Ethical Dilemma -Peura

**Another blog post from online Leadership course this summer.**

So, here’s what I know about the place I am supposed to be making a curriculum for this summer –Peura. Not really sure if this blog post is going to have a point –I more just want to record some information I learned about the other day.

So, Peura. Here’s a link and a video (http://www.insideindonesia.org/weekly-articles-105-jul-sep-2011/the-power-to-rebuild-15101480; http://vimeo.com/27972452; ) if you want to read/watch about the story ) but just briefly: Peura is a town where PT Poso Energy, a national company, set up a hydroelectric plant. They didn’t follow the regulations of their permit and instead of building the plant towers along the mountain ridges, they built it right through the center of town, along with some other violations. The town is bitterly divided over what to do about it. There was some activity around a class action law suit a number of years ago (which my supposed-to-be supervisor, Saras, and my current stand-in supervisor, Sujar, worked on together before there was an internal fight in their organization and they split off), but it was dropped because the town didn’t have a unified stance. Half the town wants to sue PT Poso Energy and kick them out (though the kicking out part is kind of a threat to get them to comply –I don’t know what went into thinking this threat out). The other half is appreciative of development, industry, and their ability to find jobs now. In an area that just recently reached a tenuous end of conflict, old prejudices threaten to flare up.

A weird element of this is that Jusuf Kalla, who was formerly Vice President under current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY –and apparently you can change VPs here) is highly involved in the Peura case on the side of PT Poso Energy (see article.) Jusuf Kalla is also rumored to be lining up to run in the next presidential elections. I mentioned that I wrote a grant that helped Lian and Mosintuwu win $100K –the Coexist Prize. Coexist is an interfaith peace organization, and after Lian won, they asked her to devolve her involvement in the Peura case because it was bad for publicity.

All of this somewhat detrimentally affects what I came here to do. When I met Lian last summer, I told her that I wanted to come work for her, but that I was going to law school, so was there anything I could do from a law perspective? She instantly jumped at the idea –at the time she was in the midst of working with the Peura people –and told me that she needed a curriculum on land and natural resource rights. I worked with her throughout the semester to get a handle on the conflict and how land and natural resource law, and access to justice, was related. But then when I got here, I found out that the Coexist Prize had requested that she tone down her activities in Peura.

This instantly put me ill-at-ease. I certainly don’t want to get Lian or anyone else killed or in trouble, nor myself. And the safety situation here is something I can’t hope to understand. I don’t think people are focused on hurting foreigners –but Lian constantly gets threats and “visitors” to her house –either watching her, or occasionally threatening to burn it down. Both Lian and Sue assured me that working on this curriculum wouldn’t cause any trouble. But I was worried. What if someone caught sight of a bulé (foreigner) trompin’ around Peura with Lian talking to people? Someone humorously reminded me that this is the ex-vice and possibly future president we are talking about –he is unlikely to feel threatened by a bulé in some ratty clothes. So I have been proceeding –albeit without knowing if this is the right ethical decision, personally or professionally (what do you guys think?)

But as a result of this unease, in combination with my personal ethic of not forcing my own agenda onto others unsolicited, I have been holding back in pushing Lian to work with me on developing the curriculum. I am not sure if this has been the right strategy. I finally talked with Sue and Hanna about it last week. Sue has been working with Lian for over 3 years, and Hanna is a bit more forward than I am, and both of them emphasized that I needed to push Lian. Her schedule is way overbooked and so if left to her own devises she will never have time for me, but if I constantly pester her she will make time. I argued that I didn’t feel comfortable with this. Even people with overbooked schedules prioritize. They do the stuff that’s most important to them first. If the Peura curriculum wasn’t making it onto the agenda, it meant it wasn’t a top priority. Perhaps even more so because of the Coexist situation. I felt especially uncomfortable pushing her to do something that might be risky for her professionally and even personally. But Sue and Hanna insisted, so I agreed that when I got back I would push her.

That I did and we met a couple of days ago. Although I am not entirely satisfied with the results (see subsequent posts), I did find out some fascinating, if not disheartening, information. I have heard over and over that Lian is “dedicated” and “owes a lot” to the people of Peura. She is a single mom who decided against her family and community’s boding to have her baby. She was subsequently ostracized, and I think Peura took her in. But in addition, back when the situation was really heated in Peura, Lian was their faithful, and only rational, leader.

She told me a story about how one night a group of male NGO workers came to her house in the middle of the night to tell her that 45 men from Peura were rallying to ride their motorcycles to the local police department and burn it down. The NGO workers solicited her help in convincing the men not to do it, which she did and succeeded. After that, the NGO workers met a few times at Lian’s house to explain the entire situation in Peura and all the problems there. They subsequently dropped the entire issue in Lian’s lap. Lian, a less than 5 foot woman on crutches, proceeded to ringlead a bunch of rowdy, and righteously angry, Peura men. She told them she wouldn’t work to help them unless they submitted entirely to her and only did what she told them, and ran all their “ideas” by her. She laughed as she told me that finally the men came to her and said “Ok, what if we don’t burn the police station down? What if we just drive by at midnight and all honk our horns?” She gave them the go ahead. In the meantime, while she was breaking her back to mitigate the situation, the NGO workers who had dropped the problem on her had left the region and were campaigning for themselves with the media and government about all the work they were doing in Peura. Not only was Lian completely abandoned to single-handedly mitigate the conflict, but she was taken advantage of and exploited for the benefit of the NGO workers as well.

I hope I am finally going to get to go to Peura and meet these people next Wednesday (please don’t let any unforeseen events –all to common here, spring up and get in the way). I will not only get to learn about the mysterious “cultural context” of Peura (each community here has a vastly different culture, laws, norms, etc.) but will also get to ask them questions (my most burning one –who has TITLE to the land in Peura), and what they want out of the curriculum. This is an element that is so cool about working at Mosintuwu. Lian doesn’t want me to create a curriculum about what I think is valuable from my reading, or even from meeting with my legal supervisor. She wants to go ask the people of Peura what they want to learn. Lets just hope I have time to get all that down into a curriculum before I leave.