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Mohammad "Bob" Hasan did more damage to Indonesia's forests, biodiversity and environment than any other single individual. If there were an international environmental court, he would be one of the first to be brought forward for international environmental crimes. As a close friend and ally to the old leader, Suharto, Bob Hasan gained fabulous power and used it to syphon off hundreds of millions of dollars of wealth from the country. One of his primary sources of ill-gotten gains was the abuse and mismanagement of Indonesia's forests. His actions were said to include ignoring environmental and conservation laws that limited and managed the clear cutting of the tropical forests there. He used the army to arrest and clear out protesters and local villagers. He decimated the local economies of villages that had used the forests for centuries as their source of income, shelter, and livelihood. Bob Hasan's companies set massive fires that contributed to Indonesia's fire and smoke disasters that ruined the air quality of Malaysia and Singapore as well as other nations in the region. Working primarily with the plywood industry, he set up deals with companies in Japan, China and Europe, as well as the United States. They bought his environmentally destructive products and contributed, indirectly, to the destruction of Indonesia's environment, biodiversity and local community integrity. Bob Hasan is currently 69 years old. At one stage Hasan virtually ruled Indonesia's timber trade and had stakes in about 300 firms spread across the country's economy, including banks, insurance, advertising, paper, copper, oil and media.

Hasan's rise to riches began when he forged close ties to the army not long after Indonesia won independence from the Dutch in 1945. The young colonels who took control of the provinces were given little or no money by the government and had to start side businesses to support their troops. In the relationships that quickly developed between entrepreneurs and generals, Hasan found himself at the center of military activity in the 1950's after General Gatot Subroto, an independence war hero, adopted him as a foster son. It was an extraordinary gesture. Hasan is ethnic Chinese born in Indonesia. His real name is Kian Seng. He changed it to Mohammad Bob Hasan in his early business years. Kian Seng, or Hasan, started his working life as a driver in Central Java. Subroto introduced Hasan to Suharto, who was then a colonel in charge of an elite unit in Jogjakarta, historic seat of the Javanese sultanate. "I have been friends with President Suharto for more than 40 years," Hasan said. Like many long friendships, it has seen twists and turns. In the 1950s, the two were involved in a barter transaction for rice from Singapore in return for sugar from Java. The deal went sour. Suharto was stripped of his command and transferred to Jakarta. Hasan followed his mentor to the capital and waited for his star to rise, which it did after President Sukarno's ouster in 1965. Hasan also undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca and converted to Islam.

Providence has smiled on him ever since. On the recommendation of friends in the military, he was given a 10% stake in the local subsidiary of U.S.-based forestry giant Georgia-Pacific in 1972. That became the base camp for an assault on Indonesia's vast forests. He soon acquired the remaining 90% of the company and built a timber empire called Kalimanis Plywood Industries. In the 1980s, he founded Apkindo, a state-sanctioned cartel that controls Indonesia's plywood exports. In that role, he stood up to buyers elsewhere in Asia and cast himself as a fierce trustee of the country's resources. In an oft-repeated anecdote, Hasan boasted after golf with Suharto and visiting actor Sylvester Stallone, "I told Rambo, 'I am king of the jungle.'" Time Magazine, Vol. 149, No. 10, New York, March 10, 1997, See the full story at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970310/business.bob_hasans.html .

Mr Hasan subsequently carved himself an empire from business deals forged with the military and partnerships with Mr Suharto's children. He expanded from timber into oil, media, banking and insurance. Bob Hasan later became Chairman of the Indonesian carmaker, Astra International. Bob Hasan today is one of Indonesia's richest men. Fortune Magazine estimated he was worth US $3.0 billion. Mr Hasan was Mr Suharto's trusted confidant and his golfing and fishing buddy. Hasan was said to be one of the few allowed to beat the president in golf. He was by Mr Suharto's side when he came to power in the mid-1960s and was trade and industry minister in the dictator's last cabinet before his downfall in 1998. Hasan also ran the Nusamba group, the investment vehicle of three charitable foundations headed by President Suharto. Referred to by critics as Suharto's retirement fund, Nusamba, had assets estimated at US $5.0 billion. Source, "Bob Hasan's Gold Touch: How Suharto's Point Man Walked into an Economic Minefield and Emerged on Top", by Rahul Jacob, Time Magazine, Vol. 149, No. 10, New York, March 10, 1997, See the full story at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970310/business.bob_hasans.html .

