Inizia
la rassegna sui membri del CIO (Comitato Internazionale Olimpico), l'associazione
che decide le sorti dello sport (eccettuata forse la Formula1) nel mondo.
Proponiamo,
per primo in vetrina, Mohamad Bob Hasan;
69
anni, membro indonesiano del santo consesso dal 1994.
Uno
dei migliori amici, servitori e ministri di Suharto, il dittatore
d'Indonesia.
Grazie
a questo immenso potere politico, Hasan è diventato uno dei principali
DEVASTATORI di foreste tropicali del mondo.
Talmente
devastatore che addirittura il FMI (Fondo Monetario Internazionale) gli
ha voltato le spalle due anni or sono.
Nella
sua opera distruttiva non ha esitato a sradicare, spossessare, traslocare
i Bentian Dayak, popolazione indigena da sempre abitante le foreste. Sono
una realtà le accuse di genocidio indirizzategli: i Bentian del
distretto di Kutai hanno fatto appello alla Commissione Nazionale Indonesiana
per i Diritti Umani.
Di
Bob Hasan ha parlato Andrew Jennings
- il giornalista e scrittore britannico che da anni svela i peggiori retroscena
del CIO - nella sua deposizione davanti al Senato degli Stati Uniti d'America
ad aprile del 1999 (ove, of course, ha anche ricordato il passato
fascista del presidente Juan Antonio Samaranch).
Qui
sotto potete leggere un articolo e due estratti in lingua inglese che si
occupano di Hasan: vi consigliamo di leggerli, di rifletterci sopra. E
chiedervi infine se le nobili affermazioni, declamazioni, patinate pubblicazioni
del CIO su ambiente e rispetto dei diritti umani.. abbiano un fondamento
di verità (noi, siamo convinti di no).
Marzo
2001: Bob Hasan condannato a 6 anni di reclusione!
Bob
Hasan già condannato in primo grado per lo scandalo delle truffe
e concessioni forestali è stato definitivamente riconosciuto colpevole
dall'Alta Corte di Jakarta e sconterà 6 anni di reclusione in carcere,
dovendo inotre restituire le somme intere : 243 milioni di dollari! (Fonte:
Deseret News, 15 marzo 2001).
Ricordiamo
che, durante le olimpiadi del 2000 a Sidney, il Presidente del CIO Samaranch
ebbe il coraggio di chiedere alle autorità indonesiane di lasciare
libero il fellone perchè potesse partecipare all'evento!!
1
A
Timber Tycoon's Trophies
Why
is one of Asia's most unscrupulous foresters winning environmental awards?
by
Leslie Weiss
November
18, 1997
If
you didn't know any better, you'd think Indonesian timber tycoon Mohamad
"Bob" Hasan was a champion of the environment. He's received at least three
awards from U.S. groups for his contributions to the environment in the
past year alone.
In
April, Hasan's timber conglomerate, the Kalimanis Group, was recognized
by Clinton administration officials for efforts to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Then the dean of North Carolina State University's College of
Forest Resources named Hasan an honorary professor at the August ribbon-cutting
of his new pulp and paper mill in East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo.
"It is rare that a person emerges to have the potential of teaching the
entire world," Dean Larry Tombaugh said.
| Hasan
also won the "Harry A. Merlo Award" for environmental achievements from
the Oregon-based World Forestry Center. "In Indonesia, you are not allowed
to own the forest -- the forest is owned by the government and its people,"
Hasan modestly notes in a WFC video tribute to himself. "We are only given
time to manage it... If we manage it on a sustainable basis, we can continue." |
|
Bob the
Pyromaniac
What is
sustainable to Hasan, apparently, is anything but sustainable to forests.
Hasan, who heads Indonesia's forest industries, is the man behind the nation's
destructive slash-and-burn forestry.
The
Far
Eastern Economic Review says that Hasan "has been unquestionably the
strongest player in setting Indonesia's forest policies." These policies,
says Stephanie Fried, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense
Fund, "have led to the liquidation of Indonesia's forest resource base,
sparked major conflicts with indigenous peoples and other forest dwellers,
and, in the final analysis, set the stage for the current fires."
In
1993, one of Hasan's companies, PT Kalhold Utama, bulldozed and burned
hundreds of acres of forested land used by a community of indigenous Dayak
people for rattan and fruit production. The company -- in a move documented
by the World Bank -- also bulldozed graves of the community's dead.
