Evicted people set up union

Evicted people set up union

JAKARTA (JP): Evicted people, whose lands were cleared to make
way for development projects in the city and surrounding areas,
pledged yesterday to take back thousands of hectares of their
property.

Their representatives established a new organization called
Evicted Victims Community at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute
yesterday with the aim of negotiating with the government for the
return of their lands.

"We will unite to get our lands back and our struggle will be
based on legal procedures," the organization's chairman, Rahardjo
Darsoprajitno, said.

The first target of the organization will be to meet with
President B.J. Habibie, said Rahardjo, who is also a
representative of Kemayoran residents who were evicted by the
State Secretariat under the New Order government for the
construction of a new residential area.

"We were intimidated and forced to leave our land by land
buyers who had the help of military personnel and government
officials. Now we demand that Habibie's administration help us
get back our lands," he said.

Lawyer Dewi Novirianti of the institute said the evicted
people from 46 locations would ask the Supreme Court, which has
dozens of land cases to review, to support them.

The people will also visit the National Commission on Human
Rights to complain about alleged human right violations practiced
during the eviction process, Dewi said.

She said the organization would also hold peaceful
demonstrations to air their demands.

"We hope more people will join us. The evictions from the 46
locations involve thousands of families," she said.

She said some of the evicted people had been helped by the
institute in their land disputes but others were new cases.

According to Dewi, hundreds of Cimacan residents in Cianjur
who joined the new organization continued yesterday to cultivate
their land, on which a golf course had been established.

Dozens of the evicted people attending the organization's
launching ceremony yesterday were dissatisfied by the limited
time of the media conference. They expected coverage of all 46
cases.

"In the future, we possibly should bring hundreds or even
thousands of people in a demonstration to get our lands back,"
Henry M. Ali, one of the organization's members, said.

A representative from Cikarang, Bekasi, also joined the
organization to air his dissatisfaction over the appropriation of
his land by a company controlled by Soeharto's eldest daughter,
Siti "Tutut" Hardijanti Rukmana. (jun)