New agrarian law needed to settle land disputes
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Uncertainties over land ownership have appeared to have caused massive land disputes involving peasants occupying the land for years against the official corporate owners, a condition which have been neglected for over three decades.
On Thursday, chairman of the Indonesian Farmers' Union (HKTI) Siswono Yudhohusodo revealed that over 6,000 land disputes across the country remained unresolved due to the unclear regulations on land ownership.
The cases involving around 1.2 million farmers, he said.
The 1960 Agrarian Basic Law recognizes the rights to land ownership which can be inherited and also gives special category to the communal land which cannot be claimed as the property of the state and individuals as well as businesses.
Not aware that an official certificate is required, most of these peasants are now in despair since many regulations and laws allow corporations to reclaim their plots of land, either by force or by purchasing them at a very low price, with the consent of the relevant authorities.
For example, in the Greater Jakarta area where land demand reaches the highest level in the country, common individuals can easily loose their natural rights over lands to businesses, which will transform their lands into business districts, golf estates, or plush housing estates.
Data compiled in 1998 by the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) shows that at least 116,000 hectares of farm land in the capital had been converted to business purposes.
"The government has to correct this situation. It has to reform land ownership regulations and also revise the policy on land use so that common people will no longer be the scapegoats for the city's dense population," an expert on city planning Marco Kusumawijaya told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The head of the National Land Agency (BPN), Lutfi Nasution, said that following the reform movement, his office would now help solve the many land ownership disputes by tracing the history of the disputed lands.
He acknowledged that his office was established under the 1960 Agrarian Law, but 70 percent of works managed forest concessions, which was not governed by the agrarian law.
"That is why we need to revive the 1960 law as the umbrella law which puts other laws concerning natural resources such as forestry, water resources and mining laws as subordinates," he told reporters after a seminar on seeking a way-out to cope with agrarian disputes.
The seminar is held by BPN, KPA, and the Bina Desa Secretariat community development group.
KPA secretary-general Erpan Faryadi said the populist 1960 law needed revision because it had yet to protect the rights of indigenous communities to their land and the ecological aspects of land use.
Also a speaker in the seminar, legislator Tumbu Saraswati said that a team comprising representatives from the BPN and the House of Representatives' Commission II on legal issues should be established to settle agrarian conflicts and draft a better agrarian bill.
"Hopefully, we can have more comprehensive agrarian and natural resources laws next year, which will also govern land dispute settlement. We have to do it quickly because the disputes have made farmers question the government's credibility," she said.