Millions evicted yearly for urban developments

By T. Sima Gunawan

ISTANBUL, Turkey (JP): The United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS) records that millions of people are evicted from their homes each year to make way for new urban developments.

Many people living in the heart of big cities, including Jakarta, have to leave their homes to make way for major restructuring projects. These include the construction of office buildings, hotels, convention centers, as well as transport and communication facilities, UNHCS says in An Urbanizing World, Global Report on Human Settlement 1996.

The book was launched by the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat), Wally N'Dow, here yesterday.

Because of the evictions, there are relatively slow population growth rates within central cities -- or even population declines -- with much higher population growth rates in the outer areas, the report said.

It said that in Central Jakarta, the growth rate during the 1980s was around 3.1 percent a year. However, the urban population growth rates in the three neighboring districts, which are part of the Jakarta Greater Metropolitan Area (Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi), were 11.7, 20.9 and 19.8 percent respectively.

The report said that nearly 30,000 Jakarta residents were evicted in 1991 for urban renovation.

"It would be wrong to suggest that no redevelopment can take place within cities that displace people," the report said.

UNCHS acknowledged that inevitably, in any rapidly developing city, there will be a need to redevelop certain areas, and the need for public agencies to acquire land for infrastructure and services.

The report argued that the issue was not whether redevelopment should take place, but the fact that it is being undertaken with little or no dialogue with the people being displaced.

The issues to be considered are "the lack of respect for the needs of those evicted and the lack of any attempt to ... minimize the scale of the evictions and the disruption caused to those who have to move," the report said.

What could possibly be considered the largest level of evictions occurred in Seoul, where millions were evicted between 1966 and 1990. Between 1983 and 1988, 720,000 people lost their homes to demolitions and redevelopment, while 90 percent of those evicted did not acquire an apartment in the redeveloped site, according to the report.

Recent case studies disclose the trauma of evictions, where people are forced from homes and neighborhoods where they have lived for years or even decades. Not only do they lose their homes, but also their friends and neighbors, as they scatter in search for other accommodation.

"There are also deaths and injuries caused by violence during many evictions, and the murder of community leaders who oppose the evictions," the report said.

Over the past several years, the House of Representatives has received many reports of forced evictions, both in urban and rural areas. Among the most notable instances of demolition in rural areas were those for the development of Kedungombo dam in Central Java in 1982, and the planned Nipah dam in East Java in 1993.

The process of land appropriation for the Nipah dam, for instance, was marked with clashes between security officials and land owners, which left four villagers dead.

According to the UNCHS report, local governments have a major role in initiating or sanctioning the evictions.

The report did not mention the evictions carried out in Jakarta to beautify the city for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in 1994.

Slum dwellers are evicted and governments justify the evictions by claiming that slums are "centers of crime and havens for criminals". They also make the justification because of health problems in the slums, the report said.