Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - Lawmakers have called on the government to review the existence of Greenpeace in Indonesia following a series of incidents that they say were triggered by the organization's reluctance to comply with the country's laws.
Speaking at a discussion on Wednesday, Democratic Party lawmaker Achsanul Qasasi said the government had been too lenient with Greenpeace despite the absence of an official permit for it to operate in Indonesia and its reports over various issues, including illegal logging and forest conversion, which had been made with "the intent to corner Indonesian government".
"Despite their reputation, all international NGOs, including Greenpeace, must comply with Indonesian laws and regulations once they decide to come here [to operate]," he said.
Desmond Junaidi Mahesa of the Greater Indonesia Movement Party agreed while at the same time questioning Greenpeace's tendency to "attack" Indonesian companies and authorities but remain silent about environmental issues linked to giant US companies, like Freeport and Newmont, which have enormous gold mining areas in Indonesia.
"There are reasons to believe that many international NGOs like Greenpeace have been running illegal economic investigations in Indonesia besides their formal missions," he said, referring to the organizations' funding, which mostly comes from foreign donors.
Earlier this month, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven was denied entry into Indonesia at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, in spite of Sauven holding an official visa issued by the Indonesian Embassy in London. An immigration spokesman said the measure had been taken "to run the organization's intelligence function."
A few days later, immigration officials tried to deport British Greenpeace campaigner Andrew Ross Tait at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta on Saturday as he departed with Mas Achmad Santosa, a member of the presidential Judicial Corruption Task Force, Greenpeace Indonesia activists and several UK officials to inspect deforestation in Kalimantan.
In July, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR), a local organization, claimed that Greenpeace was an illegal organization because it had not registered with the Jakarta administration's National and Political Unity Agency.
Greenpeace responded by saying that it was not a civil organization and should therefore be exempt from the law on public organizations and be obliged only to register with the Law and Human Rights Ministry.
There are no comments yet