The Plight of the Malind Anim: PSN Merauke and Cultural Extinction

Fears of “Ethnocide” as Bioethanol Rice Paddies and Sugarcane Plantations Threaten Indigenous Community in Papua

Plans to convert up to three million hectares in Merauke, Papua, into rice paddies and sugarcane plantations for bioethanol production are raising serious concerns about the potential “ethnocide,” or cultural destruction, of the Malind Anim, one of the largest indigenous groups in South Papua.

The development of this National Strategic Project (PSN), located in the southern part of Papua, began in 2024 and involves the clearing of forests and swampland—an activity that continues to this day. At least 10 major corporations have already secured concessions totaling 563,661 hectares, an area approximately eight times the size of Jakarta.

For the Malind Anim people, the forest is their “mother” and the very foundation of their identity. They consider the forest a “sacred” place, the site of their creation. The destruction of the forest, therefore, equates to cultural extinction.

This food and energy project, initiated during the Joko Widodo administration, has sparked debate among the Malind Anim and academics regarding the erosion of their culture—a process that began during the Dutch colonial era and has continued with subsequent waves of migration and the arrival of corporations promising modernity.

“Since the Dutch colonial era, we, the Malind Anim people, have been oppressed. When the transmigration agreements came into effect, our lands were simply taken,” says Yakobus Mahuze, a member of the current generation of Malind Anim.

“The government simply declared, ‘This land belongs to us; it has been certified, it is a government decision.’ We have lost a great deal of land without compensation.”

Meanwhile, the Minister of Human Rights, Natalius Pigai, has pledged to create policy instruments to audit companies and impose sanctions on those found to have violated human rights in connection with the PSN.

Amidst this situation, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert K. Barume, visited Jayapura, Papua, in early July.

During his unofficial visit, which was not at the invitation of the Indonesian government, he listened to the concerns of indigenous communities in Papua.

“To see, and to hear, so that I can engage in discussions with the [Indonesian] government based on what I understand, from what I have seen,” Barume stated.

In an official statement, Barume emphasized that his visit “highlights the need to engage the government more actively in the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as an instrument designed to reconcile states with their indigenous populations.”

According to a report by the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN)—one of the organizers of the event—communities complained about the appropriation of their ancestral lands, particularly in connection to the PSN food estate in Merauke, South Papua.

“The state has committed crimes by seizing our ancestral lands. This land grabbing is happening throughout Papua, from Sorong to Merauke,” stated Shinta, a Malind Anim member and PSN victim, in a written statement.

Natalis M. Kuyaka, a young Malind Anim man who did not attend the event, expressed hope that the UN Special Rapporteur’s visit would amplify their concerns about the “seizure, encroachment, and confiscation perpetrated by various corporations against the customary rights of indigenous communities.”

“This is about the survival of us Papuans, especially the indigenous Malind people,” he emphasized.

South Papua, particularly Merauke Regency, is being targeted by the government for the development of rice paddies and sugarcane plantations.

At the end of 2024, the Coordinating Minister for Food, Zulkifli Hasan, revealed that land clearing in Merauke could reach three million hectares.

This includes two million hectares for rice cultivation and one million hectares for sugarcane plantations.

The total area is equivalent to five times the size of Bali or 45 times the size of Jakarta.

This project, which is part of the Merauke Food and Energy Estate development program, is projected to be completed within the next five to seven years.

“If we want food self-sufficiency, the president has instructed his ministers, including basic energy self-sufficiency, which requires opening new land,” said Zulhas.

Hashim Djojohadikusumo, Deputy Chairman of the Gerindra Party’s Board of Patrons, claimed that there is no large-scale deforestation occurring as a result of the food estate project in Merauke, South Papua.

“The food estate area in South Papua began with 60% vacant land. There are no trees, no forests. Therefore, the deforestation is not that significant,” said the brother of President Prabowo.

Changes in Nomenclature

Recently, on September 10, 2025, the government changed the status of the Merauke Food and Energy Estate PSN in South Papua Province to the National Food, Energy, and Water Self-Sufficiency Program.

This change was made through Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs Regulation No. 16/2025 regarding the Eighth Amendment to Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Regulation No. 07/2021 concerning Amendments to the List of National Strategic Projects.

