maluku, NTB, NTT, West Papua and (now independent) East Timor. Agribusiness and agro-industry is the major sector prioritised for all KAPETs, in accordance with the concern of the state investment board (BKPM) to accelerate investment in productive and market-oriented sectors. Under regional autonomy measures (see main text) management of KAPETs is to be handed over to regional governments. Minister Erna Witoelar, as the head of the KAPET National Management Board, has emphasised the independence of KAPETs from the central bureaucracy. Although hitherto only the management of the Bukari KAPET in southeast Sulawesi has been handed to the province, in the near future the rest of the 12 KAPETs will follow suit. This process is another way in which decision-making over transmigration will be transferred to local government hands.

VI. Institutional and Policy Changes in the Transmigration Ministry

Institutional Reforms
One of the first actions President Wahid took when he came to power in November 1999 was to merge the Ministry of Transmigration and Forest Squatter Resettlement (Departemen Transmigrasi dan Pemukiman Perambah Hutan) with the office of the State Minister of Population (Kantor Menteri Negara Kependudukan). The new organisation was called the State Ministry of Transmigration and Population (SMTP). While the SMTP is responsible for policy-making, implementation is dealt with by a new central government body called The Population Administration and Mobility Agency (PAMA).

Structural reorganisation under regional autonomy means substantial changes for transmigration as it requires the decentralisation of authority from central to local government level (both provincial and district/city levels). Regional offices of the former Ministry of Transmigration and Forest Squatter Resettlement remain as "vertical" institutions of PAMA to be handed over to the local government. In April 2000 it was expected that the administration would be staffed with 17,000 employees, of whom 3,500 people would be employed in the central authority and the remaining 13,500 allocated to regional offices.

As a result of the August 2000 cabinet re-shuffle the transmigration authority was again subject to institutional change. On 29 August the newly-created State Ministry of Transmigration and Population (SMTP) was again merged - this time with the Ministry of Manpower. It was anticipated that the merger would be completed by January 2001. The new ministry is called the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration.

Policy Reforms

Institutional reforms to the transmigration department have been paralleled by ambitious policy reforms. The rather narrow concept of large-scale resettlement of poor but politically reliable Javanese farmers to the outer islands ("Javanisation and the redistribution of poverty") has been replaced with a modernised and wider understanding of population policy, reflecting the current challenges of demographic and migration issues in Indonesia. In 2000, SMTP's new policy was based on four strategic issues:

• Population: to respond to dynamic changes in population issues after the (economic and political) crisis (e.g. SMTP preparation of a Bill on Population Registration);
• Refugees: SMTP's role is limited to preparing resettlement and public facilities;
• Population Mobility: to tackle problems in areas with limited resources and high population pressure; maximising the use of "idle land" identified as a priority;
• Transmigration: reorientation towards regional empowerment especially in tackling the problems of poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment. Hence the transmigration programme will be orientated in line with the development of economic regions and to support Local Government Income (Pemasukan Asal Daerah or PAD) as basis for regional autonomy.

VII. Implementation of Policy Reforms
The fast-changing, transitional nature of the current political period in Indonesia makes it especially difficult to obtain a clear picture of how implementation of the policy changes and institutional reforms is proceeding. The transmigration authority is a well-established insular and secretive bureaucracy which has never had to account for its actions. Interviews and meetings with officials from the transmigration authorities revealed a deep-seated uncertainty and confusion within the transmigration bureaucracy about the future of the transmigration programme. In general, uncertainty and the slow pace of the reform process make officials hesitant to provide information about the implementation process.

New "local transmigration" focus
Mainly due to severe budget constraints and the introduction of regional autonomy, large scale transmigration schemes such as "general transmigration" (transmigrasi pola umum) have been terminated. Before the August 2000 cabinet reshuffle, minister Al Hilal Hamdi stressed that under the new policy his department would only carry out intra-island or local transmigration (trans-lok) replacing the notorious inter-island transmigration of the past. This is supposed to be tailored to the requirements of local governments who, under regional autonomy measures implemented since January 2001, can now decide whether or not they want to take part in the programme.

