Indonesian Gold (66 page)

‘…and this structure is built entirely on three-meter
high, wooden poles as protection against flooding and wild animals.'
Jonathan was pointing back towards the Longhouse village with timber-planked streets and
footpaths.
‘When I was a child, this area was still rich with game. Now…'
his voice
trailed away as he led them through the rest of the village dwellings, which had been built apart
from the Longhouse proper, to accommodate the villagers growing needs. They continued down a path
to an area where women worked, plaiting dry, elongated
purun
leaves into mats and baskets.
Campbell had seen the rush growing in marshy ground before, but had never observed the soft,
pliant leafless stems being woven so skillfully, the more experienced village women's fingers
moving with such speed, a basket materialized as he stood watching. Impressed, Campbell extracted
a miniature Minolta from pocket and aimed the lens at the group, surprised when the women
shrieked and turned away in trepidation.

‘I'm sorry, Stewart,'
Angela stepped forward and re-pocketed the camera.
‘The older people here are
terrified of photographs. They are very superstitious. Many believe that, in the hands of an
enemy, a photo could be used to make them ill, or cast spells.'

‘Black magic?'
Campbell
noticed that the women had all fallen
silent.

‘Yes, and the Penehing are susceptible to its
ways.'

Campbell
regretted the
incident, wishing there was some other way he could capture this scene which contrasted so
greatly with other ethnic groups he had visited in Indonesia. Here, many of the women wore
tattoos, their ear lobes stretched by huge earrings dangling against prematurely aged skin, their
hands calloused with toil and, as they squatted on splayed feet manipulating the
purun
into practical items of use, he was reminded of the multi-faceted society, that constituted the
Indonesia people.

‘Come!'
Jonathan Dau
continued leading Campbell along the river to a heavily foliaged area, stopping short of an
ageless,
meranti
tree, and a gathering of young
Penehing
men.
‘Wait over
there,'
Jonathan pointed, indicating for Angela and Campbell to take their place, adjacent to
the tree.

‘
What's happening?
'

‘It's a blessing ceremony, for the young
men.'
Angela fell short of revealing that the anointing ceremony,
‘
membayar hajat'
was aimed at summoning the spirits of ancestral warriors, to thank them
for life and to strengthen these youngsters' resolve in the hours ahead.
‘Under the Penehing
belief, the spirits are an inseparable part of our daily lives. This is a ceremony to welcome the
imminent, full moon.'
What Angela also failed to explain, was that her father, as spiritual
leader, was preparing the way for ancestral warriors' spirits to enter these men in readiness for
battle – encouraging them to practice
mengayau,
her people's frightening tradition of
human decapitation, as they believed that
mengayau
strengthened one's powers, and would
protect their community from evil spirits. Campbell continued on in ignorance as the group moved
collectively into trance, unaware that he, too, had fallen under the hypnotic spell that flowed
past Jonathan Dau's lips.

Later, Stewart Campbell would recall nothing more up to
the beginning of the mid-afternoon celebrations. By then, of course, he was resigned to remaining
overnight at the Longhouse and, with the first nip of
tuak
under his belt, had required
little encouragement to stay.

****

The festivities had commenced with the slaughtering of a
buffalo, five wild pigs, and dozens of chickens. An old, toothless woman had dipped her hand into
the pig blood, then approached Campbell and smeared his brow with the sticky, darkened ooze, the
air alive with the sound of gongs and drums beating as villagers danced around the miniature
Longhouse shaped pyre, loaded with offerings. Tables had been removed from the Longhouse and
placed outside, laden now with barbecued corn, steamed goldfish and suckling pig. Women then
added deep-fried dishes of
bakwan, sukun
and jackfruit to the feast, Campbell sampling
them all.
‘Sacrificing a cow must be quite a significant event?'
Although lightheaded, he
felt strangely refreshed.

‘It is our belief that the greater the level of
offering made, the more likely the powerful spirits would attend, and bestow their blessings on
us all,'
the chief explained.

Campbell
leaned over and
whispered into Angela's ear.
‘I'm pleased I stayed. I'm really enjoying
myself.'

‘You should pace yourself with that arak,'
she warned, aware of the amount of
tuak
he had already
consumed.

Following a wrap-around sunset, evening fell, and more
than seven hundred sat down to the greatest feast the Longhouse had enjoyed since Jonathan Dau
returned from his warring ways to become their spiritual leader. Wild pig and buffalo was stuffed
into mouths,
tuak
poured for the women and Campbell as the young, village men quietly
slipped into the night, to join others from neighboring, Longhouse communities. Soon, they would
commence their attack on the string of Madurese and Javanese migrant settlements downriver, to
coincide with others throughout the province.

The wind turned, filling the Longdamai sky with smoke
particles from not-so-distant forest fires, the evening set in black until an eerie, bluish light
appeared and spread across the setting's false tranquility. Calm descended upon the village as
the moon's gibbous shape twisted and ballooned behind smoke-polluted skies, its ghostlike
appearance unlike any these superstitious people had seen. In a more subdued atmosphere caused
partly by the absence of the normally boisterous, young village men, toasts were called and
challenges made, Stewart undeniably drunk from the
tuak
as the celebration to welcome the
Blue Moon continued.

Not twenty kilometers downstream, the speedboat, which had
earlier transported the American geologist to this idyllic setting, crept back into the Longdamai
mining camp moorings, the heavy-throated engines stifled so as not to raise alarm. Anticipating
Campbell's return, the boat's arrival was all but ignored as eight
Penehing
warriors
slipped unseen from the vessel and easily overpowered the sleepy,
Kostrad
sentries,
removing their heads with the skill of their ancestors, before laying their corpses in a line
along the jetty, and continuing downstream.

