Misery of Kedungombo villagers lingers

By Kartika Bagus C.

KEDUNGOMBO, Central Java (JP): A five-by-two meter motorboat carries two elderly women across the vast Kedungombo reservoir. Two men sitting opposite them chat and occasionally puff on their kretek cigarettes. Birds circle above a tall tree standing in the middle of the reservoir.

After a 20 minute ride, the boat lands at Kedungpring village, which has only a handful of houses left. The rest are at the bottom of the reservoir, which was filled with water in 1990.

The remaining rickety homes stand as a reminder of one of the unresolved problems surrounding the multimillion dollar project: compensation for the land acquired for the giant reservoir.

Darsono, 49, one of the thousands of farmers who refused the compensation offered by the government in the late 80s, now lives in a house on a hill in Kedungpring controlled by Perhutani, the state-owned plantation company.

He told of how he had to keep moving to avoid government officials who visited each house and forced farmers to sign a government-sanctioned statement that required them to surrender their property.

"The officials were keen. Only a few people could escape from them," he said. "If they could not find the parents, they would get their relatives to sign the documents."

The roving officials would tell the villagers the paper they had to sign was a certificate of land ownership. But in fact it contained a statement saying the farmers had given up their land to make way for the project.

"The government set the compensation at between Rp 250 and Rp 300 per square meter," Darsono said.

The campaign started in Wonoharjo and Sragen where farmers were offered Rp 250 per square meter of their unirrigated land, Rp 500 for their homes and Rp 400 for irrigated fields. A building would be compensated at between Rp 100,000 and Rp 150,000.

The way the government appropriated Kedungpring was even more inhuman: the village was flooded to force the people to move out. Over 5,000 hectares of Kedungpring was submerged. The compensation was higher, Rp 800 per square meter.

"As many as 54 families have never accepted the compensation," Darsono said. They moved to the hill rather than accept the money and leave the village.

With the help of the Yogyakarta and Semarang branches of the Indonesian Legal Institute, 1,548 families from 23 villages have filed a legal suit against the government for proper compensation.

According to Darsono, 320 people have died, mostly from depression-related illnesses or drowning. He noted most of the deaths occurred in 1994 after justice Asikin Kusumaatmadja ruled in favor of the Kedungpring villagers' Rp 7 billion suit. (The ruling was reversed by then chief justice Purwoto Suhadi Gandasubrata in 1993.)

"Many people were shocked by the news. They thought the court ruling was final and they could not imagine what they could buy with that money," Darsono said.

"They were apprehensive. If the money was paid out, each of the plaintiffs would have received so little they would not have been able to buy substitute land. At that time a square meter of land cost Rp 50,000 here."

Darsono was in tears when he spoke of his wife's death:

"She carried a basket of corn to be sold in the market in the morning. When she got home, she vomited blood." She died after 11 days in hospital and Darsono had to sell his belongings to cover the medical costs.

President Abdurrahman Wahid visited Kedungombo recently to see for himself the project and how it had affected the lives of the people.

As token of sympathy, Abdurrahman donated two boat engines worth Rp 50 million to the Kedungpring community. But the locals say the engines' capacities are two small and they cannot use them.

Kedungpring now has four motorboats, each capable of carrying 10 people, for traveling between villages. Among the donators was the late Father Mangunwijaya. Darsono said the village needed more and bigger boats.

What the Kedungombo villagers need now is, in fact, more than just boats and cash from the government. They need fair compensation for the land they had to surrender for the project.

They are placing their hopes of justice in the Abdurahman administration.