Houses torn down for Cilandak mall
Houses torn down for Cilandak mall
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
South Jakarta public order officers bulldozed on Thursday three
houses on Jl. T.B. Simatupang, Cilandak Barat, to make way for
extensions to the Cilandak Town Square mall, despite an ongoing
legal battle over the ownership of the land.
Having lived there for 37 years, Soenarno, Handoyo and Jemry
Simatupang refused to comply with an order issued by the
municipality's housing agency on July 12, 2003, which gave them a
deadline to vacate the land on Wednesday.
Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) lawyer Gatot said
they would file a report with the police over the incident,
saying the agency had no legal right to evict the residents.
A clash erupted between the evicted residents and a group of
unidentified men in red who were seen assisting the public order
officers and police to tear down the houses. But the clash soon
stopped as the house owners gave up.
Jemry argued that the housing agency had mistakenly torn down
their houses because the July 12 order was addressed to the house
numbered 18A, while Soenarno lives in house number 30, Handoyo's
house is number 32 and Jemry's is number 29.
"The particular house mentioned in the order had been torn
down last year and the area is now a part of the Cilandak Town
Square movie theater," said Jemry, who had tried to stop the
eviction by reading out a copy of a court ruling verifying his
ownership of the land. He was ignored.
Ten trucks were seen parked to remove the three families'
belongings but none of them knew where the trucks went.
The three claimed they were the valid owners of the land,
which is upheld by a ruling of the Supreme Court issued in 1997.
The case began in 1974 when housing developer PT Dasawarna
sold the property to insurance firm PT Asuransi Jiwasraya, who is
one of the shareholders of the mall.
PT Dasawarna had promised to have the land vacated and
therefore paid compensation to 33 families in 1975.
But the three remaining families stayed. In 1980, they lost
their case in the South Jakarta District Court, but the Supreme
Court in 1997 ruled they had the legal title of land ownership.
However, the three did not realize that the land title was due
for renewal in 1998.
It was in that year, according to Soenarno, that PT Asuransi
Jiwasraya claimed to have the land certificate and had tried to
expel them from the houses through the housing agency.
"As we traced down the issuance of the certificate, we found
it was made based on a fictitious land title that was not
registered either in Cilandak Barat subdistrict or Cilandak
district offices," Soenarno said.
Based on their reports, the South Jakarta Land Agency froze
the certificate owned by PT Asuransi Jiwasraya, while Jakarta
Police issued a letter stating that the housing agency had no
right to seize their land on Oct. 8, 2002.