Due to budget constraints, the sharp decline in the number of transmigrants volunteering for the programme and efforts to bring about institutional and political reform, the transmigration programme seems no longer pose as direct an institutional threat to forests and indigenous communities as it once did. However, even if large scale transmigration is terminated the new transmigration strategy still raises a number of concerns. For example, local transmigration (trans-lok), like general transmigration, still has potential negative environmental and social impacts. Trans-lok carried out on small islands and/or in areas with indigenous people, e.g. the Mentawai islands, could have very destructive effects on the livelihoods of indigenous communities. A major concern is that local governments intent on increasing local revenues care more about exploiting natural resources to make money in the short term than they do about sustainable local development. For this reason the implementation of trans-lok needs to be closely monitored.

Another serious concern is trans-lok and protected areas (e.g. national parks). Although nowadays it is widely accepted internationally that an integrated approach should be used for the protection of wildlife, i.e. local communities playing an active role in the protecting conservation areas, the enforced displacement of forest dwellers to "protect nature" is still very much practised in Indonesia. One recent example was the attempt to evict Moronene people from the Rawa Aopa Watumohai National Park in Southeast Sulawesi and resettle them on a site outside. Trans-lok schemes in or around protected areas therefore require critical observation, too.

Refugees
Currently there is little evidence that the concerns raised in early 2000 by DTE over the "recycling" of refugees through the transmigration programme have materialised, particularly the concern that transmigrants would be resettled back into conflict areas. Although these concerns are in principle justified, in practice there are some factors which may prevent a vicious circle:

• Although there may have been plans and targets for the development of transmigration sites in existing conflict areas (e.g. in Aceh), implementation has been stalled due to increased tensions/conflicts in these areas.
• There is an increased awareness among transmigration officials about the risks of setting up new transmigration sites in conflict areas. Officials are also aware of the need to translate change in transmigration policy into practice, e.g. to consider the concerns of indigenous and local people.
• Decentralisation is likely to act as a new "barrier" to transmigration due to the lack of local support for transmigration.
• Scarce financial resources will severely limit the ability of the transmigration authorities to set up transmigration sites in conflict areas because of additional security costs and the increased risk to investments.
• Limited motivation and readiness of transmigrants to return or to resettle in conflict areas.
• New strategies for transmigration/refugee management (e.g. choice of destination, local empowerment etc.).

VIII. International Development Assistance and Transmigration
Loans from multilateral development banks bankrolled the Indonesian transmigration programme mainly during the 1980s. The World Bank was the major player, part- financing the "official resettlement" of more than 2.3 million transmigrants and catalysing the resettlement of more than 2 million "spontaneous migrants". Although the World Bank financing did not exceed 10% of the budget of the transmigration programme over the 1976-1989 period, a series of Bank loans totalling US$500 million in that period was crucial in attracting tens of millions of dollars in further support from numerous other bilateral and multilateral sources. World Bank funding covered both development of individual transmigration sites and strengthening of the overall transmigration programme, including highly sensitive activities such as resettlement schemes in East Timor, military transmigration, penal settlements and transmigration of political prisoners. As a result of massive international and domestic criticism, in 1987 the World Bank decided not to provide further loans for the development of new transmigration sites. However, in 1992, the Bank disbursed another US$220 million loan to support "Second Stage Transmigration" i.e. to salvage existing transmigration sites.

Both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) were also key players in providing external financial assistance for the development of the tree crops sector. By 1993, the World Bank had disbursed US$909 million in agricultural loans for plantation development, which supported additional resettlement in pristine tropical rainforests. Between 1969 and 1993 the World Bank and the ADB together provided US$1.4 billion, equivalent to 92% of the external financial assistance, and about 15.2% of the total investment within this subsector. In the 1990s, thanks to this help, the transmigration programme essentially became a source of cheap labour for oil palm and other tree cash crop estates. There were also more World Bank and ADB financed projects with indirect links to the transmigration programme such as the Integrated Swamp Development Project (ISDP) (see below).

More recently, there has been close collaboration between multilateral donor organisations and other key agencies (IMF, World Bank, ADB etc.) to try to tackle the financial crisis. There has also been close donor co-ordination on sectoral policy approaches and sector work. The following section provides an overview of these projects and reflects on the role of the major donor banks during the economic crisis.

