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