With the transfer of political authority from Suharno to Suharto in March 1966, New Order policymakers moved quickly to initiate commercial logging in the rich dipterocarp forests of Indonesia's Outer Islands. Suharto and Hasan were eager to open Outer Island forests to private investment both to provide an immediate boost to the nation's GNP and to enrich themselves. This is in spite of the fact that millions of people in self-sustaining ethnic communities depended upon these forests. Suharto went ahead with Hasan's and other multinational forest company urgings, and introduced the Basic Forestry Law - BFL (in Indonesian it is called Undang-Undang Dasar Kehutanan), in May 1967. The BFL established state control over Outer Island forests and it defined the terms under which timber exploitation would be administered. The BLF designated 143 million hectares, no less than 74 per cent of the nation's land area as Kawasan Hutan, or Forest Area. With the help of the military, Suharto and Hasan were able to push people off the forested land and go in and clear cut and burn forest areas. The profits were centralized to Jakarta and Swiss Bank accounts. The people were left destitute with broken communities. Rural to urban migration of disgruntled people began. They left the decimated forests where they could no longer make a living, could not pick tree fruit, could not build homes from wood materials and could not cut their few logs and sell them And the international community turned its head. Source, "Bob Hasan, The Rise of Apkindo, and the Shifting Dynamics of Control in Indonesia's Timber Sector", by Christopher M. Barr, SEAP Indonesia Journal, No. 65, April 1998, a publication of Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program, Editor, Dr. Benedict Anderson, Ithaca, New York. This article was extracted from Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 1998.

Bob Hasan was a chief strategist in the formation of the Southeast Asian Lumber Producers' Association (SEALPA) following a sharp drop in international log prices during 1974 -75. SEALPA brought together logging companies from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea with the aim of forming a regional cartel capable of controlling the world's tropical timber supply." In April 22, 1981, in a joint decision from the Directors General of Forestry, Multifarious Industries, Domestic Trade, and Overseas Trade, mandating that Indonesian log exports be phased out completely by January 1, 1985. The log export ban and the restrictive regulations leading up to it triggered a massive influx of investment into Indonesia's wood processing industry. Between 1978 and 1985, the number of plywood producers operating in Indonesia rose from 19 to 101, while the industry's aggregate production capacity shot up from less than 800,000 cubic metres to 6.5 million m3 per year. By decades end, the number of producers had climbed even higher to 132 and annual production capacity had reached 12.6 million cubic metres. By 1989, the fifteen largest concessionaires held 171 of the 542 HPHs in operation at that point, covering over 21 million ha., or 37.5 per cent of the total area that had been distributed by the Suharto government in Indonesia. At least nine of these groups owned over one million hectares, three groups owned over two million hectares." Source, "Bob Hasan, The Rise of Apkindo, and the Shifting Dynamics of Control in Indonesia's Timber Sector", by Christopher M. Barr, SEAP Indonesia Journal, No. 65, April 1998, a publication of Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program, Editor, Dr. Benedict Anderson, Ithaca, New York. This article was extracted from Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 1998.

Plywood is one of Indonesia's leading non-oil export items. Hasan was chairman of Apkindo, a government-sanctioned cartel that regulated $3.7 billion in annual plywood exports. He plays a major role in establishing industry wide forestry practices. When the New Order of Indonesia banned the export of raw logs in the early 1980's to generate investment in wood processing, Bob Hasan was given wide ranging authority to transform the Indonesia Wood Panel Producers Association (Apkindo) into a powerful collective marketing body. With Suharto's backing, Hasan turned Apkindo into a well disciplined cartel which exercises strict control over the trade practices of Indonesia's 111 plywood producers. Bob See more about this at http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_933000/933787.stm .

A fall in log supplies has prompted the Indonesian Wood Panel Producers Association to lower its forecast for plywood production in 1998 from 10 million cubic metres to 9.6 million cubic metres. The plywood export target would, accordingly, be reduced from 9.9 million cubic metres to 8.4 million cubic metres. In 1996, Indonesia produced 9.57 million cubic metres of plywood, of which 8.5 million cubic metres was exported, and the remainder used domestically. Indonesian plywood sold then for an average of US$500 per cubic metre. Indonesia's plywood exports have decreased in both volume and value, executive of the Association of Wood Panel Producers of Indonesia Tjipto Wignjoprajitno said. He said export volume in August 1997 was down 18% to 644,110 cubic metres from last year while value was also down 18% to $303.9 million from $371.9 million over the same period. Plywood prices this year have dropped by $38 per cubic meter from $507 in May 1997 to $469 in September owing to weak demand from South Korea and Japan, Indonesia's two major export markets. However, there was an expected strong demand from China for plywood. Source, The Castle Group Indonesian Business: The Year in Review 1997, Chapter 7, Timber, Pulp and Paper, January 1998. See the full story at http://www.castleasia.com/yir/Chapter_7.htm .

