Misery of Kedungombo villagers lingers

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.