ALKINEMOKIYE by Dandhy Dwi Laksono

Documentary gives stage to miners’ struggle in Papua
Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 02/28/2012 12:46 PM

The voices of local workers in the world’s largest gold and copper mine controlled by the US-based mining giant Freeport McMoRan in Papua can be heard loud and clear in a new documentary that chronicles the biggest strike in the company’s history.

Alkinemokiye is the latest feature documentary from filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono. It captures the fight of 8,000 workers for increased wages in what is believed to be the longest and most widely joined strike since the mining company began operations in Indonesia in 1967.

It is estimated that more than a third of Freeport’s 22,000 local workers joined the strike, which last from September to December last year. The historic work action was widely covered by local and international media, which focused primarily on the strike’s affect on Freeport’s business. Live reports from the ground, including details of dramatic shooting sprees by unknown gunmen near the mining area, frequently led the news.

Visually, the contents of Dhandhy’s feature are not too different, as he uses footage broadcast on television.
Yet, the documentary is still an eye-opening thriller as it includes a comprehensive history and background on the company’s operations in Indonesia as well as insider footage, shot inside the highly-guarded mining site.

“We wanted to add a perspective to the film, something that the mainstream media has missed,” Dandhy told The Jakarta Post. Watching the 60-minute film, it is clear that the director has deliberately focused on the perspective of the striking workers.

The documentary begins with an amateur video shot by a worker who tries to explain conditions at his workplace to his beloved children. The secluded Grasberg mining site is depicted with wobbly and low-resolution images shot by a man who is trying to connect with faraway relatives.

This is followed by interviews with striking workers. The interviews dominate the film, as the
director not only talks to workers but also retirees who claimed to have been cheated by the company.

When it comes to providing background on the strike, the director has done a good job. The interviews and supporting data on the company’s rising revenue and on skyrocketing gold prices make the workers’ demands for more than 100 percent salary increases sound reasonable.

Dandhy said the data was added into the film later on after receiving input from the audiences after a limited screening in December last year. The documentary, which took more than a month to make, was released earlier this month on YouTube. “I want all the people to have access to it,” said Dandhy, adding he received no sponsorship or funding for the film.

“The budget is almost zero rupiah because we made it as a side project during our other commercial works,” said the director, a freelance journalist known for his investigative video reporting.

Alkinemokiye is Dandhy’s fourth documentary feature. The title is taken from the language of the biggest tribe in Timika regency, where Freeport operates its mining concession. Alkinemokiye means work hard for a better life, but the director translates it as “From Struggle Dawns a New Hope”.

Dandhy plans to enter the film in the international documentary competition held by the Aljazeera news network in April this year. From a journalistic point of view, Alkinemokiye feels incomplete, as the company’s side of story was not presented. Dandhy, however, said he intended to make the focus of the film the employees only.

“We wanted to make it simple and we chose one point of view — and that came from the workers,” the filmmaker said. “If anyone objects, please make your own documentary,” he challenged. The film is successful in giving voice to protesting workers and to pensioners who are struggling to get by.

Dandhy presents a documentary with a well-defined story arc that presents a strong argument for the workers’ demands. Not only that, the documentary also tries to describe the bloody incidents that marred the strike and brushed against the political relationship between Freeport and the central givernment.

Alkinemokiye reminds the audience that Freeport has earmarked special “security funds” for government law enforcers to maintain order in its operational area. At least 11 Freeport workers were shot dead by unknown gunmen between 2009 to 2011.

Freeport spokesperson in Jakarta Ramdani Sirait declined to comment on the film, saying that the company has carried out all its operations in accordance with the principles of human rights. Controversy aside, the film gives a fuller picture of what is happening with local Papuan people working in the world’s largest gold and copper mine.

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Dandhy Dwi Laksono: Rebel with A Cause
Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 03/09/2012 11:23 AM

Dandhy Dwi Laksono is a man almost anyone certainly doesn’t want to mess with.

The obvious reason is his slightly intimidating posture. The 35-year-old has a bigger-than-average frame that may force people to think twice before dealing with him. But more than that, it is his life story that persistently shows his bravery against everyone and everything that has tried to challenge his idealism.

A close friend describes the documentary filmmaker as a perfectionist and an idealist who will fight for his principles to the end. A journalist at heart, Dandhy is a figure who believes that his main duty is to bring facts to the people and, for that, he is ready to confront anyone who wants to get in his way to revealing the truth.

Such strong principles often bring him trouble and even near-death experiences. Involved in numerous in-depth reporting in conflict areas and high-profile cases like the murder of human rights activist Munir, Dandhy has experienced some strange, unexplained incidents that could have jeopardized his life.

He shares one story about the time someone unscrewed the bolts on his car’s front wheels. “When covering sensitive issues, there will be strange life-threatening events that follow, but no one can ever prove the correlation between the two,” Dandhy concludes from his investigative reporting on the Munir case and tax scandals involving an agribusiness giant.

Unfortunately, such threats are not only targeted at him. He says his wife was once photographed by two strange men after getting off a bus. Dandhy is used to dealing with threats and opposition from various parties while working as an investigative journalist. At the start of his career in the late 1990s, when press freedom was still being fought for, his enemy then was only the incumbent government, which did not want to lose its control over media.

Since the press was granted greater freedoms, his list of targets completely changed and included corporate powers and people with money, following the emergence of economic interest in media businesses.

Refusing to succumb to any interests, Dandhy reveals the shocking fact that he has left nine jobs during his 14-year career as a journalist in order to not compromise his principles.