A. World Bank

In the first 18 months of Indonesia´s economic crisis and political change the World Bank, a key development partner during Suharto´s 32 year reign, struggled to fashion a new country strategy appropriate to the complex situation in Indonesia. Furthermore, the Bank was forced to review critically and adjust all aspects of its country programme at the same time that the Bank´s East Asia Region was itself undergoing a major institutional reorganisation. It took the World Bank until March 1999 to formulate an Interim Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) to guide the next 12 to 18 months of its programme in Indonesia. This focused on (1) the reinforcement of social safety nets to help protect the poor and preserve human assets during crisis times, (2) the assistance of government efforts to stabilise the economy and restructure the financial sector, and (3) and the strengthening of institutions to support sustainable growth.

The CAS is reflected in the Bank's lending portfolio, which consist of two types of loans: Sectoral Adjustment Loans (SAL) and Project Loans. There is no direct link between current SAL loans and transmigration (Table 2), but there are two project loans relating directly or indirectly to transmigration issues.

Table 2: Current Structural Adjustment Loans

• Integrated Swamp Development Project (ISDP)

  ISDP was one of the World Bank's last projects directly linked with the government-sponsored transmigration programme. It was claimed as the Bank's first attempt towards an integrated approach to upgrade existing transmigration schemes rather than opening new settlements. The project was to be implemented over six year period (1994-2000) in twenty existing swamp settlement schemes, covering an area of about 55,000 ha in Jambi, Riau and West Kalimantan provinces. The estimated costs were around US$ 106 million of which US$ 65 million was the World Bank's loan contribution. The number of transmigrant families affected by this particular project is not clear, although it is estimated that up to 1994, 3.3 million ha of swamplands in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi were developed, accommodating about 1.6 million families.

  The development of coastal swamp areas presents major ecological challenges and problems for the sustainable management of marginal soils. Swamp soils have severe limitations for sustainable agricultural production and many transmigration sites in these swamp areas support settlers only at subsistence level. The main aim of ISDP was to alleviate poverty in selected existing swamp settlement schemes through further development of their agricultural potential.(See also IFIs Update 16, June 2001 for more on this project.)

  The continuation of the ISDP is unclear following the World Bank portfolio status rating for the project as unsatisfactory. This leaves the fate of the transmigrants in the project uncertain. It is not yet clear what, if anything, the World Bank intends to do about these people, although it does admit the need to review the ecological impact of its policies, strategies and programmes, as the impacts of settlement schemes on fragile coastal ecosystems have become evident.

• Land Administration Project

  The Land Administration Project (LAP) is a US$ 140.1 million project co-funded by the Government of Indonesia, the World Bank and AusAid, and implemented by BPN (Badan Pertanahan Nasional - Indonesian Land Agency). The main objectives of the project were to foster efficient and equitable land markets, the alleviation of land conflicts through acceleration of land registration, the improvement of the institutional framework for land administration and the development of long-term land management policies. LAP phase I took place in the period of 1995 – 2000 and was completed by November 1999, (one year ahead of schedule) resulting in more than 1.2 million land titles in Java issued by BPN. Despite scepticism over the project's impartiality – it was seen as favouring investors and land-owners - a social impact assessment carried out in 1999 concluded that LAP I was strongly beneficial in its impact and particularly helped poorer landholders. Survey results indicated strong stakeholder demand for a continuation of the programme.

  The Bank's LAP II Project Information Document suggests that the proposed project will take a radically different approach to that of LAP I, which focussed on systematic land titling under the centralised authority of the BPN. The document claims that LAP II will put a strong emphasis on community involvement and participation, after learning an important lesson from LAP I on the value of social assessment. LAP II will be implemented over five years and is planned to start by April 2001. However, with the introduction of regional autonomy, the extent to which LAP II is implemented may well depend on the whether or not district and provincial government want the project in their areas.

  What is the relation between LAP and transmigration? LAP aims to provide secure tenureship/land titles to land owners: if transmigrant land is included, this will result in the legalisation of land taken over by the transmigration authorities from indigenous people without acknowledgement of adat rights and/or adequate compensation. These concerns have been raised by Indonesian NGOs who argue that as long as LAP does not recognise the customary land rights, the result will be the erosion and destruction of indigenous institutions which control land and natural resources. Thus the implication of LAP is not exclusively related to transmigration alone, but to all projects and planning activities involving land and natural resources.

