Armed men raid village on Sumatra

The men were masked and wore helmets and black uniforms. “They were armed with machetes, electric shock devices, and batons,” reported Jhontoni from the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples in the land of the Tano Batak, AMAN.

It appears likely that the pulp company Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) hired the 150 attackers, as their vehicles belonged to the company’s security service.

TPL has produced pulp, paper, and viscose near Lake Toba since 1989. The company is largely responsible for destroying rainforests and polluting the air and water in northern Sumatra. Toba Pulp Lestari has repeatedly responded to resistance against land grabbing with violence.

On September 22, in Sihaporas, the attackers ransacked houses, damaged motorcycles, and destroyed part of the community hall. They brutally beat women who tried to protect the building. Residents fear further attacks. The previous year, fifty armed men ambushed five residents of Sihaporas and took them to prison.

The village of Sihaporas

The people of Sihaporas are Indigenous Toba Batak. They have lived there for about 200 years and are deeply connected to the forest. They earn their livelihoods through farming, forest products, and sugar palms (Arenga pinnata). They are also known for their rituals that use medicinal plants from the forest.

About forty years ago, however, TPL began seizing parts of the Sumatran rainforest, clearing it, and establishing eucalyptus plantations. Today, TPL controls nearly 300,000 hectares of land – both rainforest and plantations. More than 30,000 hectares of that area are ancestral lands belonging to 23 villages.

Since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998, the Sihaporas community has been demanding the return of its ancestral land. The people have repeatedly appealed to the authorities and the company, marked their territory with boundary posts, and put up signs forbidding entry – all without success.

Toba Pulp Lestari must be shut down

Many groups in North Sumatra, along with AMAN Tano Batak, are calling for action. “Too many Indigenous Batak have fallen victim to the violence of the paper industry,” says the movement “Shut Down Toba Pulp Lestari” (Tutup TPL!). Violence against Indigenous communities has escalated in recent years.

Since the well-known Indigenous elder Sorbatua Sialagan was sentenced to two years in prison last year, the Tutup TPL movement has spread throughout the province.

Violence in Sihaporas – good news from Simenakhenak

The neighboring village of Simenakhenak, whose traditional lands were also taken over by Toba Pulp Lestari, was officially recognized as an “Indigenous customary community” with support from Rainforest Rescue and AMAN Tano Batak and has regained rights to 252 hectares of forest.

Read the report from our project on reforestation of the former TPL eucalyptus plantation.

Toba Pulp Lestari and APRIL

Toba Pulp Lestari is linked to the pulp and paper conglomerate APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited), which operates under the Royal Golden Eagle holding.

APRIL is one of the world’s largest pulp producers and manufactures paper, pulp, and viscose for global markets in Indonesia, China, and Brazil.

The APRIL subsidiary Mayawana Persada is destroying orangutan forest in Borneo for paper production.

Rainforest destruction and violence against Indigenous and other communities have fueled the profitability of the pulp business.

Please support our petition: Stop APRIL, Indonesia’s ruthless paper and pulp giant!