World Ocean Conference (WOC) Burdened With The Human Rights Violations

May 18, 2009

The World Ocean Conference (WOC) “Climate Change Impacts to Ocean and The Role of Ocean to Climate Change” is currently held in Manado, North Sulawesi, 11-14 May 2009. The WOC will be followed by the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) on 15 May 2009. The CTI is intended to protect the coral reefs, the sustainability of fisheries resources and food security.

The WOC is burdened with violations of civil and political rights. Before the beginning of the WOC, traditional fisherfolks have not been given a place to express their basic rights. The police has in a repressive measure disbaned events of the civil society that criticize policies, has arrested activists and deported fisherfolks and environmental activists who are voicing basic rights and talking about the crisis experienced by fisherfolks which never has been considered by the WOC. The practices of security forces reflect that the State is ignoring the right of freedom of association, the right of assembly and of freedom of opinion in public as is guaranteed and protected by the Constitution.

There are strong indications that after the World Ocean Conference further violations of civil and political rights will occur again, as Indonesia and other countries will decide on agreements without any participation of the coastal population and fisherfolks. National security apparatus will criminalize fisherfolk by pretending that fisherfolks are violating the agreement made by the state. But unil today, fisherfolks have been ignored nd their traditional rights and traditional management are not acknowledged by the state and the actors involved in the WOC.

The WOC is breaching economic, social and cultural rights, too. This is evident in the Indonesian policies, which prohibit fishing during the WOC. Therefore, the word of the WOC as a world forum representing the interests of the people is far from reality. Instead, the WOC is far from giving a portrait of the crisis of marine life and the crisis experienced by fisherfolks.

Principle issues like constitutional rights of traditional fisherfolks and people living in coastal areas and small islands, both male and female, are being neglected by both international meetings. If the WOC is pushing further its agenda, it will further put fisherfolks – who are suppliers of protein – into marginalization and into deeper poverty.

The civil society movement, particularly the fisherfolks and environmental movements in Indonesia, consider the WOC as just a tool to legitimize the liberalization of marine resources and to impoverish fisherfolks by the various development policies. The WOC is a serious threat to the sovereignty of maritime countries such as Indonesia. Indeed, the CTI legitimizes the „sale“ of Indonesia´s sea resources.

The CTI is weakening the sovereingty of archipelago countries like Indonesia and other third world countries, particularly their traditional fisherfolks. WOC – CTI only strengthen nature conservation as part of the free market. For example, the WOC will announce the expansion of the conservation area of the Sawu Sea from 40 thousand ha to be 400 thousand ha, with further planned expansion to 4 million hectares. This is the result of a cooperation between The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Department of Marine and Fisheries. As a result, traditional whales hunting by the Bajo Lamalera community is forbidden since April 2009, which equals the lost of fishermen’s access to and control of their marine resources.

There are indications that conservation in a liberalized market is linked with the BBOP-business and biodiversity offset programme, a joint programme of WWF, TNC and CI and others with international financial institutions and oil and mining companies such as Shell, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Newmont. With this programme, conservation areas will be conversed into mining areas through a scheme of compensation for biological diversity (biodiversity offset). Seeing this clearly, the WOC agenda will legalize sea tailing or waste mining disposal into the sea of island countries and third world countries.

Khalisah Khalid of the National Council of WALHI says that because the „WOC is burdened with with human rights violations and is weakening the sovereignty of a country through agreements made during the WOC, the civil society movement in Indonesia, which consists of the environmental movement, human rights organizations and farmers’ organizations and fisherfolks, calls on the countries participating in the WOC to withdraw their delegation from the World Ocean Conference (WOC).We as civil society declare not to agree with the Manado Declaration wich will be agreed on at the WOC.“

The civil society movement in Indonesia also condemns the New-Order-style repression which still is practiced by the administration of (president) Susila Bambang Yudhoyono and (vice-president) Jusuf Kalla, to silence people`s critical opinions in public which actually are a right guaranteed and protected by the Constitution of Indonesia.

Source: Lingkungan Milist – May 12, 2009

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