  Recent indications are that the World Bank is paying some attention to these concerns. LAP II has been delayed and the Bank is no longer pressing to include customary-owned land in the project. LAP I has made such slow progress that there are now doubts about whether the project will be implemented outside Java at all.

IX. Who is working on the Transmigration issue?
Since the financial crisis began, relatively little research seems to have been done on transmigration. As part of the research for this report, several NGOs which have worked on transmigration issues or were interested in this topic in the past, were contacted and asked whether they were currently working on transmigration issues, including:

• Walhi
• Watch! Indonesia
• OXFAM
• IMBAS
• Asienhaus (Germany)
• BIC
• CIFOR
• WRI

The responses suggest that among the contacted organisations/individuals there seems to be no one working specifically on transmigration issues. There are certain groups/individuals who are monitoring transmigration because it overlaps with their core interests including DTE, WRI and WATCH! INDONESIA. Some may research certain aspects of transmigration as part of a bigger research agenda (e.g. CIFOR in Bogor). Other groups, which were involved in the international campaign against transmigration ten years ago (e.g. IMBAS) have stopped following up transmigration issues. The result of this research seems to suggest that other, more urgent topics have pushed aside transmigration issues from the monitoring/research agenda of NGOs. However, because of the limited nature of this investigation, it is possible that the research failed to detect NGOs/ individuals who are currently working on transmigration issues.

X. Conclusion

This paper argues that the old pattern of government-sponsored, centralised, large scale transmigration in Indonesia is history, at least in current, crisis-ridden Indonesia. In August 2000, three years after the financial collapse of transmigration programme in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis, large-scale transmigration (i.e. general transmigration) was officially terminated by the Indonesian government. The vast amounts of funding needed to support large scale resettlement are no longer available and today the priority of the Indonesian government is to try and effect an economic recovery while attempting to contain political and social unrest. Besides financial constraints, other factors triggering institutional and political reform of the transmigration programme are a) the increased leverage of IMF and World Bank to demand structural reforms, budget austerity and the elimination of state subsidies; b) decentralisation/ regional autonomy; c) increased social conflicts and d) the new phenomenon of refugees.

The reform of the transmigration programme, however, has to be seen as a piece of "realpolitik" whose purpose is to demonstrate Jakarta's commitment to implementing the austerity policy required by the IMF and World Bank in exchange for new loans. If the purpose had been genuine political reform, there would have been no shortage of arguments in favour of abandoning the transmigration programme altogether. With many members of the "old elite" still sitting in influential positions in the bureaucracy and military, perhaps not unexpectedly, there has been little enthusiasm for such a radical approach. Instead, technocrats in the bureaucracy have successfully searched for ways to keep the transmigration programme alive, to furnish it with a new purpose (refugee management) and to create a slim-line version small enough to be acceptable to the international creditor community. This strategy to prolong the lifespan of a programme which is no longer useful or desired by the public allows the government to avoid the adverse political reaction that might result if it were to be totally axed. More dangerously, it means that the option to re-establish transmigration Suharto-style is left open should a more authoritarian government take control in the future.

It is definitely too early to declare transmigration as an "non-issue" bearing in mind that transmigration's underlying concept – the distribution of cheap labour - has been applied both by colonial and post-colonial governments in Indonesia during the last 100 years. It is still very early days yet, but the new-style transmigration policy or "demographic mobility programme" raises many unanswered questions. There is a possibility that, unless opposed, many of the problems which made Indonesia's transmigration notorious during Suharto era could return in a new form. "Reform" has already shown a tendency to fail to achieve anything substantial (e.g. reform of the forestry law ) and the old guard in the transmigration bureaucracy and within the military could well regain the upper hand in future. There is a need to carefully monitor and evaluate "reformed" transmigration.

The economic crisis in Indonesia has provided potential investors with a huge landless and impoverished proletariat and more than one million internally displaced people (refugees) desperately seeking employment and income and ready to join new plantation development schemes or to move to new KAPETs. On a global level, the large-scale labour migration streams of the past 20 years indicate that the business entrepreneurs in the 21st century no longer necessarily require state-organised labour movement schemes like transmigration to supply a cheap workforce. In Indonesia, however, the government has merged the Transmigration ministry with the Ministry of Manpower with the apparent aim of managing and directing the flow of the unemployed masses to suite the labour requirements of big business.