Officials at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs were contacted on Tuesday (January 27), but no response has been received as of the publication of this news.

According to Franky Samperante, Executive Director of the Pusaka Bentala Rakyat Foundation, this change in nomenclature will not have any impact on the ground.

“Corporate activities are still ongoing there,” he said.

Franky added that the name change does not address the core issues that have persisted: the recognition and protection of community rights.

With the change in nomenclature, the project will expand its scope of regions and programs in South Papua, including Merauke, Mappi, Asmat, and Boven Digoel.

“So that means it will be expanded throughout the province of South Papua,” he added. This will be accompanied by changes in the function of forest areas.

In early September, the government changed the term PSN for the Merauke region to the National Food, Energy, and Water Self-Sufficiency Program.

However, according to the Pusaka Foundation, the change in nomenclature does not resolve the issues on the ground, as the program will expand its regional and project scope in South Papua.

In the field, this plan has been met with anxiety by some of the indigenous people who inhabit Merauke, the Malind Anim. This is certainly reflected in the face of Yakobus Mahuze in Senayu Village, Tanah Miring District.

He is always suspicious of strangers who arrive.

The father of three said he was forced to release 5,000 hectares of his ancestral land with other clans to a company to be felled and turned into sugarcane plantations—part of the PSN.

“Because we also think, let’s not have bad things happen to our family,” he said.

The impact of opening sugarcane plantations is already clear. Water sources that are usually used for daily needs have become cloudy because they are mixed with soil from deforestation. The fish in the swamps and rivers that are hunted may also have fled.

Yakobus claimed that his family still has 50,000 hectares of customary forest, and he insisted that he would not give an inch of land to be dismantled and made into plantations.

“If we give everything, where will the animals live? Besides, the forest is our Malind people, our culture, we have to take it from the forest,” he said.

Who are the Malind Anim People?

Yakobus Mahuze is one of the current generations of the Malind Anim. This tribe is estimated to have occupied the southern part of Papua thousands of years ago.

The Malind people live in an area located between Kolepom Island (Dolok Island/Yos Sudarso) in the west, the Digul River in the north, and the border with Papua New Guinea in the east.

They inhabit the Buraka, Bian, Eli, Kumbe and Muting river basins. Administratively, the area is included in Merauke Regency, which is spread across the Okaba, Merauke, Kimaam, Muting, Anim-ha and Naukenjerai Districts.

In Merauke, their population is the largest compared to other indigenous tribes, such as the Yei, Kanum, Mandobo and Muyu tribes.

The Malind Anim still maintains a clan or clan system centered on a belief system called Dema.

When asked about the meaning of Dema, Yakobus was silent for a moment and lowered his voice.

“That’s our belief, actually. Our ancestors, our ancestors, what they say here, Dema is the landlord,” he said.

He believes that his ancestors have transferred the rights to him as today’s generation to protect the land.

“If we give [the land to the company] all of it, it means we have betrayed our ancestors,” added Yakobus.

Some Malind people describe Dema as ancestral spirits, or (physical) figures of animals, plants or objects that have not yet become humans.

Their presence is believed to still exist today, and occupies forests, rivers, swamps—what are referred to as “sacred places for traditional rituals.”

Anthropologists still have different views about Dema.

Some call it the mythology of the origin of the Malind people, creating and regulating, but it is considered no longer influential after the passing of the preliminary period of myth—the first few years of human life to childhood.

Dutch anthropologist, Jan Van Baal, said Dema as a creature that lived in the mythical era.

“Usually they take human form, but sometimes turn into animals or appear in animal form,” he wrote in his thesis entitled Dema: Description and Analysis of Marind-Anim Culture (1966).

Not many can describe Dema completely, even the current generation of Malind anim.

According to a study, this is because the history of Dema was intentionally covered up by the Malind generation in the past.

In any case, researchers agree that Dema is the ancestor of clans and sub-clans and is related to totems—objects, plants or animals that are considered sacred—Malind Anim.

The Malind Anim tribe has several clans and sub-clans, namely Gebze (coconut), Mahuze (sago), Kaize (cassowary), Samkakai (wallaby), Balagaize (crocodile), Basik-Basik (pig), and Ndiken (Ndik bird).

