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)