Land compensation

Land compensation

News about restless land owners in Tarumajaya village in
Bekasi, near Jakarta, due to the very low land compensation of Rp
50 (US$0.023) per square meter, has touched us deeply.

Once again we hear similar stories about incredibly low land
compensation in Bekasi given to villagers who will later see that
luxurious buildings to the tune of millions of rupiah are
replacing their houses.

Many of these villagers have lodged their protests with the
House of Representatives and the Presidential Bina Graha office,
though without much result.

Many of these lands in Bekasi were rice fields which were
turned into private sector use under the pretext of usage
alteration for regional development and in defiance of the 1990
Presidential Decision No. 33 on land usage for industrial area
purposes.

Farmers have been the principal losers in this practice. In
the last five years, Bekasi has lost 7,000 hectares of paddy
field that has been turned into either industrial areas or
housing complexes. And it is believed that a total of 10,000
hectares of rice fields will face the same fate from 1993 to 1998
in Bekasi.

This reckless pattern is being repeated in other parts of the
country, including on Batam island. But the fact that such a
thing could happen in a place only about 30 kilometers from
Jakarta has forced us to contemplate such treatment.

The explanations we have so far (such as demand outstripping
supply or capitalism in its rawest form) are no longer
satisfactory. All of these may be true but essentially it is
about power--power that comes from the people and should be used
to serve the people, but has been used for personal gain.

--Kompas, Jakarta