The presence of PSN in Merauke affects the attachment of the Malind Anim totem. The reason is, all these totems depend on nature for their lives.

The head of the Malind Indigenous Peoples and Kondodigun Forum in Merauke, Simon Petrus Balagaize, who has a crocodile totem, said that the existence of forests, swamps and rivers is related to the life and death of their tribe.

“When bulldozers or companies, forests eliminate swamps, eliminate hiding places [for crocodiles], automatically they eliminate my spirit,” said Simon.

“So when the crocodile runs out, my spirit will slowly become weak,” he then said.

The Chair of the Merauke Forest Guardian Women’s Forum, Emiliana Ugahiwag Gebze, spoke on behalf of the Malind Anim women.

“Our forest is our identity.”

For her, the forest is “we pu (have) a supermarket'”.

“Medicines, and also for things like raw materials, local food ingredients that are there. So the forest is everything for us women,” said Emilia.

Forests are cleared, the population of native Papuans is shrinking

We also spoke with one of the Malind Anim traditional elders, Paulinus Naki Balagaize.

The 72-year-old man has a crocodile and garuda totem which he calls “the rulers of water and sky.”

For the Malind people, said Paulinus, land, trees and animals represent their ancestors, including their lives and themselves.

“When he loses his land, he turns between the [umbilical] cord and his land. He is cut off. He no longer has a purpose in life, where to go,” said Paulinus.

He added, “This connection of land occurs because of the union between men and women… that’s why it is considered sacred because of that.”

Pastor Pius Cornelius Manu in Merauke, explained that the relationship between Malind Anim men and women is carried out “in their ancestral lands which are sacred.”

Almost all kinds of Malind Anim sub-ethnic groups associate forests, swamps and rivers, which for them are sacred places, with mothers, mothers or the womb of the mother.

But these sacred places are increasingly being pushed back by the breath of development with the presence of illegal logging, settlements, and the latest presence of the Merauke PSN, said Pastor Pius.

He relates this to the underdeveloped population of Malind Anim.

So far, the latest population figures for Malind Anim are not yet available in detail. However, a century ago no one could deny that they dominated the southern part of Papua.

In 1900, it was estimated that the number of Malind Anim, especially in the coastal area of the Arufuru Sea, was between 8,500 and 10,000, while in the interior region it reached 6,000.

However, a study revealed that the number of Malind Anim tribes today is only around 19% of the total population in Merauke Regency.

Not only Malind Anim, the number of native Papuans in general has also decreased in recent decades.

On the other hand, newcomers through transmigration or spontaneous migration increased from 4% in the 1970s to 41% in 2005; while Papuans in the same period fell drastically from 96% to 59%.

‘Ethnocide’

Amid projects that impact forests and population decline, some Malind people are alluding to fears about “ethnocide”—a term first introduced by a Polish Jew, Raphael Lemkin (1944) in the era of World War II for the violence committed by the Nazis.

The meaning of ethnocide is often intertwined with genocide. However, according to the UN, genocide involves acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

Conversely, although ethnocide is not always accompanied by physical violence, it involves a more subtle form of destruction—targeted at the intangible elements of a group’s identity.

This is a process that can occur openly, such as the forced removal of children from families to be raised in different cultural environments, and covertly, such as the gradual erosion of cultural practices through laws and policies.

This method was often used by European and Western countries starting in the 15th century in carrying out colonization in their colonies, especially targeted at indigenous communities.

Papuan researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Cahyo Pamungkas, sees ethnocide as slow genocide.

“When they have lost their land, they will be evicted, have no access to forests, have no access to education and health and jobs. So it’s the same as killing them slowly,” he said.

Pius Cornelius Manu, a religious leader who is critical of development projects in Papua, assesses that ethnocide against Malind Anim is nothing new. This is an ongoing process.

The indication, he said, is the reduction of forests due to plantation and rice field projects starting from the Dutch era—this is usually followed by waves of transmigrants, to regional expansion that makes Papuans “baku sepak”.

On the other hand, the population of native Papuans is shrinking with low quality—the human development index (HDI) shows that almost all regions of Papua are below the national average.

“If the Melanesian people who are Indonesian citizens in the land of Papua, then do not develop and head towards extinction, this is the sin of the state,” he said.

