City late to evict residents

City late to evict residents

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Sooner or later we will be evicted, we already knew that this
was private land," said Ronny, a resident of Jembatan Besi,
Tambora, West Jakarta, who was evicted on Tuesday.

Ronny is only one of some 10,000 residents who have occupied
5.5 hectares of an eight-hectare plot of land since early 1998,
owned by PT Cakra Wira Bumi Mandala.

Cakra Wira started to clear the land to build in 1997 but it
abandoned the project after the monetary crisis hit the country,
Ronny told The Jakarta Post.

Initially a few people started to grow vegetables on the land
and erected temporary housing. But within five years, at least
1,720 makeshift houses were erected and sadly many of the
residents there rented the houses, he said.

Arief Fadilah, head of West Jakarta Public Order Agency, told
reporters at the scene that the administration had warned the
residents a year ago that their eviction was imminent if they did
not leave the site. However, he declined to explain why the
administration did not remove the squatters when there were only
a few.

"It was the monetary crisis, people who lived there had just
lost their jobs and some were trying to make use of the land by
farming," he argued.

Using the monetary crisis as an excuse has become a cliche.
Last month, the administration demolished some 400 makeshift
kiosks used by around 1,000 street vendors along Jl. Pasar Senen
in Central Jakarta.

The administration argued that it originally let the vendors
occupy only the sidewalk next to Senen Market due to the monetary
crisis, but eventually more vendors came and occupied up to third
quarters of the street, causing heavy congestion.

Chairman of the Jakarta Residents Forum (Fakta) Azas Tigor
Nainggolan blamed the administration for Tuesday's incident for
two reasons.

The administration did not initially prohibit the people from
occupying the land while the number was not so significant.
Second, the public order officials did not approach the people
who would lose their houses, instead they used violence during
the eviction.