by Nurul Firmansyah

(Coordinator of HuMa Association Program)

Introduction

Traditional villages, also known as nagari, huta, marga, and others, are governance units (political), social, economic, and cultural of customary law communities. Traditional villages are original structures that have ancestral rights in the form of rights to manage the territory (ulayat rights) and to manage the life of their customary law community. In carrying out this management, traditional villages are based on customary law to regulate and manage the life of the customary law community and its customary territory.

During the New Order regime, traditional villages faced tremendous pressure from the state through the standardization of village governance systems into centralized administrative units through Law 5/79 concerning Villages. Villages (including traditional villages) were no longer empowered to manage the customary law community based on customary law. New Order villages had become an “extension of the central government” acting and behaving uniformly under centralistic command. Traditional villages then disintegrated as governance, social, economic, and cultural units of the customary law community. Traditional villages were fragmented into administrative villages or not recognized as the original governance units of the customary law community.

As a result, traditional village territories were divided in resource management sectors by the government through sectoral laws on Natural Resources, such as Forestry Law, Mining Law, and others. Ulayat rights became fragmented pieces in the hands of land, forest, and mining managers within government institutions. As a consequence, customary law communities lost control and access to their natural resources. Conflicts erupted everywhere. According to HuMa records (2012), there were 232 natural resource and agrarian conflicts. Conflicts occurred in 98 cities/districts in 22 provinces. The conflict area reached 2,043,287 hectares (ha), or more than 20,000 square kilometers (km²), with 91,968 victims from 315 customary law communities.

Regional Autonomy; “Far from the Fire”

The collapse of the New Order regime that gave birth to the 1999 reformasi led to a change in the governance structure from centralistic to decentralistic or commonly known as regional autonomy. Regional autonomy, however, did not change much for traditional villages and customary law communities. The reformasi only resulted in the delegation of authority from the central government to local governments (regional autonomy). In this context, villages remained as governance units carrying out administrative functions, which were previously dominated by the central government and now dominated by local governments.

In some places, certain local governments seized the change in the governance system to strengthen villages through the legal basis of Regional Regulation and Government Regulation 72/2005 concerning Villages. The implementation of this strengthening through Regional Regulations (Provinces and Districts) regulating villages, including traditional villages, as seen in West Sumatra Province with nagari and Bali Province with traditional villages and administrative villages. However, this strengthening has not been able to restore the integrity of traditional villages and their ancestral rights. Villages still function as administrative governance units carrying out tasks assigned by the central and local governments, while traditional villages remain fragmented within administrative villages.

Even though there are administrative villages that have the same territory as traditional villages, like nagari in West Sumatra, there is still a dualism in the village governance system between administrative villages led by the village head and traditional villages led by the Customary Village Council (KAN). This institutional dualism creates conflicts in authority, especially regarding the management of customary territory (ulayat rights). This results in the weakened vitality of nagari (traditional villages) in asserting their ancestral rights. Meanwhile, control over natural resources remains in the hands of the central government. The central government still dominates its authority over land, forests, and other natural resources. Customary lands (ulayat) are still divided by the government for natural resource management.

Traditional Villages in the Village Law: “New Hope”

Law 6/2014 (Village Law) seeks to rectify the State’s mistakes in regulating villages and customary law communities. The Village Law aims to restore the ancestral rights inherent in traditional villages to manage the life of the customary law community and the governance of its customary territory (ulayat rights). The Village Law accommodates traditional villages and their ancestral rights through the regulation of online casinos{{PLACEHOLDER