With the assistance of the military, Hasan and Suharto made themselves fabulously wealthy off the clearcutting of the rich forests in Indonesia. Suharto and his family have been accused by Indonesian authorities with corruption, of amassing as much as $45 billion in illegal gains from the nation during his 32-year, army-backed rule. Suharto, a rule with the power to govern his country benevolently and with fairness and honesty, failed to do so. Instead, he and his family set about to strip the country of its national assets, turning a public trust into personal Swiss Bank Account wealth. The corruption was so bad from Suharto, his family members, and Bob Hasan, that the World Bank lost hundreds of millions in loans and conducted a then unheard of report on the corruption of a nation. Suharto's rule collapsed in 1998 under a violent student and villager uprising caused by the very corruption that killed the "Tiger Economy" and ruined so many indigenous communities throughout Indonesia. Specifically, Suharto, himself, is conservatively charged by government prosectors with siphoning about US $570 million from Indonesia's national coffers to bankroll huge business empires run by his children and cronies.

With numerous corruption allegations surrounding Mohammad Bob Hasan, he was arrested in March 2000, and charged with the first violation of the Indonesia anti-corruption laws by the new government of Indonesia. Hasan was charged with causing US$75.5 million in losses to the Government of Indonesia over a forestry/logging mapping project. "We will detain him for 20 days...," said Suhandojo, spokesman for the Attorney General's office. The aerial/GIS mapping project was awarded to Hasan's company, PT Mapindo Perama, and involved aerial surveys of some 3.6 million hectares of forests on public land. The government charges that the contract was corruptly awarded, and that photographs produced from the US$87-million survey by Bob Hasan's company were poor and unusable. It did not give the result it promised... and we are talking about billions of rupiah here," said Chairul Imam, the office's director of corruption crimes. "He caused losses to the state," Imam said, but he could not specify the amount of money involved. "We will need the state auditors for that," he said. Source, "Suharto Ally Bob Hasan Detained", by Achmad Sukarsono, Times of India, Jakarta. See the full story at http://timesofindia.com/290300/29worl28.htm .

Normally such mapping is used by governments to assess what has already been clearcut, what public areas should be given over to clearcut, and what areas should be conserved. But when you are illegally logging, you don't really need to have the government know what you've logged and what should be conserved. The more misinformation the better. Chairul Imam, Indonesia's Director of Corruption Crimes said that Hasan's survey company failed to deliver on the contract requirements. Bob Hasan and his companies are now said to be one of the largest debtors to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), reportedly owing US $730 million as of July 2000. Source, "Indonesian Tycoon Bob Hasan Detained Pending Corruption Trial", Channel New Asia, September 8, 2000. See the full story at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/articles/2000/09/09/business16275.htm . Also see http://timesofindia.com/290300/29worl28.htm .

Then Indonesian prosecutors slapped a second corruption against Mohammad "Bob" Hasan, for allegedly mishandling US$84 million provided for export promotion to the Indonesian Plywood Producers Association (Apkindo) . A spokesman for the Attorney General's office, Yushar Yahya, said the accused Hasan of swindling US$2.5 million of the organisation's overseas export promotion fund in 1997. The rest of the US$84 million fund, generated from the monthly dues of Apkindo's 111 members, was deposited in the now closed down Bank Umum Nasional which was also partly owned by Hasan. The question being asked, is did Hasan transfer the Apkindo plywood funds to his bank, knowing that he was going to take it into bankruptcy and abscond with the money to his Swiss Bank Account. Prosecutor Arnold Angkow told the trial that Hasan had cost the government and the timber industry association more than $240 million by failing to carry out a forestry mapping project. "The defendant...in a time period of 1989 to 1998 did a series of actions that enriched himself by giving the state directly or indirectly some loss," Angkow told the court."In total, he has caused losses to the state of as much as $75.6 million and he has caused losses to the (timber) association of as much as... $168.1 million," he said. "He was assigned to map 88 million hectares (217 million acres) of forest but he did not do what he was assigned." Bob Hasan and his companies are now said to be one of the largest debtors to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), reportedly owing US $730 million as of July 2000. Source, "Rise and fall of a Timber Tycoon", BBC, London, U.K., September 20, 2000. See the full story at http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_933000/933787.stm . Also see Associated Free Press (AFP) http://web3.asia1.com.sg/archive/st/6/breakingnews/asiabreak5_0725.html

