Fishermen forced to stay at sea
Fishermen forced to stay at sea
Evi Mariani and Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Cirebon
The cool breeze on Thursday afternoon could not cool the anger of
hundreds of evicted fishermen along the banks of Muara Angke
river in North Jakarta, when a bulldozer demolished the last
remaining building in the area, a musholla (a muslim prayer
room).
It was a similar scene when city public order officers
demolished their stilt houses on Oct. 2.
On Thursday, about 800 officers not only demolished the prayer
room, but also destroyed and burned down the fishermen's
makeshift tents.
"Please, don't demolish the musholla. It's where our children
sleep when the rain pours down," begged a number of fishermen to
the officers.
The arrival of the head of the North Jakarta Public Order
Agency, Tonni Boediono, prompted the officers to quickly mow down
the fishermen's final outposts.
"I don't care if it's a musholla. If it's a sin or not a sin,
let God decide," Tonni grumbled as the fishermen immediately took
refuge in their boats.
The fishermen then sailed to the middle of the river to avoid
the officers. Women and children cried onboard the boats as they
watched in horror as their local musholla was unceremoniously
destroyed.
Many of these same fishermen had been evicted from their
family's stilt homes from a riverbank in Ancol, North Jakarta,
around 30 years ago. They then moved to Muara Baru but were
evicted in 1977 and started to settle down in Muara Angke before
the public order officers sent them packing on Thursday.
Tonni claimed that the eviction was an important move to help
Jakarta ease its flooding problems.
"We did it for all Jakartans. This small number of people
won't stop us from doing this. Besides, they are outlaws," he
said, referring to their lack of legal land title.
Tonni ignored pleas from the fishermen to postpone the
eviction until they get proper housing in Indramayu regency, West
Java, as promised by the Ministry of Resettlement and
Infrastructure earlier. The housing is scheduled to be completed
in March.
In Cirebon, Indramayu Regent Irianto M.S. Syafiuddin said that
his administration had allocated a four-hectare plot of land at
Song Beach to house around 220 fishermen families evicted from
Jakarta.
The regency and West Java administrations and the central
government have also allocated Rp 30 billion (US$3.5 million) to
build the low-cost houses.
The Jakarta administration had turned down the ministry's
proposal to join hands in providing low-cost housing for the
poor, saying that the high price of land in the capital would be
better for commercial purposes.
The regency also plans to build a port for fishing ships and a
site for auctions for the fishermen.
Irianto called on the Jakarta administration to postpone the
eviction of the small-scale fishermen until the houses were
ready.
The evicted fishermen can no longer sail because the boats now
serve as their shelters while the rainy season is coming.
"We started fishing after the Idul Fitri holiday and we could
earn money," said Cemplon, the spokesman of the Traditional
Fishermen Union (SNT). "Now, the boats are our only shelter from
the storms and therefore we must stop fishing again."