GREENPEACE MINISTER GOT FIRED FOR NEPOTISM, INDONESIA WILL FOLLOW?
By Farid Abdullah A few days ago a minister got fired over a huge scandal in the otherwise boring Scandinavian political arena. Finland’s International Development Minister and Green Party member Heidi Hautala denied she had personally ordered state-owned Arctia Shipping to drop criminal charges levied by the company against Greenpeace[i] . The charges were related to a 1 May 2012 protest against oil and gas exploration in the Arctic in which some 20 Greenpeace activists boarded an icebreaker in Helsinki harbor, locked themselves onto the ship, and attached banners to its sides. Despite previously having denied any links to the scandal, Hautala, who is in charge of oversight of state-owned companies, acknowledged on Friday, 11 October 2013 that both her assistant and a high-ranking ministry official were responsible for dissuading Arctia Shipping from filing charges against the environmental activists. Hautala is known to have close links to Greenpeace and other environmental NGOs; however, she denied that she acted to protect the organization. Nevertheless, a few days ago and over a year later the embattled minister resigned in disgrace. And rightly so. In Indonesia SBY administration officials are less bothered by such issues, as no such critical view is presented by the opposition. Challenging the president, unless it is over corruption is, taboo. After all, going after some big, rich, conglomerate is more in line with the populist perspectives of Indonesians today who want to get even with the evil rich. And it satisfies many of the old post-1998 Reformasi activists who are stuck in a time wrap of their own glory days long gone but continue to enjoy the sponsorship of U.S aid agencies. In October 2011 the head of the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force, Mas Achmad Santosa, interfered with Indonesian immigration to let previously banned Greenpeace activist Andrew Tait back into the country. Achmad Santosa, also called Ota was sent to "fix it" and to coordinate the lifting of Tait's name from the immigration red list. Tait’s exemption was coordinated by the Coordinating Minister for Political Legal and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar, and the Chairman of the Task Force Kuntoro.[ii] Later, Kuntoro was quick to blame Indonesia's two leading companies for causing the haze, only to be proven wrong later. The President SBY had to eventually apologize for Kuntoro's words, but none of his officials took the fall for the gaffe. As was the case in Finland elected officials in high offices intervened on behalf of Greenpeace while failing to understand their nepotism actually harms the people who elected them into the office. But the process of activist organizations like Greenpeace, WWF, and others with interfering in the matters of the Indonesian state are the same as in Finland. When non-state actors interfere with the government one should be critical of what is actually going on. Besides, it is known fact that Indonesians pay about 18% of the money collected by Greenpeace Indonesia each year into a murky Greenpeace fund in Holland managed by Wall Street type bankers. And seemingly the Dutch Government does not mind. One official from a Western embassy, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “ The Indonesians are in fact paying for their new colonial masters. Before these masters were once the Dutch and Japanese than followed by the masters were once Red and after being overthrow by Suharto they are now democratic. But soon they will be Green.” Not much has changed except the support of the current SBY administration likely has created an image of invincibility that has contributed to the miscalculation by Greenpeace. This raises the question of why the SBY administration has bet so much on an organization that is now accused of drug possession and piracy by the Russians. But besides the squabbling with the Russians, the SBY administration also failed to see that Greenpeace is faced with serious challenges by the likes of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the New Zealand High Court, the UK, and even Germany. The New Zealanders went so far as to cancel the charity status of Greenpeace after determining that Greenpeace is deliberately using criminal actions to get its message out. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision and threw out appeals by Greenpeace. The Germans changed their tax code over the issue of NGOs, and the Brits are revamping their NGO laws. Even the Australians are redoing their laws after the government finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and realized that activism does indeed harm the economy. An EU study currently underway indicates that a good 30 percent of Greenpeace activists involved in direct action have some form of criminal record. This indicates a troubling trend of activism drifting into militancy. Anton Schneider, an independent researcher for the Institute for European Studies, said, “ 'Activism is not a crime' is a very popular slogan used by groups but the evidence of collusion resulting in property damage and in the case of Turkey loss of life over an environmental demonstration shows that good intention spins quickly out of control.” Activism has an impact and the current, and future, Indonesian administration needs to recognize that years of lobbying against Indonesian products contributed to the Indonesian tax payer having to cough up 5 percent more in levies to the World Trade Organization for not being able to get on the "green list" of the WTO due to successful lobbying against Indonesian products. So, activism does work. It hurts the public, it hurts trade, and has not protected the environment. One recent example was the high profile visit to Indonesia of Hollywood star Harrison Ford. As a member of the board of Conservation International, he is flanked by CEOs from Walmart and a prime US Defence contractor. The actor correctly points out that Conservation International pursues U.S. National Security interests. By this admission it is clear the only interest Conservation International serves is that of the United States. At the same time the SBY administration fails to comprehend the strategic implication for the Indonesian State on permitting militant activism to go unchallenged and unchecked. Appeasement policies, which Jakarta is now pursuing, have not worked in the past and will not likely work in the future. Greenpeace and other groups like the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), who in recent days called for campaigns in Indonesia, are in the import/export business of activism. In 2010 Thai activists were detained in Indonesia; in 2013 Indonesian activists trained in Manila by U.S. and German Greenpeace activists were arrested in Korea. Activism does harm. We need to understand and recognize that Greenpeace is no longer the David it claims to be but has in fact become the ugly Goliath that pursues ideologies of dominance through change by any means. [i] http://yle.fi/uutiset/timonen_admits_threatening_icebreaker_bosses/6878509 [ii] http://www.tempo.co/read/news/2011/10/16/206361612/Mas-Achmad-Santosa-Minta-Imigrasi-Bebaskan-Andrew-Taits; 16 October 2011