Lesson for all concerned

The Jakarta administration really got tough this week when the squatters in the fire-razed Bendungan Hilir area in the central part of the city challenged its authority to evict them. The squatters of Benhil -- shortened from Bendungan Hilir -- provoked security officers into action last Friday and again on Tuesday by refusing to leave the area although most of the 465 families had accepted compensation money for their homes from the authorities.

The squatters have also been promised a 50 percent discount on the price of the apartments, which the government will build for them in the area.

However, it seems that these people have developed a kind of distrust in the new way of life they are expected to face in the "vertical" housing promised them. They claim that many people have fallen victims to the policy.

They had begun rebuilding their shanties on the state-owned land when police, army and city security officers, equipped with anti-riot gear, came to secure the demolition of any structures on the 1.5 hectares of disputed land. The ensuing clashes in which the officers used tear gas to disperse the angry squatters gave rise to the impression that the eviction was not only inhumane and lacking in compassion, but brutal as well.

Some of the squatters, including two infants who became unconscious after exposure to the tear gas, were rushed to hospitals for injuries. Those left behind continued their opposition to the destruction of their makeshift shelters by burning a bulldozer used to bring them down.

In the end, because the officers, some of whom were also injured, were better equipped for a riot situation, and thus more powerful than the squatters, the eviction was enforced.

In the wake of the clashes, which backed up traffic for kilometers in all directions around the area twice in a week, many observers have put the blame on the officers and demolition workers for all the commotion. They say that the officers overreacted and went too far in their enforcement of the demolition and eviction orders.

The questions now are: How much is too much; and what is the root of the problem anyway? Is it, perhaps, that everyone concerned, including the injured officers, are victims of circumstances that could have been avoided?

Once upon a time, in the early part of the 1970s, the city administration, under governor Ali Sadikin, was very tough about stemming the inflow of migrants from the provinces. The rural poor were flocking to the city in great numbers, resulting in the fast growth of slum areas, with the subsequent expansion of health and social problems and environmental damage.

The tide was never fully held back, and the following years saw the problem grow uglier and ever more complex. The succeeding governors after Ali, especially the man called Tjokropranolo, who directly filled his shoes, showed greater tolerance towards the migrants. He believed the destitute people deserved more humane treatment because they were fleeing rural poverty in efforts to make ends meet in Jakarta, which they saw as a a place of opportunity.

The situation was made worse by the ineffectiveness of the lower levels of the city administration. Slum dwellers, many of them squatting on state land, were not only provided with ID cards, but were also obliged to pay taxes on the land that they did not own and had no resources or right to purchase. Even the narrow patches of land along railway tracks filled up with ramshackle structures the unfortunates were forced to call home.

Some lawyers have reacted to the situation by saying that from the legal point of view the city administration has to be blamed for any problems arising from the land disputes between squatters and the government because it did not act to ensure that the state land was not occupied in the first place. In many cases, slum dwellers have been squatting on state land for decades. The people newly evicted from Benhil had occupied that area for 35 years. Some were born there and understandably felt it was their right to remain there.

Clearly the status of the state property should have been made clear to the public from the beginning. The migrants should never have been allowed to put down such deep roots in land that they would never own. More attention to preventing the emergence of such illegal settlements at the earliest possible point would do wonders to put an end to the human grief and turmoil inflicted on all parties in incidents such as the Benhil clashes.

Rather than suddenly confronting slum dwellers with what appears to them to be a new policy, they should be fully informed of their status and the status of the land they are occupying under the law at the earliest possible point in time. In that way, the government's plans to construct apartments for them would not seem so alien or distressing. Or, if, as in the case of the Benhil residents, they have been on the state land for a long time and formed well-established communities, they should be given a more integral part in determining their futures once the use of the land returns to the state.

Based on the experiences of the last week and other similar incidents in the past, we believe that the administration should handle its less fortunate constituents with more care and more wisdom.

The Benhil crisis should serve as a good lesson for all of us, in particular the present governor, Soerjadi Sudirdja, who plans to clean up the slum areas within three years by providing apartments for the shanty dwellers to move into.