Indonesia: another senseless killing for palm oil

Dear friends of the rainforests,
For the second time this year, our Indonesian partners report that a man was killed on the grounds of a palm oil mill.
Ajak Sismanto and his friends were on their way to the offices of PT. Agro Bukit, a palm oil company in Central Kalimantan province on Borneo, when Sismanto was hit by a police bullet. The 25-year-old died of his wound a week later. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” say our partners of the NGO Save our Borneo. “Ajak Sismanto only wanted to visit his family – and became the latest victim of a ten-year land conflict between the local community and the palm oil company.”

Land grabbing, rainforest destruction and human-rights abuses are all in a day’s work for the palm oil industry, and the loss of human life appears to be part of the cost of doing business. What else needs to happen before the Indonesian government and corporations finally put an end to the violence? We must not turn a blind eye to this issue as long as Indonesian palm oil is exported worldwide and finds its way into our consumer products and fuel tanks.

Our partner organization Save our Borneo is calling on the government to investigate the death of Ajak Sismanto, order the return of stolen land, and ensure that palm oil companies can no longer hire soldiers and police officers to do their dirty work.

Please lend your voice to our petition to the government of Indonesia.
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Thanks for being involved,


Reinhard Behrend
Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald e.V.)