In countries with poorly developed democracies like Indonesia, the military plays a strong political role. Without the might of the gun in a dictatorship like that of Suharto, you cannot enforce your will on the people. So the military, its Generals and senior officials, participated in extracting and keeping the forest and natural resource wealth of Indonesia. One of the most prominent military owned enterprises in Indonesia was PT Tri Usaha Bakti (TRUBA), a holding company connected to the Ministry of Defense (Hankam). TRUBA was founded in 1968 through a merger of forty enterprises established by Army officers in the mid 1960s and all of its shareholders were senior Indonesian Hanham military officers. By the late 1970s, TRUBA reportedly held interests in fourteen logging ventures, many of which were set up by military officers who had served in timber rich provinces. Source, Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1998.

Developing countries like Indonesia in the 1970's, needed the technologies and management systems developed by multi-natonal forest industries in order to rapidly clearcut their forests. Without heavy equipment, high-speed chainsaws, automated logging and hauling systems, Indonesia was not in a position to decimate its forests. For that, it needed the advanced abilities of companies like Wyerhaeuser and Georgia Pacific. A number of partnerships were established. The most lucrative of these was TRUBA's partnership with Weyerhaeuser to establish the International Timber Corporation of Indonesia (ITCI), which obtained a 601,000 hectare concension in East Kalimantan in 1971. Truba's contribution to the venture was essentially the concession itself, which Weyerhaeuser would not have been able to obtain on its own. In fact, Weyerhaeuser had initially invested through a wholly-owned subsidiary called PT Weyerhaeuser Indonesia, and was forced to settle for a far less valuable and considerably smaller neighbouring concession located between Samarinda and Balikpapan." "BFL gave the state forestry bureaucracy authority to grant a Right of Forest Exploitation (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan, called an HPH) to state owned corporations and to private timber companies. In 1970, the American timber giant Georgia Pacific asked the regimes military leaders to recommend a local partner, and it was steered toward Bob Hasan. Together, Georgia Pacific and Hasan formed PT Georgia Pacific Indonesia (GPI), which secured a 350,000 hectare concession along the Telen River in East Kalimantan." Georgia Pacific Indonesia began logging in 1971 and it ranked among the country's largest and most profitable producers. Forest Department statistics indicate that GPI exported at least 2.2 million cubic metres of raw logs during its first decade of operations. From these exports, the partnership generated over US$156 million in real (1980) gross earnings. The South Seas timber boom of the late 1970s was especially profitable for GPI, which brought in over US$27 million in net profits in 1979 alone, based on log exports of 268,696 cubic metres." "In addition to the highly profitable partnership he established with GPI, Bob Hasan also engineered a number of lucrative joint ventures between his timber firm PT Kalhold and the state forestry enterprises, Inhutani and Inhutani II. Indonesia assigned logging rights to over four million hectares of East Kalimantan and other parts of the Outer Islands to three state owned forestry enterprises, Inhutani, Inhutani II, and Inhutani III.

Bob Hasan created that Kalimanis Group. It became Indonesia's eleventh largest plywood producer in 1990. It grew out of the partnership that Hasan formed with Georgia Pacific in 1970. In 1973, Georgia Pacific Indonesia established PT Kalimanis Plywood Industries in East Kalimantan to become the first HPH holder to make a major investment in wood processing. In 1980, the Bob Hasan Georgia Pacific partnership expanded its involvement in plywood production with the establishment of PT Santi Murni Plywood. Also located in East Kalimantan, Santi Murni had a production capacity of 105,000 cubic metres of commercial grade plywood panels." Hasan's holdings in GPI and Kalimanis rose to 50 per cent. Likewise, he controlled 60 per cent of Santi Murni's shares from the outset of the venture. According to Christopher Hatch of the Rainforest Action Network, Hasan's Kalimanis Group, with timber holdings spanning 7,700 square miles in Kalimatan, is "one of the most voracious, barbaric conglomerates in the world." In 1983, Georgia Pacific Int ‘l. and Bob Hasan entered the initial stages of a US $410 million joint venture with the Government of Indonesia to establish a pulp and paper mill in the province of Aceh in northern Sumatra. In July 1983, however, Georgia Pacific abruptly withdrew from the venture, citing a reorientation of its corporate strategy away from new foreign ventures following heavy losses in Indonesia the previous year. Two weeks later, the multinational announce that it would withdraw from all of its Indonesian operations. It appeared that the excessive demands for graft and the corrupt way the Indonesian officials and Hasan dealt with the U.S. forest giant, drove it out of the country. Source, Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1998.