One of the more memorable exits came when he was fired as a news producer for local TV station SCTV. Dandhy believes his dismissal was triggered by his reporting on the military operation in Aceh, which might have upset high-ranking officials.

Another popular story was when he resigned from another private TV station, RCTI, after feeling unsatisfied with the work of the editorial room that, he says, had been interfered with by powerful businesspeople. With such a track record, it is fair to call him a rebel in the media business that seems to have lost its grip due to rising political and economic pressures. But such labels were attached to him even before he started his journalistic career.

Hailing from Lumajang, a small city in East Java, the teenage Dandhy rebelled against his parents when choosing a career. His civil-servant parents had high hopes that their beloved child would also follow in their footsteps.

In fact, Dandhy came close to becoming a government official after getting an offer to enter the School of Public Administration (STPDN). But he rejected it and instead went to Padjajaran University in Bandung, West Java.

His decision did not only upset his family but also the entire Lumajang administration. “I wanted to go to college,” Dandhy, who went on to graduate in international relations, explains. It was during these college days that Dandhy realized that he was destined for journalism. But little do people know that behind all the rebellious stories about his journalistic career, it turns out that his decision to jump into the media in the first place was merely incidental.

“I used to join a music band in Lumajang. But hiring a music studio in Bandung was more expensive than in Lumajang. So I tried to find an extracurricular activity that involves no money and in the end I joined the campus press,” Dandhy laughs. What appeared to be a silly decision became a life-altering one in the end. After years of writing in the campus publication, the aspiring musician finally decided to become journalist after graduation.

He started working in the media in 1998 as a reporter in the now-defunct business tabloid Kapital. During the course of his career, Dandhy has experienced all forms of media, from print to radio and audiovisual.

In the end, it is documentary making that is his driving passion. His career highlights includes being named best journalist by the Alliance of Independent Journalists in 2008, for his investigative reporting on Munir.
After having several bad experiences from working at media companies, including the latest one with RCTI, he founded his own production house called WatchdoC, in 2008.

Aside from receiving orders from TV stations and corporations, his company also produces non-sponsored documentary projects dealing with human rights issues. Its initial project is Alkinemokiye, which tells the story of mine workers at the Freeport mining site in Papua during their major strike last year. It is available for free-viewing on YouTube. The 60-minute video created controversy because of its one-sided angle that not only displeases the mining firm but also raises questions, from a journalistic point of view. “I am indeed running away from good journalistic methods for certain issues. Good journalism suits particular issues, but for other problems, I don’t think that’s enough,” he says, again showing his rebellious side.

Apart from his rebellious spirit and tough character, Dandhy is surprisingly a person who is fun to talk to.
The laughter from the fan of American filmmaker Michael Moore punctuated an interview with The Jakarta Post that took place in his new spacious home-office in Bekasi, East Jakarta. Sitting on the back veranda of the house, he shares almost everything he can for more than an hour, including his ambition to produce an influential documentary piece that can unveil the truth on a sensitive subject.

He is keeping that subject secret for the time being. Behind the friendly smiles, hearing him speak about his future projects shows Dandhy as the fearless rebellious journalist whom we should all be aware of.

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Documentary not accurate: Freeport
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 03/09/2012 11:26 AM

PT Freeport Indonesia is denying some of the claims made in the eye-opening documentary Alkinemokiye (From Struggle Dawns a New Hope) about large strikes by company workers last year. The company’s vice president and chief administration director, Sinta Sirait, said that some information has been distorted in the 60-minute video. Alkinemokiye tells the story behind the strike of more than a third of Freeport’s 22,000 local workers, carried out in the company’s largest gold and copper mining site in Papua to demand increased wages, in September to December last year.

However, Sinta claimed the film failed to get some fact rights and omitted information. She referred to claims that the company neglected the livelihood of its employees by not providing decent housing facilities to workers, shown in an interview with one of protesting workers in front of his dilapidated house.

According to Sinta, the house featured in the film is not located in the area run by company, even though some workers live there. Freeport was helping to developing the area, together with government, Sinta said.

“Our workers live in barracks, whose quality we continually maintain,” Sinta said. She also disputed suggestions that the company has escaped its responsibilities, in regards to pensioners.Sinta said that the company has paid all severance pay and even won a case in the Constitutional Court against disgruntled former employees. The company also showed its disappointment over the documentary, saying it was biased and one-sided.

Freeport corporate communications head Daisy K. Primayanti said that the documentary has stirred internal conflict within the company. “There are a lot of things that need to be straightened out. The internal impact is very bad. We deal with 22,000 workers and the film is on YouTube and everyone can access it,” she said.

However, the company did not comment on whether the documentary’s makers would be taken to court. Sinta said that the company was trying to reach director Dandhy Dwi Laksono and to discuss film. “We feel that we have not been given the chance to speak in the documentary,” she said. In a previous interview, Dandhy explained that he intended to solely focus on the employees. “We wanted to make it simple and we chose one point of view — and that came from the workers,” the filmmaker said.

Responding to Freeport’s complaints, Dandhy defended the documentary and said he was only providing background information and on-the-ground facts that could speak for themselves without his interference. “The facts are what happen in front of the camera,” said the journalist-turned-documentary filmmaker, who is known for other investigative reports on illegal logging and the killing of human rights activist Munir. Dandhy, named in 2008 as the best journalist from the Alliance of Independent Journalists, added the documentary was based on reliable data and information gathered during the film’s making.