The focus of the new transmigration policy is to support population mobility - shifting cheap labour and internally displaced people through the local transmigration scheme (trans-lok). Under the 1999 regional autonomy act (No 22), local governments are allowed some discretion in deciding the level of their areas' involvement with transmigration. One the one hand, the new "trans-lok" focus may help to avoid tensions between local and central government. On the other, the high priority given by some local governments to increasing local regional income at the expense of community and environmental interests, may also mean that the use of "trans-lok" transmigrants to work on large-scale commercial projects will exacerbate tensions within regions. As with many other sectors, transmigration has been forced into a "wait-and-see" position due to uncertainties over regional autonomy.

On a wider level, it has become obvious that the democratically elected government and its international creditors have failed to address the need for a new model of development for Indonesia. The continuing pro-export economic policy and pro-big business focus means that the needs of impoverished rural communities continue to be sidelined. As far as transmigration is concerned, this also lends weight to the impression that promises of a "reformed" programme may bring nothing but a change in transmigration terminology with no meaningful change in rationale and attitudes.

At best, then, the new changes to transmigration can be seen as offering some scope for improvement in a fundamentally flawed programme. At worst the programme will continue inflicting damage on rural and indigenous communities and the environment. In both cases the best course would be to end transmigration once and for all. As an outmoded, top-down tool of social engineering transmigration should not be permitted to survive.

It may be that transmigration will die a natural death: decentralisation of decision-making about development, land and resource use could have the effect of making centrally-controlled transmigration so totally and obviously redundant that even its die-hard supporters will no longer be able to justify its existence. On the other hand transmigration may be allowed to limp on indefinitely. In this case a concerted effort will be required to ensure its termination.

Funds and energies currently absorbed by transmigration need to be directed towards participative, consultations on how to deal with the enormous mess that transmigration has left in its wake. Instead of directing state funds towards providing labour for huge oil palm plantations, the government needs to invest in the process of reconciliation and rehabilitation in areas affected by transmigration. This will require fundamental reform of land, forestry and other related laws so that rights to lands and resources of indigenous peoples are given full recognition.

There is also a need, on the part of the international lenders which have been involved in funding transmigration in the past, to admit shared responsibility for the violation of rights and environmental destruction committed under the programme. One way to take positive action would be to provide international assistance (as grants, not loans) towards tackling the huge and growing problems of internal refugees.

References:

Some valuable inputs for this report have been generated from the following media sources:

• Bisnis Indonesia
• Detikcom (online)
• Far Eastern Economic Review
• Financial Times Germany
• Kompas
• Republika
• South China Morning Post
• The Indonesian Observer

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Asian Development Bank (2000). Indonesia Country Assistance Plan 2000-2002. Jakarta

Barber, C.V., and J.Schweithelm (2000).Trial By Fire: Forest Fires and Forestry Policy in Indonesia's Era of Crisis and Reform. Washington D.C.:World Resources Institute in collaboration with WWF-Indonesia, and Telapak Indonesia Foundation

Budiardjo, C. (1986). The politics of transmigration. The Ecologist 16

Casson, A (1999). The Hesitant Boom: Indonesia's Oil Palm Sub-Sector in an era of economic crisis and political change. Programme on the Underlying Causes of Deforestation, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor

Colchester, M (1987). Programme slashed in response to transmigration campaign. The Ecologist 17

Departemen Transmigrasi dan PPH (1999). Pengendalian Penyelenggaraan Transmigrasi TA. 1999/2000. Biro Perencanaan, Jakarta

Donner, Wolf (1987). Land Use and Environment in Indonesia. University of Hawai Press, Honolulu

DTE (1991). Pulping the rain forest. The rise of Indonesia´s paper and pulp industry. Special Report No. 1. London

DTE (2000).Transmigrants and Refugees. Newsletter No. 44, London

DTE (November 2000). Aceh: ecological war zone. Newsletter No. 47, London

Fasbender, K. & Erbe, S. (1990). Towards a new home: Indonesia´s managed mass migration. Transmigration between poverty, economics and ecology. HWWA Hamburg Institute for Economic Research, Verlag Weltarchiv, Hamburg