There was a mutual bitterness that characterized Weyerhaeuser's withdrawal from its partnership with the military owned Tri Usaha Bhakti in November 1981. It was reported that PT Jati Maluku, a subsidiary of the Sinar Mas Group with a 207,000 hectares of forest concession in Maluku, had been taken over by Hasan's Kalimanis Group. Paying for Georgia Pacific's shares with shipments of plywood, Hasan obtained full ownership of Kalimanis Plywood and Georgia Pacific Indonesia, which he renamed PT Kiani Lestari in 1984. Jerry White, a Canadian, worked closely with Bob Hasan for 25 years up until the mid-1990's. During the 1970's, Jerry White was the President of Georgia Pacific Indonesia, when it pulled out in the early 1980s, Hasan persuaded White to stay on with Kalimanis to serve as his chief marketing strategist. Source, Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1998.

He controlled many of the forest companies that set hundreds of forests that contributed to the terrible fires that blanketed the region with smoke and air pollution. In September the Environmental Minister pegged three of Hasan's companies as being among those that deliberately set the forest fires that are still raging in Indonesia. He is accused by the current Indonesian courts of massive graft and corruption that diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from proper forest management and regional and local development. His companies polluted the air and the waterways, and devastated the biodiversity of Indonesia. If there were an international court for environmental crimes, Mohammad Bob Hasan, would face numerous counts. Gurmit Singh, head of the Center for Environment, Technology and Development, a Malaysian environmental organization, says farmers clearing plots with fire are responsible for 10 to 20 percent of the damage at the most. Source, "A Timber Tycoon's Trophies: Why is one of Asia's most unscrupulous foresters winning environmental awards?", by Leslie Weiss, Mother Jones Magazine, November 18, 1997. . Leslie Weiss is a freelance writer based in Oakland, California. See the full story at http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/hasan.html .

Bob Hasan, was unrepentant about the fires his companies started in the Indonesian forests. He admits lighting fires in the forest, but dismisses the complaints of his critics. Hasan said that, "when we do deforestation, we do organised burning. Organised burning means we clean up the shrubs, we clean up the grass, because if you do not clean the shrubs, it might become a fire hazard. We want to develop our country on a sustainable basis, but sometimes some of the NGOs come in and say you're violating environment rules, you're violating human rights, but usually things like this comes from communist individuals." The Environment Minister, Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, says that in the past licences for lighting fires have been given away very cheaply to all kinds of people. During last year's crisis, he called for tighter controls. A list was drawn up of firms which were to lose their licenses, but some managed to escape the clampdown. Two of Mr Hasan's companies were originally on the list, but were removed a few days later. Source, BBC News, "Haze - who starts the fires?", February 25, 1998, London U.K. See the full story at http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1998/04/98/haze_98/newsid_59000/59880.stm

The Far Eastern Economic Review says that Hasan "has been unquestionably the strongest player in setting Indonesia's forest policies." These policies, says Stephanie Fried, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, "have led to the liquidation of Indonesia's forest resource base, sparked major conflicts with indigenous peoples and other forest dwellers, and, in the final analysis, set the stage for the current fires." In 1993, one of Hasan's companies, PT Kalhold Utama, bulldozed and burned hundreds of acres of forested land used by a community of indigenous Dayak people for rattan and fruit production. The company -- in a move documented by the World Bank -- also bulldozed graves of the community's dead. "Given the immense amount of profit accruing to companies involved in the forestry and plantation sector, there has been a lack of political will to enforce the most basic forestry regulations," Fried says. One environmental worker in Indonesia, fearing bodily harm, would speak about Hasan only under the condition of anonymity: "He is very powerful. He is very close to the president. He is beyond the law." Source, "The Year in Review 1997", Chapter 7, Timber, Pulp and Paper, January 1998
See the full story at http://www.castleasia.com/yir/Chapter_7.htm .

