Tue, 25 Sep 2001

Farmers stage protest nationwide

JAKARTA (JP): In coincidence with the 41st National Agrarian Day, farmers in Jakarta, Mataram (West Nusa Tenggara), Medan (North Sumatra) and Maumere (East Nusa Tenggara) staged protests on Monday, with various demands being made.

In Jakarta at least 600 farmers from the Indonesian Farmers Federation (FSPI) voiced their demands here to members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) ad hoc committee responsible for agrarian reform and to the National Land Agency (BPN).

FSPI chairman Henry Saragih urged the Assembly to issue a decree on agrarian reform that favored farmers' rights.

"BPN should not continue the drafting of a law that contradicts Law No. 5/1960 on agrarian matters. The decree on agrarian reform should be included in the agenda for the Assembly's plenary session next November."

"Many existing laws and also the draft of the law on land favor businessmen or investors rather than farmers," he said.

The protesters also insisted that the government issue a regulation that protected and enforced the agrarian law.

"Many of the farmers were arrested for fighting for their land against companies that wanted to expand their estate illegally by persuading the farmers to give up their plots."

In Mataram at least 450 farmers from the Indonesian Farmers Union (STI) swarmed the provincial legislative council on Monday, urging the executive and legislative bodies to keep their promise to help the farmers reclaim their land from the concession- holders and private companies that had been allowed to use their plots for years.

Rajab, a farmer from Batukute, West Lombok regency, said to The Jakarta Post after the protest that the West Lombok administration had "borrowed' a 3.94 hectare plot belonging to local farmers in the 1990s for silk worm farming.

"The project failed, but the administration has yet to return the land, arguing that the farmers did not have a certificate for the land," said Rajab.

Another farmer from Tanak Awu Kute, Central Lombok regency, said that his 500-square meter plot, along with 850 hectares of land belonging to other farmers, was acquired by the local administration in 1995, with compensation of only Rp 200,000 per 100 square meters.

"The local administration then planned to build an international airport. The plan was aborted after then minister of transportation Giri Suseno said that the area was not suitable for an international airport. However the administration did not want to return the land but charged rent to the farmers of Rp 750,000 per hectare per year," Suryadi said.

Probosutedjo

In a related development, Banjaran residents of Cintaraja village in the regency of Langkat, North Sumatra, said in Medan that they wanted their 70.3 hectare plot, now being used by a private tobacco plantation company controlled by Probosutedjo, the half brother of former president Soeharto.

Ariono, the protesters' spokesman, told the Post on Monday that he had just arrived from Jakarta after conveying the farmers' demands to President Megawati Soekarnoputri, Home Affairs Minister Hari Sabarno and speaker of the House of Representatives Akbar Tandjung last week.

Langkat is almost 250 kilometers north of Medan.

"The company PT Buana Estate had used military personnel to intimidate land owners into giving up a total of 70.3 hectares of their land in Banjaran, Cintaraja village, in 1986. The land, then occupied by 79 families, has since then been controlled by a company that holds the land use permit," said Ariono.

The families, formerly workers on a tobacco plantation belonging to the Dutch colonial government, occupied the land in 1930. The land was outside the tobacco plantation.

In 1972 the tobacco plantation was bought by PT Cintaraja, owned by Probosutedjo. In 1986 the company changed its name to PT Buana Estate and since then efforts to acquire the 70.3 hectares of land were stepped up.

According to a gubernatorial letter dated Dec. 27, 1982 and signed by then governor E.W.P. Tambunan, the Banjaran people's land was not included in the area owned by Cintaraja, Ariono said. (bby/54/42/sur)