City kicks out Senen market traders

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration demolished on Thursday some 400 makeshift stalls used by about 1,000 street vendors along Jl. Pasar Senen in Central Jakarta.

The administration deployed some 500 personnel from the police, military, auxiliary police and the city public order office.

Officials began the raid at 5 a.m., removing the stalls that occupied 75 percent of the street, leaving only one lane for motorists.

Sulaiman Bachtiar, city public order office head, told The Jakarta Post at the scene that the street vendors had been disrupting traffic and causing heavy congestion from Jl. Gunung Sahari to Jl. Pasar Senen.

"The vendors have been violating the rights of pedestrians," he said.

The Central Jakarta Municipality plans to shortly remove and relocate street vendors from Senen Raya, Kemayoran, Gunung Sahari, Tanah Abang and the vicinity of the National Monument (Monas) Park, said Mayor Hosea Petra Lumbun.

"Their presence violates Bylaw No. 11/1988 on public order, and has caused chaos from Senen bus terminal to the Kramat theater," he said.

Simanjuntak, a cloth vendor, said that the evictions were unfair.

"Most of the vendors here are ex-criminals. Since the city has removed our livelihoods, don't blame us if tomorrow the number of crimes in Senen rises dramatically," he said angrily.

Alex Siagian, a leader of the vendors, told the Post that the administration should have issued a warning prior to the raid so that the vendors could have minimized their loss.

Sulaiman said that the administration had provided space in Senen market for the street vendors since 1997, when the monetary crisis hit the country.

However, the number of vendors had been constantly rising, leading to a situation where they now occupied two lanes of the road.

Sutristiono, section head of the Senen branch of the city public order office, said that it had taken nine large garbage trucks to carry off the remains of the demolished stalls.

He said, however, that the city might consider giving the vendors space on the road.

"The leaders of the vendors will meet the Central Jakarta Mayor on Friday to find a solution to the problem," he said.