TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Leaders of regional and central executive boards of the Indigenous People’s Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) met President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo at the State Palace on Thursday, June 25, 2015. AMAN Secretary General Abdon Nababan explained that Jokowi promised to form a task force to facilitate reconciliations between indigenous people and the state.

Abdon added that Jokowi would look into criminalization against indigenous people through rehabilitation, abolition and other mechanisms.

“The hearing was important as a part of the initiative to restore indigenous people’s rights and remove criminalization against them,” Abdon said in a press release.

In AMAN’s first conference after the hearing, Abdon said that indigenous people have been evicted from their home and millions of hectares of customary forest have yet been returned to them.

To restore and guarantee indigenous people’s rights, Abdon said, Jokowi will follow up the Constitutional Court’s Decision Number 35 by issuing a Presidential Instruction. Jokowi had also promised that he would develop an indigenous people-based economy.

UWD