HISTORY OF SOME OF HASAN'S FOREST COMPANIES

PT Kiani Kertas, a pulp and paper unit of the Kalimanis Group controlled by Bob Hasan, started its pulp manufacturing activities in April 1998,with an initial annual production capacity of 500,000 tons. The company's plant represents an investment of around US$1.1 billion, $700 million of which were financed by loans (from the World Bank, U.S. AID, Japan AID ?). The company also planned to list its shares on New York's NASDAQ in 1998. PT Kiani Lestari, controlled by Bob Hasan, was lent US$108.70 million from the Indonesian Government reforestation funds to develop the company's pulp and paper factory following a Presidential instruction", said the then Indonesian Minister of Forestry Djamaluddin Suryohadikusumo. The funds were originally collected from all of the forest companies in Indonesia to support reforestation and community development. But instead Suharto diverted the funds from their original purpose to help out his friend Bob Hasan make yet more money. Kiani Lestari in May 1997 secured a US$410 million syndicated loan arranged by state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia 1946. State-owned Bank Dagang Negara and Bank Umum Nasional, a private bank partially controlled by Hasan, acted as co-arrangers. Hasan said the paper mill would cost US$930 million to build.

PT Kiani Kertas, controlled by Bob Hasan, in 1998 completed its US$1 billion pulp and paper plant but did not used the US$109.7 million loan it obtained from the country's reforestation funds, company president director Machnan R. Kamaluddin said. Kamaluddin insisted that the loan was a standby financial security to be used by the company as it sees fit. The loan was extended by the Forestry Ministry after a presidential instruction. PT Kiani Kertas, a unit of the Kalimanis Group, has asked for a tax-holiday from the government. Kiani Kertas operates a newly-inaugurated US$1.3 billion pulp and paper plant in East Kalimantan. The company, led by Bob Hasan, is partly owned by two foundations chaired by President Soeharto. Kiani Kertas also secured around US$100 million from the reforestation fund, although it claims that it has not used the money. In 1988, Hasan purchased Chesapeake Harwoods, based in Norfolk, Virginia. Source, Christopher M. Barr's Masters Thesis, "Discipline and Accumulate: State Practice and Elite Consolidation in Indonesia's Timber Sector, 1967-1998", Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1998.

Indonesian pulp production capacity was projected to reach 11.1 million tonnes by 2010, according to the chairman of RGM International Corp Sukanto Tanoto. Around 23 pulp production projects are currently on the drawing board and if the majority are completed, capacity could exceed 11 million tonnes by 2010, Tanoto said. Indonesian pulp production capacity was 3.1 million tonnes in 1996 and should grow to 4.4 million tonnes this year, 5.2 million in 1998 and 5.7 million in 1999. The anticipated rise in total Indonesian production would make for an increase of 40% between last year and 2000, Tanoto said. Internal demand, plotted at 2.5 million tonnes in 1996, is expected to grow to 2.9 million tonnes this year, 3.2 million tonnes in 1998, 3.6 million in 1999 and four million tonnes by the year 2000. This would mean a 60% rise from 1996 levels, driven by an expected annual economic growth rate of 8% which should boost demand for paper and packaging. Export potential for pulp should rise from one million tonnes in 1996 to 2.8 million tonnes in 2000, and for paper and cupboard from 1.7 million tonnes last year to 2.9 million tonnes in the year 2000. Source, The Castle Group Indonesian Business: The Year in Review 1997, Chapter 7, Timber, Pulp and Paper, January 1998. See the full story at http://www.castleasia.com/yir/Chapter_7.htm .

How can the greatest destroyer of Indonesia's environment in modern times receive awards for environmental protection? It boggles the mind. It must be a fantasy played out by those who wanted so desperately to show that Indonesia's dictatorship under Suharto was a thriving, healthy, balanced economy. They tried to write a different history than the actual one being played out on the ground, in the forests of Indonesia. How reputable institutions in the United States could ignore reality across the ocean and make a new reality of Bob Hasan in the U.S., is not understood. Bob Hasan was given at least three environmental awards by U.S. organizations in 1997. In April 1997, Hasan's timber conglomerate, the Kalimanis Group, was recognized by Clinton administration for efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then the Dean of North Carolina State University's College of Forest Resources named Hasan an honorary professor at an August 1997 ribbon-cutting of his new pulp and paper mill in East Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. In a sincere expression Dean Larry Tombaugh said,"it is rare that a person emerges to have the potential of teaching the entire world about protecting the environment." Hasan also won the "Harry A. Merlo Award" for environmental achievements from the Oregon-based (forest industry controlled) World Forestry Center. Source, "A Timber Tycoon's Trophies: Why is one of Asia's most unscrupulous foresters winning environmental awards?", by Leslie Weiss, November 18, 1997.

