Disregarding law
When a lawsuit concerning the revocation of a house occupancy permit (SIP) was being examined by the Medan State Administrative Court (PTUN), suddenly the head of the Medan office of population affairs (KUP), Chairul Ichwan Lubis, evicted the occupants of the house at Jl. Kartini 15, Medan, North Sumatra. The house was originally owned by a Dutch family. The present occupants lived there for 37 years (1961 to 1998). This inhumane eviction was carried out under the instruction of president director of state plantation company PTPN IV, Zaini Taibin, who allegedly paid millions of rupiah to various relevant government agencies.
The occupants were subjected to oppression and sadistic treatment merely because they are of Chinese descent. Even more sadistic, PTPN IV made it public through the SIB newspaper that thieves had broken into the house owned by PTPN IV, while the fact of the matter was that the occupants had reentered the house.
The head of the security unit of PTPN IV (PAPAM PTPN IV), Lt. Col. Ganda Ginting, demonstrated his racism when he broke down the door to the house by kicking it in and shouted: "The Chinese must be forcibly evicted from this house."
The occupants obtained a SIP on the said house as replacement for their house on Jl. Bintang, which had been appropriated for a shop-house compound. Obviously, the occupancy of the house had nothing to do with PTP, as confirmed in a memorandum issued by Commercial/General Affairs director Dr. Tarigan. The memorandum, No. 06.1/M553/1991 dated June 27, 1991, acknowledges that the house was not registered as an asset of PTPN VI as of the period ending Dec. 31, 1991.
The reason for the revocation of the SIP is that the SIP holder, my father, died in 1984 and that the occupants were declared as having lost their case at the Medan High Court. The ruling of the Medan High Court stipulated that the ruling of the district court (which had ruled in the occupants' favor) should be rejected owing to an administrative problem, namely that the lawsuit should have been addressed to PTP VI and not the president director. Obviously, this ruling never stated that the asset (the house) was the property of PTP VI or that eviction was not ordered by the district court.
It is worth mentioning at this juncture that with respect to a house located at Jl. KH Zainal Arifin 135, Medan, of which the SIP has been revoked because of the death of the SIP holder, the rulings of the Medan State Administrative Court and the Medan State Administrative High Court stipulate that a new SIP should be issued to the child of the SIP holder under the child's name.
Why is it that the fate of the occupants of the house at Jl. Kartini 15, Medan, is different? Most of the house has been demolished, while the roof and the door/windows have all be removed. Reportedly, the house has been offered to employees of PTPN IV on a tender basis and one can certainly guess who has won the tender. Ironically, in its recent ruling, the Medan State Administrative High Court stipulated that the revocation/cancellation of the SIP by the head of Medan KUP was not valid.
I hope to get some advice from readers and legal experts about a just settlement in this house/land dispute.
ELLY YUNITA
On behalf of SIP holder
Bekasi, West Java