Farmers want royal land to help improve lives

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)