Hasan received at least three environmental awards from US based organizations. The first was issued in April 1997. The Kalimanis Group was honoured at a White House ceremony by President Clinton and Al Gore for its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The United States Initiative on Joint Implementation (USIJI), announced the partnership with Hasan's Kalimanis Group conglomerate at a White House ceremony. The partnership was one of 10 new projects announced by USIJI, which facilitates investment by U.S. companies into foreign-based industries working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Joint Implementation programs, developed countries like the U.S. that don't want to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions from their coal and oil plants pay money to buy carbon sink credits from developing countries like Indonesia to plant trees. The trees are supposed to suck up and store carbon in their trunks and branches. This partnership would have resulted in a major proposed transfer of U.S. money to Hasan and Kalimanis. The Indonesia project, said the U.S. Climate Change Joint Initiative (JI) officials, will implement "reduced impact logging" on 1,480 acres of Hasan's timber concessions to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next 40 years, 56,400 tons of carbon will be "saved" as a result. So far, though, nothing's been saved -- a U.S. investor for the project has yet to be found. Fifty-six thousand tons of carbon is a "minuscule amount," notes scientist Darren Goetze of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Each year, he says, the U.S. alone emits close to 5.5 billion tons of carbon. Asked about the environmentally unsound practices of Hasan's companies, USIJI Deputy Director Paul Schwengels says the USIJI isn't supposed to look at a company's track record -- it just evaluates the proposed project for its future environmental benefits. "We've heard anecdotal stories about Bob Hasan. We know what goes on in Indonesia," says the U.S. IJI's Kurt Zwally. Adds Schwengels: "We don't necessarily say that this company -- everything it does -- benefits the environment.... We are asking companies to do something that benefits the environment that they wouldn't otherwise do."

In August 1997, the second environmental award was given by North Carolina State University. It gave Bob Hasan an "Honorary Professorship" at the university of North Carolina State University. The university said that the honorary professorship had nothing to do with the US $100,000 to $150,000 grant given by Hasan to North Carolina State University. Bob Hasan did not buy his "Professorship" at the university. That would be corruption. Dean Tombaugh at North Carolina State University bestowed the honorary professorship on Hasan at the opening of Hasan's Kiani Kertas pulp mill, the largest in Southeast Asia. Dean Tombaugh said that, "I would be the last to proclaim to be an expert about Indonesia, but it has appeared to me... the environmental future of that country is in the hands of a few major industrialists. And Mr. Hasan is one of them." The third U.S. award was provided by the World Forestry Center, an Oregon based industry public relations group. The World Forestry Center gave Bob Hasan the Harry A. Merlo Award for environmental achievement. It was given annually by the World Forestry Center to one of its many members on the board. Bob Hasan was one of the members of the Board of the Center. Source, "A Timber Tycoon's Trophies: Why is one of Asia's most unscrupulous foresters winning environmental awards?", by Leslie Weiss, Mother Jones Magazine, November 18, 1997. See the full story at http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/hasan.html .

IOC member Mr. Hasan, who is now 69 years old, spent the 2000 Sydney Australia Olympics behind bars. In a display of poor judgement that has plagued the International Olympic Committee and its boss, Juan Samaranch, it selected Bob Hasan as one of the members to sit on the IOC representing Southeast Asia. In a move that reflected the politics of the IOC, it and its Chairman, Juan Samaranch, asked that the detention of Hasan imposed following the charges of corruption, be lifted long enough for Bob Hasan to attend the Australian 2000 Olympics. Indonesia's Attorney General, Maruki Darusman, said that he was amazed by Samaranch's intervention". And that, "the ethics involved are quite odd, and it contravened the spirit of the Olympics", he added. Mr. Darusman said there was no way Hasan would be freed from detention before his trial. The BBC reported that, "after his arrest in March 2000, the IOC scandalised Indonesia by asking the government to release Mr Hasan so he could attend the Sydney Olympics - a request that was flatly refused by the Indonesian Government". Source, "Rise and fall of a Timber Tycoon", BBC, London, U.K., September 20, 2000. See the full story at http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_933000/933787.stm . Also see http://www.chinadaily.net/cover/storydb/2000/09/20/wn-3suha.920.html .