According
to Christopher Hatch of the Rainforest Action Network, Hasan's Kalimanis
Group, with timber holdings spanning 7,700 square miles in Kalimatan, is
"one of the most voracious, barbaric conglomerates in the world."
Even
the Indonesian government -- a corrupt operation that normally scratches
Hasan's back -- has begun to criticize his companies' practices. In September
the Environmental Minister pegged three of Hasan's companies as being among
those that deliberately set the forest fires that are still raging in Indonesia.
Hasan's
responsibility, though, extends far beyond his own companies' practices.
As chairman of Apkindo, a government-sanctioned cartel that regulates $3.7
billion in annual plywood exports, he plays a major role in establishing
industrywide forestry practices. On behalf of the industry, he has denied
any blame for the tragic fires, and instead blames peasant farmers.
Gurmit
Singh, head of the Center for Environment, Technology and Development,
a Malaysian environmental organization, says farmers clearing plots with
fire are responsible for 10 to 20 percent of the damage at the most.
How Does
Bob Get Away With It?
Worth
an estimated $1 billion, Hasan is one of Indonesia's major industrial players.
He owns interests in media, banking, and insurance corporations, and is
chairman of Astra, one of the nation's largest auto manufacturers. He is
also a confidante and golfing buddy of President Suharto (Hasan also putted
around at last year's Bob Hope Classic) -- a profitable relationship in
a country where the president's family and friends hold much of the wealth.
"Given
the immense amount of profit accruing to companies involved in the forestry
and plantation sector, there has been a lack of political will to enforce
the most basic forestry regulations," Fried says.
One
environmental worker in Indonesia, fearing bodily harm, would speak about
Hasan only under the condition of anonymity: "He is very powerful. He is
very close to the president. He is beyond the law."
Hasan's
Gifts
Two of
Hasan's timber operations are enjoying favorable treatment by the U.S.
government. Last April, the United States Initiative on Joint Implementation
(USIJI), a Clinton
administration project, announced a new partnership with the two logging
concessions and honored Hasan's Kalimanis Group conglomerate at a White
House ceremony. The partnership was one of 10 new projects announced by
USIJI, which facilitates investment by U.S. companies into foreign-based
industries working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The
Indonesia
project, USIJI officials say, will implement "reduced impact logging"
on 1,480 acres of Hasan's timber concessions to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Over the next 40 years, 56,400 tons of carbon will be "saved" as a result.
So far, though, nothing's been saved -- a U.S. investor for the project
has yet to be found. (Fifty-six thousand tons of carbon is a "miniscule
amount," notes scientist Darren Goetze of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Each year, he says, the U.S. alone emits close to 5.5 billion tons of carbon.)
Asked
about the environmentally unsound practices of Hasan's companies, USIJI
Deputy Director Paul Schwengels says the USIJI isn't supposed to look at
a company's track record -- it just evaluates the proposed project for
its future environmental benefits.
"We've
heard anecdotal stories about Bob Hasan. We know what goes on in Indonesia,"
says the USIJI's Kurt Zwally. Adds Schwengels: "We don't necessarily say
that this company -- everything it does -- benefits the environment....
We are asking companies to do something that benefits the environment that
they wouldn't otherwise do."
That's
pretty much Dean Tombaugh's explanation for bestowing an honorary professorship
on Hasan at the opening of the Kiani Kertas pulp mill -- the largest in
Southeast Asia. "I would be the last to proclaim to be an expert about
Indonesia, but it has appeared to me... the environmental future of that
country is in the hands of a few major industrialists. And Mr. Hasan is
one of them," Tombaugh says.
He
adds that Hasan, who made a "small gift" to North Carolina State University
-- somewhere in the range of $100,000 to $150,000 -- is going to practice
forestry no matter what, so he figured that a little award might open a
dialog between the timber baron and the academic community in the West.
Such a relationship might provide Hasan with an incentive to practice sustainable
forestry, Tombaugh says.
In
Oregon, meanwhile, Hasan's award for his extraordinary achievements in
forest stewardship from the World Forestry
Center can be explained in one sentence: He sits on the board of this
timber industry front group.
Leslie
Weiss is a freelance writer based in California.
Un
grazie di cuore, Leslie!
PS. il 9 gennaio 2003, a più di 5 anni dalla pubblicazione
dell'articolo, e a due anni dalla nostra ri-pubblicazione, ci è
giunta una email del Sig. Kurt Zwally, citato sopra, il quale chiedeva
che la sua frase fosse cancellata poichè "non si ricordava di
averla mai pronunciata".
