Demolition of houses on state land continues

Demolition of houses on state land continues

JAKARTA (JP): While the city mayors say they are planning to
continue demolishing squatters homes on state land, they have
pledged to carry out the evictions and destruction wisely.

The mayors said they will only instruct their men to pull down
houses built without legal permits on the state land if they fail
to make the residents see things their way.

But they will not order their personnel to burn down homes,
something they've been accused of in the past, said the mayors as
quoted by Antara yesterday.

Earlier, Governor Surjadi Soedirdja reminded the authorities
and the public to prevent land from becoming home to new
migrants, most of whom come from the less educated classes.

North Jakarta Mayor Suprawito admitted that there are still
lots of illegal houses built on state land in his area,
especially along riverbanks and railway tracks.

"But we'll never burn them even if the houses are made of
paper," he said.

East Jakarta Mayor Sudarsono concurred with Suprawito, saying
that his personnel have managed to bring both old and newly-built
illegal houses on state land under control.

West Jakarta Mayor Sutardjianto insisted that he will not
tolerate any effort to occupy city land.

He also denied press reports saying that he had instructed his
personnel to burn a total of 321 shanties occupied by hundreds of
scavengers at a waste dump area at Srengseng Kelapa Dua in
Kembangan district recently.

"I never instructed my personnel to burn down these makeshift
houses," Sutardjianto said.

Central Jakarta Mayor Abdul Kahfi said his office will follow
every legal and administrative rule in handling the illegal
shanties in his area.

"If we fail to handle this problem quickly, there will be more
and more huts built on other empty state plots in the future.
Therefore we should be able to tackle this nagging problem once
and for all," he said. (bsr)