True Humans

Many studies show that the identity of Malind Anim began to be torn apart since the Dutch presence in Merauke in 1902—with the opening of a post at the mouth of the Kali Maro.

In this year, the city of Merauke was also born—whose name was taken from the misunderstanding of newcomers when asking a village to local residents who answered “Maro-ke” which means “That’s the Maro river”.

The occupation of the Merauke region by the Dutch was motivated by complaints from the British government about the habit of Mengayau (human head hunting) of the Malind Anim to areas to Papua New Guinea—which at that time was controlled by the British.

A number of literatures, said the purpose of Mengayau is not to expand territory or eat human flesh, but to obtain a name from the targeted people so that it can be given to the descendants of Malind Anim.

The target being attacked, before his head was cut off, was first asked his name. This name is then given to their male descendants.

A Dutch priest, J.P.D Groen, tells of a linguist named Pastor Drabbe once met a Malind with a “strange name.”

According to the language of other tribes, his name means “Mother, help me!”, the others have the name “I’m dead.”

“[But] before the beginning of the 20th century the practice of Mengayau gradually began to be abandoned,” he wrote on a site that recorded the history of local churches of the Reformed Churches in Indonesia–Papua (GGRI-P).

Jan van Baal, an anthropologist who later served as Governor of Dutch New Guinea in 1953, said that the rise of human head hunting by the Malind Anim at that time was motivated by the availability of names that had run out.

At the same time, there were so many éwati—Malind anim fighters who had a great desire to fight.

However, anthropological analysis related to the practice of head hunting in the Malind Anim community is still limited.

In its development, a number of anthropologists in the post-colonial era stated that the practice of head hunting should not be interpreted in a single point of view, let alone equated with backward non-Western societies.

“We do not see head hunting as a form of ‘primitive warfare’ at the stage of evolution… nor as an expression of ‘aggressive human nature’ or ‘inevitable violence’ in a society without a state due to competition for scarce resources,” wrote Janet Hoskins, professor of anthropological science at the University of Southern California.

Janet wrote that statement in a book entitled Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia.

Regardless of the interpretation of their head hunting practice, the term Malind Anim is believed to be taken from their tall and muscular posture as well as hunting-fighting skills. The word “anim” means human.

According to the testimony of Malind Anim descendants and a number of anthropologists, this indigenous community in South Papua is said to be feared by various other groups around their living space.

The Malind Anim people call the achievement of self-identity as Anim-ha (true human).

This designation is a representation of the maturity of a Malind with physical strength and traditional attributes inherent in the body, and has supernatural powers.

Leonardus Moiwend, a member of the MRP Merauke calls the Malin Anim nation Anim-ha.

“Because we are in this region, Papua is the one who receives the sun first, rather than those in Sorong and Jayapura”.

“The sun can give life to trees, the water can be clear, the fish can live, everything can live,” he said.

Researcher Fellow at the Centre of Transdisciplinary and Sustainability Science (CTSS) IPB, Laksmi Adriani Savitri, noted that formerly the naming of Malind boys consisted of three parts: the first name came from head hunting, the second name was taken from the name of the land (igih), and the third came from the name of the clan or sub-clan.

This first name, he said, had disappeared along with the ban on the habit of head hunting by Catholic missions and the Dutch colonial government in the period 1902-1931.

“But the second name remains as a sign of origin and land ownership,” he wrote in the Journal of Rural Indonesia (2013).

Occupation by the Dutch

Before establishing a post in Merauke, the Dutch efforts to occupy the Malind Anim region had actually begun in 1891.

One of them was by establishing a post in Sarira or Salerika—the eastern coastal area. But it failed.

In November 1982, the ship “de Zwal” brought the resident of Ternate and the prospective Head of the Sarira Post, van Ahee along with 10 policemen, 10 agricultural employees and convicts to build a fenced house as a shelter there.

But a month later, this post was attacked by Malind people at night. As many as 10 people were injured and one died, and all the goods were stolen.

The Dutch again sent many ships to find a new post point. But this effort was again attacked by the Malind Anim people which caused three ship officers to die.

Retaliation from the Dutch continued, one of which was with the straf expedite (punishment expedition) in 1900.

However, not many sources explain the impact of this expedition attack on the Malind Anim people.

