The Coalition for Monitoring Indonesia's Infrastructure Development and supporting NGOs today called on the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Indonesia Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and the Indonesian Government to stop AIIB financing for the quarter-billion dollar Mandalika Urban Development and Tourism Project, following a communication from the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. The letter, from Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, questions the AIIB, ITDC and the government of Indonesia over alleged human rights violations in connection to the project.

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The civil society groups also called on AIIB, and its borrowers - the ITDC and Indonesian government – to resolve the humanitarian crisis caused by the forced eviction, involuntary resettlement and land acquisition of communities, including Indigenous peoples from their lands, and adhere to recommendations issued by the OHCHR’s Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.

“We urge the AIIB to immediately suspend its financing of the Mandalika project, which commenced without the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), [...] Indigenous peoples have already been forced from their lands and the largely agrarian community are faced with the continued loss of their livelihoods”, [...]“AIIB must also immediately require its clients, the ITDC and the government of Indonesia to disband the land acquisition task force composed largely of the military and police forces in Mandalika which employs tactics of intimidation and movement restriction on the affected people".

The Mandalika Urban Development and Tourism Project, on the Indonesian island of Lombok, is a mega infrastructure tourism development largely funded by the AIIB, which provides for 78.5 per cent of the total project funding through loan of $248.4 million. The AIIB financed Mandalika Urban Development and Tourism project is the bank’s first standalone project in Indonesia.

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According to May 2022 [...], there is still a high degree of homelessness as a result of involuntary resettlement, while more than 100 families are still forced to live alongside a construction site in proximity of the MotoGP race track, where the public and community have to overcome checkpoints in order to enter the fenced off residential area – a designed project location - guarded by military and police.

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