Gli abbiamo detto di rivolgersi alla giornalista, ed
eventualmente in un secondo tempo a noi.
2
Da
una mailing list del 1997 curata dal Istituto Finlandese Ricerche Forestali,
Helsinki.
"BOB
HASAN GETS ENVIRONMENT PRIZE
President
Suharto's right hand man, Bob Hasan, was awarded the prestigious
Indonesian
environment prize - the Kalpataru - by Environment Minister
Sarwono
on World Environment Day (June 5th). The Kalpataru awards were
created
by the then Environment Minister, Emil Salim, over fifteen years ago
to
acknowledge the achievements of ordinary people and public figures who
had
protected the environment. Past winners include the radical journalist,
environmentalist
and academic George Aditjondro, now in exile in Australia.
It
is hard to imagine a less appropriate recipient of this prize than
Mohammad
'Bob' Hasan. Best known as Indonesia's top timber tycoon, who
controls
numerous trade and producer associations in the forestry industry,
Bob
Hasan has recently been playing an increasingly prominent role in the
country's
strategic business affairs. Under his reign, Indonesia's forests
have
been mercilessly plundered by a handful of well-connected businessmen
with
total disregard for the environment and the rights of indigenous
forest-dwelling
communities. Indonesians joke that he - not Djamaludin - is
the
Minister of Forestry.
At
least one Indonesian NGO is convinced that Hasan was awarded the
Kalpataru
to counter publicity generated by the recent award of the
'environmental
Nobel' - the US Goldman prize - to the Bentian Dayak people
of
East Kalimantan. There has been a long-running dispute between the
Bentian
and Bob Hasan's logging company PT Kalhold Utama. The Bentian are
skilled
agro-foresters who have been managing their traditional lands
sustainably
for generations. Their rattan gardens, fruit trees and other
forest
resources plus ancestral graves have been destroyed by the company in
order
to establish a timber plantation and transmigration site. Indigenous
landowners
have been intimidated by the authorities and some have been
forced
to hand over their land. Others continue to protest. The villagers of
Jelmu
Sibak in Kutai district have appealed to the Indonesian National Human
Rights
Commission to protect their lands".
3
Dal
numero 33 della newsletter "DOWN TO EARTH" ritrovabile sul sito dell' Istituto
Finlandese Ricerche Forestali, Helsinki. GRAZIE!
"Bob
Hasan began his assault on the forests in 1972 when, on the
recommendation
of friends in the military, he was given a 10% stake in the
local
subsidiary of US-based loggers Georgia Pacific. he soon acquired the
remaining
90% of the company and went on to build his Kalimanis timber
empire.
In the 1980s he founded APKINDO, the state-sanctioned cartel that
controls
Indonesia's plywood exports.
On
several occasions Hasan has attempted to counter critics at home and
abroad
by launching aggressive campaigns to convince the world that
Indonesian
forests are being well-managed under in the timber industry's
capable
hands. Such campaigns have included organising 'seminars' in
consumer
countries, advertising in newspapers and TV channels in Europe and
the
US. The UK television advertisement was withdrawn after complaints from
environmental
organisations, including DtE, that it was highly misleading.
'Uncle
Bob' has also accused NGOs campaigning against destructive logging
and
violation of indigenous rights of being stooges of timber producers in
their
own countries who want to gain a larger share of world markets.
The
Indonesian Environment Forum WALHI is currently taking the Indonesian
President
to court for approving a loan of Rp250 billion (over US$100
million)
from state reforestation funds to help build Bob Hasan's PT Kiani
Kertas
paper and pulp plant in East Kalimantan. The funds were transferred
in
December by Presidential Decree. This is almost half the government's
total
revenue of reforestation funds for last year.
Hasan's
influence is extending to other strategic areas of the Indonesian
economy.
In February he took over as chairman of car-maker conglomerate
Astra
International. He also brokered the deal to settle the interminable
squabble
over the Busang gold mine, securing a free 30% stake before the
hoax
over the samples was exposed. Bob Hasan, who is 66, has been a friend
of
the President for more than 40 years and his role as Suharto's closest
confident
has increased since the death of the leader's wife, Tien, last
April.
Hasan's
prominent role means that his word carries more weight even than
ministers
in the Indonesian government. In forestry, and now in other areas,
his
and the first family's business interests are paramount. Hasan is well
and
truly centre-stage and, as long as he stays there, this can only mean
bad
news for forests, forest-dwellers and many others whose interests
conflict
with his own.