Then, with an hour left to midnight, the wind shifted yet
again exposing the moon in the fullness of its life, catching a legless Stewart Campbell
staggering around unashamedly in the dirt as he tried to focus on the brilliant light. Dayak
tribes in three provinces gazed up into the heavens and thanked their ancestral spirits for the
sign, then simultaneously launched attacks against transmigrant camps, across half of Indonesian
Borneo.

****

Kopassus (Special Forces) Field
H
Q
Upper
Mahakam River

 

The Indonesian Special Forces with its four, covert
warfare battalions were trained in hijacking and kidnapping techniques, capturing and killing
anti-government, separatist and opposition leadership, and mass executions of minority groups in
support of Jakarta's insatiable demands, for a greater share of the country's resources. During
the last decade tens of thousands had perished in oil and gas rich Aceh, resource rich
Kalimantan, and Irian, most slaughtered by the military's covert killing machine,
Kopassus
with its complement of three thousand, five hundred men. Due to the nature of its covert
activities, command of these forces was retained at the highest level by the TNI's most
influential generals, namely, those closest to the President. These officers pursued a deliberate
strategy of precipitating, even prolonging conflicts in order to promote their commercial
interests and to justify their uniquely powerful position throughout the country.

Without the First Family's blessing, it was virtually
impossible to conduct any meaningful business activity, anywhere in the Republic, and a
commitment of between ten and twenty percent of one's activity was normally sufficient to feed
the voracious, presidential appetites. However, as Palace sibling rivalry grew fuelling even
greater acquisition of wealth, many state institutions and activities were monopolized, for the
benefit of those who ruled this vast archipelago. By 1996, less than five families controlled
Indonesia's economy, including banking and oil refineries, car assembly plants, textiles, the
distribution of basic staples, cigarette production, shipping and an endless list of industrial
plants. None of these
kongsi
could survive without the patronage of the President's
family, some obliged to provide favored generals with substantial holdings in their activities,
to suppress unionism, avoid taxes and, on occasion, send armed troops into factories to arrest
the disgruntled. The high-profile timber baron, Bobby Djimanto (a.k.a. Tan Khu Sui), whose quest
for total dominance of the timber industry often demanded
Kopassus'
occasional
intervention in resolving issues, predominantly at the provincial level, their involvement,
predictably, always leaving a trail of dead.

Often dressed as civilians,
Kopassus
agents would
infiltrate communities and become agent provocateurs, destabilizing groups which hindered access
to virgin forests, or whose villages were simply in the way of Djimanto's tractors and
bulldozers. Soldiers would then be summoned to restore stability, the ensuing altercation
achieving the required result for the timber tycoon's expanding interests. Entire villages would
be relocated, the forest stripped, oil palm planted, migrant workers transported from Madura,
Java and Bali, and the cycle continued, filling already overflowing Palace coffers at the expense
of the indigenous peoples.
Kopassus'
deadly role was unlikely to reach the international
community for even local military commanders were often unaware of any Special Forces' activities
within their area of command, as the Western-trained, killing machine took its orders directly
from the Palace. And, with media censorship similar to that imposed in countries such as China,
Vietnam, Laos and former Soviet Union satellites, genocide was not a word contained in domestic,
media vocabulary. Unfortunately for the Upper Mahakam Dayak communities, Bobby Djimanto's timber
mills' ravenous needs required their virgin forests and, as there had been fierce resistance to
further expansion of migrant settlements in the area, Palace interests required the active
participation of
Kopassus
in resolving the problem.

Then, of course, there was the matter of the massive,
Longdamai gold deposit. Baron Mining had reminded the authorities that it did not wish to be
subjected to the same problems Freeport was having with the indigenous population in West Irian.
Because Baron Mining would assume operational control and move to establish a mine within weeks,
the Palace required the relocation of all Dayak communities within a radius of twenty kilometers,
to remove the potential for conflict before infrastructure construction commenced – amongst
these, Jonathan Dau's Longhouse village.

As the
Penehing-Dayak
chief's main body of young
warriors proceeded along one tributary towards the Madurese settlement situated downstream from
the Longdamai mining camp, one hundred, heavily armed veteran
Kopassus
soldiers silently
traversed the parallel stream leading to the Longhouse, in preparation for their dawn attack.
Their aim, to permanently remove the indigenous villagers from the area – and the commanding
officer's interpretation of
Operation Clean Sweep
made no allowances for
prisoners.

 
****

Chapter Twenty-four

Longhouse
Village

 

Clouds blanketed easterly skies, further distorting the
moon's ghostly image until it was erased, entirely, its disappearance bringing the ceremony to a
close. Fires were extinguished, and weary villagers retired, the Longhouse community soon
swallowed by the darkness of night as an unpredictable wind carrying haze from deep-seated,
peat-land fires to the east, swept across the restive province. Burdened with the knowledge that
some, if not many of the village youths would not return from their killing spree, Jonathan Dau
continued through the early morning hours in prayer, communicating with the spirits, seeking
their guidance and protection over the seventy-eight
Penehing
men who, within hours, would
honor their ancestors in battle.

At the request of the other elders, the chief had
reluctantly agreed not to lead the attack, offering this role to another, Udir – a proven
warrior, and a childhood friend.

Drunk, Stewart Campbell had been assisted to the quarters
prepared in anticipation of his visit, Jonathan confident that the American would be too ill to
return to the Longdamai mining camp for at least another day. The chief frowned, deeply
disappointed with the
Kostrad
troops' presence at the site, the strength of their numbers
requiring a change in strategy, obliging Jonathan to postpone the planned assault on the small
migrant, labor settlement there.