The IOC released the text of a letter written by its president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid. The letter, dated April 26, notes that Hasan is the IOC member in Indonesia and serves as a high-ranking official in international track and field. "We are expecting Indonesia to send a strong team to the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney, Australia, next September," Samaranch wrote, adding that, "your continued support for the development of sport and Olympism in Indonesia and to the volunteer officials involved in sport would be highly appreciated." Indonesia's attorney general, Maruki Darusman, said he was amazed by Samaranch's intervention. "The ethics involved are quite odd. It contravenes the spirit of the Olympics," said Maruki Darusman. In Sydney, IOC Vice President Dick Pound defended the efforts to free Hasan. "I don't know whether he is in jail or whether he's been asked not to travel or if his passport's been taken away or he's under house arrest," said Canada's Dick Pound. Pound said the IOC had an obligation to all its members to lobby on their behalf to allow them to attend the Olympics, and was defending Hasan out of "collegial loyalty ... it's entirely appropriate that the IOC try and help any member who may be being detained without having been convicted," Pound said. Source, "IOC defends lobbying on behalf of accused Indonesian member", Associated Press (AP), Sydney, Australia, September 12, 2000. See the full story at http://www.canoe.com/Slam000912/oly_ioc.html .

Bob Hasan helped negotiate the battle between the huge mining companies and their allies in the Suharto Family. The contestants were President Suharto's two oldest children, daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, known as Tutut, and Suharto's son, Sigit Harjoyudanto. Each child partnered a Canadian mining company: tiny Bre-X Minerals for Sigit and giant Barrick Mining for Tutut. Hasan's deal gave Bre-X, which discovered the reserves in early 1996, a 45% share of the mine. For his efforts, two Hasan-controlled companies received a combined 30% stake for which Bob Hasan paid nothing. A Jakarta businessman called what Bob Hasan did, "corporate robbery". Source, "Bob Hasan's Gold Touch: How Suharto's Point Man Walked into an Economic Minefield and Emerged on Top", by Rahul Jacob, Time Magazine, Vol. 149, No. 10, New York, March 10, 1997, See the full story at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970310/business.bob_hasans.html .

After the battle between the Suharto siblings and their Canadian allies showed no signs of abating, Hasan gathered several of the parties at the President's cattle ranch and forged a compromise. The deal has the Hasan stamp: the appearance of ensuring that Indonesia's national interests are represented while cutting the First Family a slice. Nusamba, which is majority-owned by the President's charitable trusts and 10%-owned by eldest son Sigit, walked away with a 30% share of the reserves. As Jakarta sees it, Bre-X is also a winner because it comes away with a 45% share of the mine. But that is down from the 90% stake it originally claimed, prompting angry complaints from Canadian shareholders. Meanwhile, some investors in Astra, Indonesia's leading auto assembler and distributor, have expressed concerns since Hasan took an 8% stake in the company in November. Analysts say that Theodore Rachmat, the well-regarded president-director of Astra, is already playing a diminishing role in the company.

The deal engineered by Bob Hasan gave the U.S. New Orleans-based miner Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. a deal with the Alberta, Canada-based Bre-X Minerals Ltd. to create two joint ventures to develop the coveted Busang deposit, Freeport announced Tuesday. The deal resulted in two joint ventures, one controlling the mining rights to the Busang II exploration area and the other controlling the Busang III area. Freeport agreed to acquire a 15-percent interest in the joint ventures while Bre-X would control 45 percent, with 40 percent going to Indonesian interests, including partners PT Askatindo Karya Mineral and PT Amsya Lyna, as well as Indonesian investor Bob Hasan and the Indonesian government. According to Freeport, each joint venture will form an Indonesian company which is expected to be granted a contract to explore and develop the mining rights in the Busang II and III areas. Freeport will be the sole operator of the mining projects, committing up to $1.6 billion to the endeavours. "We are excited about . . . swiftly bringing these reserves into production," said James Moffett, Freeport's chairman and chief executive officer. Source, "Freeport, Bre-X cut gold deal", by Victor Ozols, New York, February 19, 1997. See the full story at http://www.amm.com/ref/hot/BREXFEB.HTM.ba_ .

With Hasan and Suharto gone the battle for the forest spoils is on. There is no one central controlling agency. Army colonels are fighting army generals for control over certain forestry sectors. Small time local officials and new Indonesian government officials are trying to line up with army officers to take control of various forest sectors. It is a free for all in the struggle control the forests wealth. Military colonels and vying with village chiefs for control of small forest areas. New regional interests are forming to secede and create their own nation and forest interests. Things are so unsettled in Indonesia that the U.S. has virtually stopped all of billions of dollars and annual military assistance to Indonesia, until the Government of Indonesia can rein-in the military and control its feudal, money-making role.