Fearnside, P M (1997). Transmigration in Indonesia: Lessons from Its Environmental and Social Impacts. Environmental Management Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 553-570

Gardiner, P (1992). Development, human settlement and pressure on forest resources in the Indonesian frontier. Paper presented at the Seminar on Population and Deforestation in the Humid Tropics, 30 Nov-3 Dec 1992, Sao Paolo

Government of Indonesia (1994) REPELITA VI: Indonesia's Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (1994/95 – 1998/99). http://www.indonesianet.com

Hamdi, A (2000). Kebijakan dan Strategi Penyelenggaraan Transmigrasi dan Kependudukan (Policy and Strategy in the Delivery of Transmigration and Population Programme). Jakarta

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Ministry of Transmigration Staff (1991) Planning for Population mobility: the Indonesian transmigration program. Jakarta

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SMTP (April 2000). Press Release in response to Far Eastern Economic Review questionnaire. State Ministry of Transmigration and Population

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WALHI/FoE Indonesia (1998). Indonesia for sale. A case study of IMF policies prepared by WAHLI /FoE Indonesia. Jakarta

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Appendix 1: Types of Transmigration

General transmigration (transmigrasi umum): government-sponsored transmigration. The government provides transportation to the settlement site, a house and farming plot, infrastructure and a living allowance intended to support the transmigrant family usually for the first 18 months.

Spontaneous transmigration: divided further into two types ie. assisted spontaneous transmigration (transmigrasi swakarsa berbantuan) and self-supporting spontaneous transmigration (transmigrasi swakarsa mandiri). Assisted spontaneous transmigration is supported by the government in co-operation with businesses or investors related to certain schemes; and the self-supporting spontaneous transmigration is carried out by the community concerned, individually or by a group of people. Although self-supporting spontaneous transmigrants are more independent than assisted transmigrants, both types receive a plot that has been surveyed and titled by the government.

Local transmigration (transmigrasi lokal): the migration of people to resettlement areas within the same province or region. These settlements are for those displaced by "development" projects such as dams or the Central Kalimantan mega-project (PLG), for victims of natural disasters and for people removed from areas declared forest or nature reserves.

The transmigration programme has, at various times, also been divided into different schemes, namely:

• Transabangdep (village potential development): where the local authorities in destination regions request groups of transmigrants to support the development of the regions/villages;
• PIR-Trans (Nucleus Estate Smallholders transmigration scheme): groups of transmigrants are resettled and work on NES (cash-crop plantation) projects;
• Kehutanan/HTI (Forestry/Industrial Forestry Estate): similar to PIR-trans but the transmigrants are engaged in forestry/timber plantation projects;
• Ternak (livestock);Nelayan/Tambak (Fishery); Jasa/Industri (Public service and industry): each refers to the main field of work in the destination transmigration regions or sites.

Appendix 2

Table A1: Resettlement figures in the period 1994-2000 (family/yr)

	1994/1995		1995/1996		1996/1997		1999/2000 * (per Nov 1999)
	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation
General transmigration (fully sponsored) Transmigrasi Umum	24,274	23,681 (97.55%)	26,955	26,375 (97.84%)	39,298	37,722 (95.90%)	7,586	2,280 (30.06%)
Assisted - spontaneous transmigration Transmigrasi Swakarsa Berbantuan	25,726	25,719 (99.97%)	23,045	22,947 (99.57%)	18,202	18,527 (101.78%)	2,064	453 (21.95%)
Self-supporting spontaneous transmigrationTransmigrasi Swakarsa Mandiri	15,000	15,000 (100%)	27,000	27,000 (100%)	35.000	34,513 (98.60%)	6,585	1,676 (25.45%)
Total	65,000	64.400 (99.07%)	77,000	76322 (99,12%)	92,500	90,762 (98.12%)	16,235	4,409 (27.26%)

*The official report available at time of writing

Note: No resettlement figures were available from SMTP for 1997/98 (in publication) and 1998/99. However, other sources report that in 1997/98 a total of 27,000 families had been resettled in Indonesia. It can be assumed that this figure dropped again in the following year and that not more than 15,000 – 20,000 families were resettled due to financial constraints. This means that in REPELITA VI less than 300,000 families were resettled and maybe a third of them were spontaneous transmigrants.

