Fire victims told to report to alert center

JAKARTA (JP): People claiming to be the owners of razed buildings on burned out land in North Jakarta on which rebuilding has been banned, should report to the new alert command center at the district military command, a public order official said.

Boy Firman, North Jakarta's public order office head, said yesterday he had told 21 people claiming to represent building owners in the Kelapa Gading district, to take their claims to the center's mayoralty branch.

The building owners and those renting rooms who lost their homes in the Feb. 12 fire said they hoped the city would allow them to rebuild. A few said they had notices from former subdistrict heads confirming their status as land tillers.

"It is difficult to prove their claims," Firman said.

"But as the land belongs to the city our job is to prevent them from rebuilding. So they should report to the Alert Command Center," he added.

Some 2,000 people lost their homes on the 1.4 hectare plot on the corner of Jl. Pegangsaan Dua and Jl. Kelapa Nias Timur on Feb. 12 . Another 2,000 were rendered homeless in the Feb. 9 fire also on Jl. Pegangsaan Dua.

The earlier fire victims were also banned from rebuilding. But Firman said it was difficult to ban rebuilding here as this land was private property and the owners had not raised objections to the rebuilding.

Firman said the mayoralty office offered to help residents by giving them Rp 100,000 per family to rent rooms.

"Residents can collect the money at the subdistrict office," he said, but added that the problem was assessing the validity of claims.

So far the subdistrict office has listed 472 families as victims of the Feb. 12 fire. Many are still living in tents or with relatives. They number scrap iron collectors, three-wheeled toyoko public transport owners, factory workers and vendors.

Firman said claims that some residents held 1986 permits from a former subdistrict to till the land, were possible if the notices had been issued before the city appropriated the land.

He was not sure when it became city property under the city's property firm PT Pembangunan Jaya. The firm's director Hanafi Lauw earlier said he was not sure if the firm had property there.

The Alert Command Center, headed by the local military commander, was established because President Soeharto decided this facility was needed to anticipate potential unrest. But a formal charter of the responsibilities of the center's Jakarta branches has yet to be announced. (anr)