Evicted residents fight for land

JAKARTA (JP): Seventy former residents of the now destroyed Siliwangi housing complex in Central Jakarta visited the National Commission on Human Rights yesterday to seek help in regaining their land.

The former residents, representing 300 families of war veterans who used to live at the complex on Jl. Senen Raya, told the commission that they were intimidated and some were badly injured by the military when they were evicted in 1984.

"Hundreds of soldiers from three battalions of the Jakarta Military Command were deployed to guard and bulldoze our houses," the residents' spokesman, Soehirman, 61, said while showing pictures of the eviction.

The command was then led by Maj. Gen. Try Sutrisno.

Soehirman said the residents had been living in the housing complex since 1950.

The military command, however, claimed the land and ordered the residents to leave.

The residents rejected an offer of Rp 80,000 per square meter on the 9.4 hectare plot, he said.

The residents were evicted even though legal proceedings over the land were still in progress in the Supreme Court. The military then handed over the plot to the Ministry of Finance.

Most of the land is still empty, the ministry only using a fraction of the space for a new building, Soehirman said.

He said the war veterans and their families were heartened by the new spirit of reform and were pushing to be heard.

Commission member B.N. Marbun promised to take the issue to Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto through a formal letter. (jun)