Table A2: Resettlement by type and scheme

	1994/1995		1995/1996		1996/1997		1999/2000 (per Nov 1999)
	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation	Target	Realisation
Pola TU (General)	24,274	23,681 (97.55%)	26,955	26,375 (97.84%)	39,298	37,722 (95.90%)	7,586	2,280 (30.06%)
Transabangdep (Village's potential development)	3,276	3,139 (95,81%)	4,518	4,468 (98.89%)	2,945	2,874 (97,58%)	0	0
PIR-trans (Nucleus Estate Smallholder scheme)	16,340	16,305 (99,78%)	16,672	16,652 (99.88%)	13,990	13,716 (98.04%)	1,469	340 (23.14%)
Ternak (Husbandry)	719	719 (100%)	400	400 (100%)	100	100 (100%)	210	45 (21.43%)
Kehutanan/HTI (Forestry/Industrial Forestry Estate)	5,391	5,500 (102.02%)	1,209	562 ( 46.48%)	749	1,418 (189.31%)	0	0
Jasa/Industri (Public service and industry)	50	36 (72%)	186	158 (84.94%)	31	31 (100%)	0	0
Nelayan/Tambak (Fishery)	0	0	60	60 (100%)	387	388 (100.25%)	385	68 (17.66%)
Transmigrasi Swakarsa Mandiri (Spontaneous)	15,000	15,000 (100%)	27,000	27,000 (100%)	35,000	34,513 (98.60%)	6,585	1,676 (25.45%)
TSM non-programme	-	-	-	-		5,811
Total	65,050	64,380 (98,97%)	77,000	75,675 (98,27%)	92,500	90,762 (+5,811) (98%/104%)	16,235	4,409 (27.16%)

Appendix 3: Number of Refugees according to their origin and place of shelter

Distribution of Refugees	Origin of Refugees
	D.I. Aceh	West Kalimantan	Ambon	Ternate	East Timor	Total
D.I. Aceh	86	0	0	0	0	86
North Sumatra	4,979	0	0	0	0	4,979
West Sumatra	99	0	0	0	0	99
Riau	638	0	0	0	0	638
Jambi	298	0	0	0	0	298
Bengkulu	16	0	0	0	0	16
South Sumatra	328	0	0	0	0	328
Lampung	102	0	0	0	0	102
West Kalimantan	0	5,962	0	0	0	5,962
Central Kalimantan	0	0	0	0	0	0
North Sulawesi	0	0	0	2,761	76	2,837
South Sulawesi	0	0	0	0	821	821
Southeast Sulawesi	0	0	0	0	63	63
West Nusa Tenggara	0	119	109	0	25	253
East Nusa Tenggara	0	0	24	0	38,406	38,430
Maluku	0	0	0	11,950	0	11,950
West Java	768	28	25	0	47	868
Central Java	845	37	16	0	95	993
D.I. Yogyakarta	30	6	0	0	5	41
East Java	268	4,983	37	0	25	5,313
Bali	0	0	0	0	704	704
Total	8,457	11,135	211	14,711	40,267	74,781

Source: SMTP (2000)

Appendix 4: Number of Transmigrant Refugees according to their origin and place of shelter

Distribution of Refugees	Refugees of Transmigration Site Origin
	D.I. Aceh	West Kalimantan	East Timor	Maluku	Total
D.I. Aceh	86	0	0	0	86
North Sumatra	101	0	0	0	101
West Sumatra	99	0	0	0	99
Riau	638	0	0	0	638
Jambi	298	0	0	0	298
Bengkulu	16	0	0	0	16
South Sumatra	328	0	0	0	328
Lampung	102	0	0	0	102
West Kalimantan	0	0	0	0	0
Central Kalimantan	0	0	0	0	0
North Sulawesi	0	0	0	0	0
South Sulawesi	0	0	0	0	0
Southeast Sulawesi	0	0	0	0	0
West Nusa Tenggara	0	119	0	109	228
East Nusa Tenggara	0	0	0	24	24
Maluku	0	0	0	0	0
West Java	768	28	0	25	821
Central Java	848	37	95	16	996
D.I. Yogyakarta	30	6	5	0	41
East Java	268	0	25	37	330
Bali	0	0	704	0	704
Total	3,582	190	829	211	4,812

Source: SMTP (January, 2000)