Land allocated for transmigrants

Land allocated for transmigrants

UNA AHA, Southeast Sulawesi: The Kendari administration has
allocated 1,000 hectares of land in Asera, Latoma and Abuki
districts toward a transmigration program.

"The land has been prepared to welcome some 500 families,"
Kendari vice regent Tony Herbiansysh said here on Thursday.

He said the administration had offered the land under the
transmigration program on the grounds that the three districts
were still scarcely populated.

The transmigration program is one of the key policies
initiated during the regime of former president Soeharto.

The policy aims to lower the population density on Java and
has met with resistance from regional administrations, which fear
that parts of their territories would turn into Javanese
colonies.

Local leaders could do nothing to stop the program while
Soeharto was in power, but since his ouster in 1998, the policy
has rarely been implemented. -- Antara