In short, in 1902 after the Dutch post was established in Merauke, a systematic “civilization program” slowly erased the Malind Anim rituals, to the point that they lost their culture.

The Dutch deployed armaments and punishments, which changed the habits of Malind Anim.

‘Iron Fever’ and Disease Outbreak

Jeroen A. Overweel in the book The Marind in a Changing Environment (1992), noted that the influence of the Dutch colonial in Merauke on Malind Anim started from their transactions with Chinese or Indonesian traders.

The Malind people usually call newcomers pu-anim (“pu” is associated with the sound of a rifle, “anim” means human).

Since the Dutch post was established in Merauke, the Malind people began to exchange coconuts for iron.

Iron, for them, is a new item, because traditionally, they used stones for heavy work such as processing sago and making boats.

With iron, work becomes easier. So at that time, there was “iron fever”.

These metal tools then made Malind men divert the job of cutting sago trees to women.

Women are considered able to process sago with an iron ax because it is an easy job.

“Although unintentional, the introduction of iron equipment as a barter tool for coconut led to a shift in the division of labor between the two sexes,” said Overweel.

In addition to trade, the presence of the Roman Catholic Mission also influenced the culture of Malind Anim, starting from the arrival of the first four “Sacred Heart” missionaries in Merauke in 1905.

From a Western point of view, the Malind Anim nation is considered primitive and immoral, so the missionaries brought the typical attitude of the 19th century, namely “civilization mission”.

In the early years, the missionaries were mostly used to learn the local language, the rest treated the sick.

In the process, an outbreak was found that started around 1909—later known as the sexually transmitted disease granuloma veneris.

Various speculations emerged about the origin of this disease, including what was said by Paulinus Naki Balagaize, as one of the traditional elders of Malind Anim.

He believes the disease was deliberately spread.

“Because the Dutch [at that time] were still in [the city] of Merauke. They were afraid to go to the forest everywhere, afraid that we would be killed… the disease was spread,” he said.

However, there is no historical evidence about this claim.

However, most researchers believe this outbreak came from outsiders.

The outbreak that killed many Malind people occurred right after the city of Merauke was founded.

Maaike Derksen, a lecturer in culture and history at Radboud University Nijmegen, said that Catholic missionaries played a role in the colonial structure applied by the Dutch in the South Papua region.

Maaike’s analysis was published in an article in the Journal of Pacific History in 2016.

Not only carrying out what they claimed as a “civilization mission”, Maaike said Catholic missionaries also carried out pacification against the Malind Anim people.

The term pacification, in the context of colonization, is defined as “efforts to eliminate indigenous communities by building new communities on stolen land”.

In the context of Malind Anim, Maaike Derksen said, “the collaboration of Catholic missionaries from the Congregation of the Sacred Heart Missionaries (MSC) with the Dutch colonial authorities intensified in the 1920s, in the framework of pacification of the southern region of Dutch New Guinea”.

One form of the pacification project that Maaike mentioned was establishing “exemplary villages” to settle the Malind Anim community.

The death toll from the outbreak in Malind Anim land has cut a quarter of their population.

According to a report from the Okaba missionary in 1918, the Malind population on the south coast decreased by 40% in five years, as quoted from Muntaza’s research released by Sajogja Institute (2013).

In the midst of this situation, the idea emerged to reduce the spread of the disease, by establishing “Exemplary Villages” which began in 1913 in Okaba, and the second in 1914 in Merauke.

This exemplary village aims to prevent the spread of the disease by building houses for Malind Anim as Westerners do: living in a family home consisting of a husband, wife and their children—something that is not a Malind tradition.

The tradition of Malind Anim is that they have separate residences between men and women, even when they are already ‘married’.

To overcome the outbreak, healthy homes were also established. The point is, to separate those who are sick and healthy.

The Malind people began to be given clothes—which automatically forced them to take off the traditional attributes that were inherent in their bodies.

“One of the Malind people in the southern part of Merauke mainland, remembers and narrates a story inherited from his grandmother who witnessed the Malind people crying sobbing when traditional attributes were removed from his body,” wrote Muntaza.

The spread of this disease was also exacerbated by the influenza outbreak that occurred in 1918.

As a result, the Malind population decreased by an average of 18.5% in two weeks.

