Kelapa Gading eviction victims tell tragic stories

Kelapa Gading eviction victims tell tragic stories

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

With tears in her eyes, 45-year-old Rumondang Sinaga stood in
front of her house, trying to prevent a bulldozer machine from
destroying it. She was pulled away by some of her poor neighbors
at the last minute.

"Where should I and my six children move to if my house here
is demolished!" Rumondang cried, while the machine approached her
temporary house built from plywood in a swampy part of Kelapa
Gading subdistrict, North Jakarta.

Rumondang was widowed after her husband A. Simanjuntak died a
year ago. She works as a vendor on the road located near the
Sunter river, about 100 meters from her house.

She has to support five of her children -- four of whom are of
school age -- as the eldest has a job and lives separately from
her.

She said her family had lived in the area since 1989. "This is
my only house. How could they do this to us, a poor widow with
six children to support," Rumondang told The Jakarta Post on
Friday.

It was the second day of demolition of riverbank slum houses,
just across from Kelapa Gading shopping center.

The first day of demolition on Thursday was marred by clashes
between public order officers and residents, leaving a number of
people wounded from police rubber bullets.

Head of the operational section at the Security Order Agency
in North Jakarta Esmar said that the people there had built their
houses illegally on land belonging to PT Sari Kebon Jeruk Permai
(SKJP).

But many of the residents have identity cards (IDs). Their
houses are connected to the electricity mains of state-owned
electricity company PLN and also have piped water, supplied by
state water company PT Pam Jaya.

Rumondang is one of around 1,000 heads of families who will
lose their home if the demolition process is completed. Most of
the people there have no permanent jobs, working as street
vendors, drivers, construction workers and in other jobs in the
informal sector.

Darmaji, Toid and Subur showed their ID cards to the Post to
prove that they were lawful residents of the neighborhood.

"District and subdistrict heads have, however, shirked their
responsibility. We are being treated like illegal aliens although
we were born here," said Darmaji, who has four children, three of
them still of school age.

Nani, 37, who claimed she was born in the area, said that her
father, Nazar, 80, was the first person to establish a dwelling
in the swamp in the 1950s. She said her father had run away from
his hometown in Cikarang, West Java.

Esmar refused to answer questions about the status of the
land, saying that they should be put to the North Jakarta mayor.

"My task here is to lead the demolition work," he stressed.

He also refused to comment on the fact that people there were
lawful residents as they had IDs, and their houses were supplied
with electrical power from PLN and water from PAM Jaya.

The demolition plan was not carried out transparently as Espar
refused to say where was the limit of houses scheduled to be
demolished.

But a number of public order officers said that demolition
would only be carried out within an area marked by red flags.