Farmers want royal land to help improve lives

YOGYAKARTA (JP): More than 1,000 farmers flocked the campus of Gadjah Mada University here on Saturday to ask Yogyakarta King Sultan Hamengkubuwono X to give them royal land in order to improve their lives.

The farmers, who claimed to represent the peasants in Yogyakarta and other towns in Central Java, read out what they called the Yogyakarta and Central Java Farmers' Charter, asking the sultan to support the revision of the Agrarian Law.

The farmers demanded that the sultan act on the popular principle Tahta untuk Rakyat (Throne for the People), introduced by his father, the late Hamengkubuwono IX.

The farmers want the sultan to hand over the land belonging to the palace, including the land in the Pakualaman area, to small farmers.

Suto, a 70-year-old farmer from Samas, Bantul regency, told The Jakarta Post that most of the land along the Parangtritis Beach belongs to the sultan's palace. Local farmers have been cultivating the land for years.

"But now the palace is offering some of the land to investors. We may lose the land," Suto said.

The sultan's palace in Yogyakarta reportedly owns about 30 percent of the land in the province. (44/sur)