A brief update to Friday's post on John Sauven's expulsion from Indonesia. First, you can read John's own account of the bizarre episode here http://tiny.cc/6m6jp

There is still to my knowledge no officially detailed reason for the decision, despite John having planned meetings with government officials and big Indonesian companies. Meanwhile, my Twitter feed has received the attention of a follower purporting to work in the Indonesian 'government field'. It all started off in a mundane enough way, stressing how much havoc Greenpeace is causing in Indonesia (not as much havoc as cutting down all the rainforests, I venture) and that the government is trying to crack down on the organisation and so on. All legitimate debate, although some very senior and respected Indonesians seem to be on Greenpeace's side on this one - more on that in the Jakarta Post here http://tiny.cc/e59fr

Then my Twitter dissenter posted something utterly extraordinary. The reason Sauven was deported, he wrote, was because of a secret intelligence document showing he was planning a protest at an Indonesian nuclear reactor. I know for a fact that this is utter nonsense. Greenpeace UK does not campaign on the Indonesian nuclear industry - they have their hands full enough with that issue at home. Clearly this line was not sanctioned officially, and I have not been able to discover which part of the government this individual works for. It does reveal the confusion in Indonesia itself about what has transpired in the last few days. 

On the subject of utter nonsense, a new saga has been developing involving Andy Tait, another Greenpeace UK campaigner. The Jakarta Globe has that story here http://tiny.cc/vua07 Messy, at best.

Whoever is behind these moves, they are not helping Indonesian business or the Indonesian government one jot. Of course, many senior figures in busines and government know this. So presumably they will now use their influence to stop further embarrassment. 

John Sauven, who runs Greenpeace UK (and very well he runs it too), is a brilliant campaigner. Under his leadership, Greenpeace UK has changed the direction of several multinational companies across several sectors. His organisation is widely regarded as the most effective campaigning NGO in Britain. I agree. 

John is also savvy enough to be able to deal in a grown up and sophisticated way with companies and governments. He is a tough negotiator, but commands the respect of many business people, including people in the businesses who have been on the roughest end of Sauven's campaigns. In fact, especially those people. 

John is not a terrorist or anarchist. He doesn't disrupt public order for the sake of it. He has often found himself on the right side of the argument in some rather high profile battles with government. And he has helped build some remarkable progress in businesses where such progress once seemed impossible. 

The deal on palm oil deforestation between Greenpeace, the Forest Trust and Golden Agri Resources (GAR), was one such example. GAR is owned by Sinar Mas, which also own the notoriously hopeless Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). GAR is now starting to emerge as something of a leader in its sector, and as a result is winning back some of the customers it lost at the height of the palm oil issue's media profile last year. John can take much of the credit for this progress. 

It was presumably to follow up on this success that Sauven planned this week to visit Indonesia, the country in which he married, meeting companies and government officials to further advance the effort to tackle deforestation in the country. Plenty of Indonesians, in companies and government, were planning to meet him, and he had no trouble getting a visa for his trip. 

Odd then, that upon arrival in Jakarta yesterday, he was denied entry and immediately deported. See the Jakarta Globe's coverage of that at http://tiny.cc/9lxyr There are dark forces at work here. The only question is who is behind them. The line being put out is that John's activities are in some way a threat to the national sovereignty of Indonesia. This is of course nonsense - the GAR deal is a big win for Indonesia. Not to mention the fact that one of the greatest threats to Indonesia is the continued loss of its rainforests. 

One can only speculate at how a planned trip with full official approval was so suddenly derailed. The most likely conclusion is pressure from one or more of the companies that have not yet seen eye to eye with Greenpeace on deforestation issues. Ironically, had the visit gone ahead, it would probably have received little or no attention. In deporting Sauven as soon as he entered the immigration hall, Indonesia has scored a spectacular own goal, in the same way that banning advertisements always ensures they are seen by more people than had they been aired in the usual way. 

Should it emerge that this bad decision was the outcome of Indonesian companies applying pressure on the government, those firms will lose even more customers than would have been the case already. That won't do Indonesia any good at all. Time will tell. I have a funny feeling this sinister episode marks the beginning of a new and ugly chapter in a saga that has already gone on for far too long. One day, the full truth will out. It always does.