Collusion in land disputes criticized

SURABAYA (JP): Legal practitioners reproached the government yesterday for its continued siding with businesses, rather than the people, in various land disputes.

The Foundation of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute's head of environmental and land affairs, Rio Ismail, said in a discussion here yesterday that too often the state took a one-sided approach in such disputes, slapping malicious labels on people who try to defend their rights.

He lamented that the state, which should be protecting the interests of the people, was instead colluding with capitalists. As a result, rulers, exploiting natural resources in the name of the state, often clash head-on with the people.

Rio noted that those who refused to acquiesce were stigmatized and accused of various offenses, including being members or supporters of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

He pointed to several highly charged land cases such as those in the villages of Nipah, Jenggawah and Tubanan in East Java, as examples of disputes which pitted the state against the people. Rio noted that in all these cases, it has been evident that the government resorted to an "intense military approach".

Rio also examined several urban cases where large businesses or conglomerates misused local administration-designed city blueprints to claim areas of land.

He deplored the government's tendency in such circumstances to back a business' license for development projects, rather than the people's ownership certificate.

Soetandyo Wignjosoebroto, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, said that as a country modernizes, there are increasing examples of a government manipulating the people's interests in the name of development and the public good.

He said that capitalists often exploit the tendency to garner even greater profit.

Soetandyo argued that, in the current climate, land reform based on a fair and equal distribution of natural resources is needed.

The discussion focused on the poor implementation of the 1960 Agrarian Law. The speakers concluded that while the law was set up for the interests of the people, which renders it "populist", its implementation has been abused for capitalists' interests.

The speakers also lamented the narrowing of the term "agrarian affairs" here into land affairs, rather than the broader concept of natural resources.

"In consequence, many problems in exploitation of natural resources escape the Agrarian Law," Rio said. (15/mds)