By Noer Fauzi Rachman*

On Thursday, April 23, 2015, Grandma Asyani (63), and three related defendants were found guilty by the Judge of the Situbondo District Court with a sentence of 1 year in prison, with a probation period of 1 year and 3 months, a fine of 500 million with an alternative of one day in prison.

They were convicted of owning and controlling timber from forests without permission. The judge stated that the defendants Asyani et al., were proven legally and convincingly to have committed criminal acts, as regulated in Article 12 letter (d) of Law Number 18 of 2013 concerning the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction (Law on P3H).

The article reads, “Any individual is prohibited from loading, unloading, exporting, transporting, controlling, and/or possessing timber from forest logging without permission.” Furthermore, the judge also deemed the actions of Grandma Asyani et al. falling under Article 83 paragraph (1) of the P3H Law, which criminalizes:

“An individual who intentionally (a) loads, unloads, exports, transports, controls, and/or possesses timber from forest logging without permission; (b) transports, controls, or possesses timber that is not accompanied by valid forest product certificates, and (c) utilizes timber suspected to come from illegal logging.”

Grandma Asyani et al. refused to be treated as thieves. Therefore, they rejected the verdict and filed an appeal. Grandma Asyani believed that the 7 pieces of teak wood measuring 1.5 meters in diameter and 5-6 cm in diameter were harvested by her late husband from their own land about six years ago, and stored in their house. She asked her nephew to rent a car and bring the wood to a carpenter’s house to make chairs and cradles for massaging babies and children.

Grandma Asyani et al. were reported by four Perhutani officers who did not witness firsthand how the wood was taken from the trees. The reporting witnesses only saw the teak wood pieces at the carpenter’s house, knowing they were there because they were transported by her nephew and the driver. All three were also reported as perpetrators of the crime.

The witnesses reported that one teak tree went missing from the Perhutani RPH Bondowoso estate in Kebun Coto, Kerangstal Village, Jati Batang Village, and they suspected that the teak wood at the carpenter’s house was from that missing tree. Based on the report, Grandma Asyani et al. were arrested by the police, who then processed the case.

The prosecutor worked based on the police files, and the trial proceeded. Grandma Asyani et al. were detained by the police, prosecutor, and court for 100 days. They were allowed to serve the remainder of their detention outside after the case received widespread attention, including from the mass media, the Regent of Situbondo, Dadang Wigiyanto, and the Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya.

 

Criminalizing the People

Agrarian political researchers on state forest control in Java have long understood that the control and management of land, teak species, and the people around the forest are key features of post-colonial agrarian forestry politics in Java, rooted in colonial Dutch