Locals on outside looking in at villa residents

Locals on outside looking in at villa residents

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Although the rich have built thousands of villas in the Puncak
tourist resort in West Java, local residents have failed to
benefit. In fact, the villas have impoverished them.

The presence of the villas and the rich has encouraged local
residents to sell their lands. Partly, because they could not
resist the lure of the lucre.

As the lands provided their livelihood and it was difficult to
find alternative means of income, they became poorer.

Abidin, a resident of Tugu Utara villa, Cisarua subdistrict,
Bogor, West Java, said that since the 1970s, the villagers had
sold their lands as the rich newcomers were willing to pay top
dollar. He could not, however, remember the exact price of land
at that time.

He said that most of the villagers used the money, not to
secure their futures, but on immediate needs like replacing their
wooden homes with concrete ones.

"In the past, the villagers never found it difficult to feed
members of their family as they still had land to plant various
kinds of vegetables and other cash crops," Abidin said.

"After they sold their lands, many of them became poorer than
before although they have better houses. Many of them even find
difficulties in fulfilling their routine expenditure for food,"
said Abidin, who works in Jakarta and returns home every weekend.

Oyang, 60, Abidin's father, said that his grandfather used to
have a large plot of land, but it had nearly all been sold. "My
grandfather's land was no less than seven hectares," Oyang told
The Jakarta Post.

Oyang said five hectares of the land had been sold by his
grandfather while the ownership of the remaining land was being
disputed.

"So we have no more land, except the two hectares which is
still being disputed," said Oyang.

According to Abidin, the village head and his associates were
those who gained most from the sale of villagers' lands and from
the constructions of villas.

He added that every land transaction was done with the help of
the village head, who got a certain amount of money from each
land transactions.

Abidin even said that many village heads and their associates
became land brokers.

Tugu Utara village head Jajat Sudrajat admitted that he got a
fee from every land transaction but he refused to say how much he
got.

Jajat, who has been village head since last September, said
that the state lands were sold by cultivators. He said that he
could only make official records of the state land transactions
without issuing any legal document. And from such services, he
received a "commission" from the buyers.

He admitted that during his six-month tenure he had recorded
eight transactions of state lands from the illegal occupants to
other parties.

"If I recorded 50 transactions of land, then I am rich now.
People said that I've become a village head when only bones are
left to deal with," he said.

But, one villager who spoke on condition of anonymity, told
the Post that candidates seeking to become village heads were
willing to spend hundreds of millions of rupiah to get elected as
they believed that they could regain their money in a short time.

Some other local people also said that they did not benefit
from the presence of the villas. They said that only few of them
were hired as workers to construct the villas or as security men
or domestic help.

"We are not invited to join them. Security men or the
domestics are usually taken by the owners from other regions,"
said Yudi, 20, whose house is only 500 meters from a complex
where tens of villas are located.

The villas, including one owned by Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso,
are built in Citameang, Tugu Utara subdistrict, Cisarua district,
Bogor regency. They are among hundreds built illegally on state
land in the Bogor and Cianjur subdistricts.

Yudi, like many other young people from the area, has no job
after graduating from junior high school.

According to him, there are only some 15 families in the
Citameang area, but none of them are employed by the villa
owners.

Suminta, 50, said that the locals were also not involved in
the construction of the villas as the construction company used
workers from other regions.

"I and my two children had to go to Jakarta to work as a
construction worker, although many villas were being constructed
here several years ago," said Suminta, who lives 500 metres from
the complex.

Suminta has three children, two of whom still live with him.

"I do not care about the villas as they cannot benefit my
family. I will lose nothing if they are demolished," said
Suminta's wife, Haryati, who said that his family had been living
in the area since 1989 when the villas were constructed.