The attacks of infectious diseases that killed the Malind Anim people have become a concern for the missionaries, because they consider the Malind tribe to be on the verge of extinction.

One of the missionaries who paid attention to this rescue was Pastor Vertenten.

He started a campaign by writing an article Zuid-Nieuw-Guinea sterft uit (South New Guinea is extinct) in Dutch East Indies newspapers in 1919 and 1920.

The Dutch government then began to intervene with tracing the type of disease to treatment.

In 1948, Malind Anim was said to have been freed from the disease granuloma veneris.

How is Malind Anim culture fading?

According to Overweel, the Dutch presence in Merauke brought rules, including a ban on head hunting.

This rule indirectly contributed to eliminating their habits, especially men: fighting.

As a result, Malind men reduced the activity of making weapons, and war boats.

Parties accompanied by dances related to Mengayau were also increasingly restricted.

The ‘exemplary village’ program to reduce outbreaks of disease, indirectly also stripped Malind Anim culture.

All traditional parties, and dances related to fertility rituals are prohibited.

In these villages then became “civilization centers”, where mission schools were established.

This program proposed by Pastor Vertenten is considered successful because “the plague disease disappeared in the coastal area, and the number of healthy newborns returned to increase”.

“However, from a cultural point of view, this program completely changed Malind society by eliminating aspects that played an important role in the entire socio-religious complex, the most important of which were head hunting and initiation and fertility ceremonies,” said Overweel.

The Presence of Corporations and Control over Malind Anim

Laksmi Adriani Savitri in her book Corporations and the Politics of Land Grabbing (2013), mentioned the Exemplary Village program as the beginning of the control and control of Malind anim land.

The Malind Anim in each small village that is scattered, already has a socio-cultural order that regulates who is the landlord and who is not.

They also already have rules about who has the right to harvest, plant, and take, and who does not have that right. The middle name of Malind Anim also refers to the origin of the land.

“If at first everyone became the master of their own land, after the periods of village unification, some became ‘passengers’,” wrote Laksmi.

“That is, he does not have the right to the land he occupies, except the right to guard given by the landlord or hamlet chief.”

Control over Malind Anim land continued with the Dutch Kumbe rice project in 1954, when a foreign private company was granted a concession area of 10,000 hectares.

The opening, starting with 60 hectares in the Kurik area to Kumbe as an experiment.

The plan to make South Papua a center for agriculture and animal husbandry cannot be separated from the plans of six Western countries, namely the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, France and the United States for the development of the South Pacific region.

From the beginning, the Dutch planted not for local residents, but for their own needs, especially the Pacific War.

At that time it was said that there was no labor from outside. Therefore, local residents (Muyu and Malind) were involved as laborers, such as making polders.

Rice production in 1956 reached 32 tons—transported from Kurik to Merauke. Rice was also sent to Holandia (now Jayapura) and Biak.

However, not all rice fields are satisfactory, because in some places the shape of the rice is flat and much is empty. This is because the soil is sandy and acidic.

“This rice estate has been producing from 1956 to 1962, and was even originally planned to be developed to sugarcane plantations,” explained Laksmi.

“This effort stopped when there was a transfer of government from the Netherlands to Indonesia.”

In the New Order era, the Kurik rice site turned into an Industrial Seed Center, with a planting control area covering 60 hectares.

The Dutch colonial project was then used as proof of the success of large-scale rice cultivation by the Regent of Merauke, John Gluba Gebze.

He then submitted the concept of Merauke Integrated Rice Estate (MIRE) in 2001.

Welcoming the response, the central government then concocted MIRE into Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE).

The project, which began in the era of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government, then reaped controversy, including the threat of losing 200,000 hectares of natural forest.

According to notes from the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), there are at least four critical points in the program that “repeats the old story” about the food barn alias food estate in Merauke.

First, this program will replace food producers from farmers to the hands of corporations. As a result, control of the people’s stomachs will later be in the hands of entrepreneurs, starting from production, distribution to prices.

Second, there is land grabbing of the people, environmental damage, to repeated project failures.

MIFEE which ran aground was continued with a rice field printing program targeting 1 million hectares, and realized 10,000 hectares in 2015-2017 or the National Food Barn program (LPN). Now, it continues with the land optimization program (Oplah) which is part of the PSN in Merauke.

