Disregarding law
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SIP has been revoked because of the death of the SIP holder, the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