Ciracas street vendors play tag with fate

Ciracas street vendors play tag with fate

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

About 120 street vendors evicted from Jl. Raya Ciracas in East
Jakarta earlier this month have reopened their stalls, defying
the mayoralty's public order officers, who promised to relocate
them.

Yasirah, in her 60s, said she got to Ciracas early in the
morning and sold spices for about an hour before the public order
officers showed at 6:30 a.m. to evict the vendors and seize their
merchandise.

"I just bring a small amount of spices so I can pack fast when
the officers come," she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday morning
after packing up her goods. "I am not able to sell a lot because
no one wants to buy spices from me at that early hour."

She said she had lost most of her customers and had made very
little money over the last seven days. She displays her plastic
baskets of spices in front of an electronics shop, the owner of
which she said often berated her.

On May 2, dozens of public order officers raided the vendors
along Jl. Ciracas, most of whom sell fruits, cigarettes and food
along both sides of the street. The raid took place from 11 p.m.
to 4 a.m.

According to the vendors, the public order officers had told
them last year that they would be allowed to operate along the
street until a new location was made available for them. The
vendors also said they had to pay the officers Rp 2,000 (about 23
US cents) per day to display their goods.

Yasirah and others sell their goods between Ciracas market,
which is operated by city-owned PD Pasar Jaya, and a textile
factory.

Dozens of large flowerpots have now been placed along the
street to discourage the vendors from coming back.

"Half of the vendors have stopped selling goods because they
were afraid. But I cannot stop. I have a family to feed ... my
children are still in school. What we do now is play tag, the cat
runs when the dog comes," Susi, a fruit vendor, told the Post.

Sarwoto, a vegetables vendor, said he was shutting down his
business for the time being because he was losing money. "I
wasted Rp 300,000 (about US$35) worth of vegetables a day the
first three days (after the raid). I'd rather wait and see what
solution the administration offers us."

According to the vendors, the Ciracas subdistrict
administration said they could display their goods in a parking
lot belong to PD Pasar Jaya. But it is far from the main road and
not spacious enough to accommodate all of the vendors. The
location is also right behind the Ciracas market and is used as a
garbage dump, and the shop owners also park in the lot.

"Relocating us there is the same as killing us," Yesi, another
fruit vendor, said.

The head of the Ciracas subdistrict, Tabrani, invited the
vendors to attend a meeting on Wednesday to discuss their
relocation. It was partly this invitation that moved the vendors
to cancel a planned rally at the mayoralty office last Friday.

"Some of us were intimidated by a public order officer from
the subdistrict office. He said any vendor who took part in the
rally would not be given space in our new location," said Frans
Junjungan, a vendor who works on the nearby Jl. Raya Bogor,
adding that street vendors along that road believed they were the
next targets for eviction.

"We have been promised a place at the Munjul market, but it
has yet to be constructed. If the administration evicts us now,
what would happen to us?

"Why don't they give us permission to run our businesses here
without the fear of eviction, because we don't mind spending
extra to build well-spaced kiosks that won't disturb traffic or
the environment," Frans said.

He also questioned the city's decision to budget only Rp 850
million to add 200 kiosks to Munjul market, compared to the Rp 2
billion allocated for eviction in the city, the Rp 3.5 billion to
build the Ciracas subdistrict office and the Rp 4 billion to
renovate the fence around the East Jakarta mayoralty building.

Meanwhile, the head of East Jakarta's public order office,
Muhamad Wasad, said the mayoralty had yet to find a new location
for the street vendors, saying there was no room available.

"We have not heard what the street vendors want from us.
According to the law, we have to maintain order in the city," he
told the Post.

He was referring to Bylaw No. 11/1988 on public order, which
human rights activists said should be revised because it puts
people working in the informal sector at a disadvantage.