Richard Ness : Blog : Buyat Bay and NGO Accountability

Buyat Bay and NGO Accountability - 25 Jan 2007
by Eric

Yesterday, my Dad completed the presentation of his pledoi (English | Bahasa) to the court. Even though the written arguments were more than 300 pages long, the court and the audience were riveted by his arguments, and the presentation of video clips of past witnesses had quite an impact.

Now the whole world can’t help but know that there is no pollution in Buyat Bay. With this last pledoi (English | Bahasa), my Dad has steered the discussion of the Buyat Bay controversy in a new direction- one that is of immense policy importance. In the conclusion of his presentation, my Dad asked the court to look into the illegal acts of many individuals who manipulated the public and the Government into pursuing this case. Some of these individuals were funded by politicians, and some of them are from prominent NGOs in Indonesia. My Dad appealed to court and the public to hold these individuals accountable, as their actions have caused considerable waste of resources, emotional pain and economic hardship.

The question “Is Buyat Bay polluted?” has been answered—there is no pollution in Buyat, and the legal and technical facts provide definitive proof of this conclusion. The question that remains unanswered is why did some public officials and members of NGOs behave irresponsibly and unethically, and resort to pure lies (not exaggerations) to create this case. Who is going to hold them accountable? These persons have clearly undermined the legitimacy of NGOs and public agencies, and that is a major blow to the process of institutional development and governance in a fledgling democracy like Indonesia.

I will devote several blogs in the next few weeks to the topic of public accountability of NGOs. This theme occupies a central place in a recently released documentary titled “Mine Your Own Business”. Yesterday, Moving Picture Institute (MPI) hosted the screening of this documentary at the National Geographic auditorium in Washington, DC. “Mine Your Own Business” raises some valuable questions about the consequences of extreme environmentalism. The MPI website (www.thempi.org) describes Mine Your Own Business as “the first documentary that asks the hard questions of those who lead campaigns to “save” remote areas from development. The film is a journey through the dark side of environmentalism and exposes the unintended consequences of blindly supporting environmentalist anti-development campaigns across the globe”. The directors of this documentary Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney conducted research at three mines sites in Romania, Madagascar and Chile in an attempt to understand the impact of environmental campaigns on local peoples. In the case of these three mining projects, they found that environmental campaigns, in effect, were destroying economic opportunities for poor villagers in remote areas, and in effect, were perpetuating their poverty.

The actions of some of the NGOs portrayed in this documentary parallels my Dad’s experience in this Buyat Bay case. People like Rignolda and Raja Siregar have utilized well-planned misinformation campaigns and lies in the name of environmentalism. Dr. Jane Pangemanan did not hesitate to misrepresent the illnesses in the Buyat Bay community as mercury poisoning. Such allegations were decisively disproved by the WHO, CSIRO and other governmental reports. These individuals have been discredited now in the court. But the salient question is: will these NGOs resort to these methods again? I plan to continue this debate further in the weeks to come. The time has come for NGOs to become more thoughtful, and more truthful in their campaigns.

But for now I hope that you will find the time to take a look at the pleido my Dad wrote. I have read it – and it is a political thriller, a legal document and, above all, a very sad story. I would strongly recommend reading the conclusions (English | Bahasa) he presented to the court.