The presence of companies bringing money for land raises differences of opinion among the Malind people: rejecting and accepting.

“This becomes the source of strife in the family, between uncles and nephews, between brothers and sisters, or between one village and another,” said Laksmi.

In addition, there is a shift in the views of some Malind Anim about nature that can be commodified. The land is then leased to earn money.

“This is a new knowledge of the meaning and value of land as a commodity which then enters the logic of the Malind people in dealing with the commodification of nature,” he said.

However, all rice field printing projects that have been, and are taking place do not make the Malind people farmers, said Laksmi.

“Because access to capital, access to technology, access to knowledge, everything happens discriminatively and racistly… Distrust of the Malind people’s ability to save or take credit at the bank for example, it makes it impossible for them to integrate into the agricultural system,” added Laksmi.

Transmigration Wave

Still based on notes from Laksmi Adriani Savitri, the wave of transmigration also has an influence on the lives of Malind Anim.

This is also written in his research State Necropolitics: Militarization of Food Products in Malind Anim Land published by the Pusaka Bentala Foundation (2025).

From his notes, since the Dutch opened a post at the mouth of the Kali Maro, they have brought Javanese people as household helpers for residents, controllers and staff of the Dutch colonial government.

However, as the number of employees and residents in the city of Merauke increased, the Dutch began to have difficulty supplying food.

The solution is, they brought in more Javanese people in 1908 to plant rice and vegetables which were placed in Kuprik, Semangga District.

In addition, their arrival was also accompanied by the placement of people from the islands of Rote and Timor to raise livestock and keep cows and horses belonging to Dutch employees.

“All of that is carried out with wars that resulted in the heads of the Malind tribes being dumped in Ambon.”

“So, from that time until today, actually the modes that are done to conquer the Malind nation are colonial modes,” said Laksmi.

The arrival of these Javanese people continued in 1910, along with their placement to Fiji and Suriname as contract laborers on plantations owned by the Dutch.

Those who were brought in in 1910 were placed in Spadem and Old Mopah. Their arrival flow continued until 1925.

Then, transmigration to Merauke during the Suharto administration (1982-1984) was designed to mobilize labor for rice production.

The transmigrants were mostly placed in areas that were allocated or had been opened for rice field farming.

“Before that, there was a massive military operation in the Merauke region, in fact from the northern tip to the southern tip,” he said.

“In Merauke this was led by General Benny Moerdani which resulted in many of the Malind nation fleeing to PNG. In such land vacancy and population vacancy, then the transmigrants came.”

The presence of transmigrants slowly also brought changes to the Malind anim diet. In the last two decades, rice and instant noodles have increasingly dominated, shifting sago and tubers.

Laksmi mentioned the term culturecide (cultural murder) of Malind Anim, which began since the Dutch occupation until the Indonesian government.

This cultural murder is through rules, to projects that take over Malind land. From the Kumbe project to MIFEE, the national food barn, and PSN involving thousands of military personnel.

“So now the condition of the Malind nation is at a super emergency point from the colonial period until now,” he said.

This was conveyed directly by some of the Malnd Anim people.

“Actually, what I feel, I actually feel like I’m being exterminated or they’re killing me from all sides,” said Leonardus.

Simon Petrus Balagaize sees this PSN project as the largest in stripping Malind anim culture compared to the previous waves of change.

“This means the history of Indonesia, the history of the world to eliminate tribes,” he said.

Patricius Samkakai from Okaba District, said his village had entered the PSN coordinate point.

“PSN is not part of Malind. That [part] of pu-anim.”

“We have carried out a red cross indicating that the sasi has been carried out, so that even if the government enters, we already have the symbol that we do not accept such companies,” said Patricius.

Natalis M. Kuyaka also wondered about the pretext of development and welfare that the government often brought to his homeland.

“If Indonesia really wants to build us Papuans, we should have been prosperous since the 60s-70s, not in these modern years,” he said.

Allegations of Human Rights Violations in the Merauke PSN

Komnas HAM has observed the situation at the PSN location in Merauke on June 22-25 and held meetings with the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP) of South Papua, as well as the local government.

This observation aims to explore the human rights situation in the implementation of