NGOs demand controls on land ownership

JAKARTA (JP): A group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) yesterday renewed their long-held demand for a government regulation to limit the size of land ownership across the country.

On the eve of the 26th anniversary of the Land Reforms Law, the Consortium of Agrarian Reforms said the 1960 legislation has not been fully upheld, particularly on the question of limiting land ownership.

The 1960 law recognizes the need to limit land acquisition to ensure justice and recognizes the rights of indigenous people over land, said consortium chairman Noer Fauzi Rachman.

But the implementation has not lived up to the spirit of the law, Noer said. "The 'social function' of the land as recognized by the law has, in practice, become the 'business function.'"

The 1960 Land Reforms Law was seen as a piece of landmark legislation in the quest for justice in predominantly rural Indonesia. The anniversary is marked each year either with a seminar or other activities.

Noer, whose consortium was founded two years ago by 65 NGOs to educate people about their land rights, said the massive buying of land is taking Indonesia back to the Dutch colonial era when plantation owners were allowed to possess massive land tracts.

Now more than 64 million hectares of land in the country are owned by 20 business groups, he said. Most of the land bought had been recognized by customary laws as being owned by the indigenous people.

Noer criticized State Minister of Agrarian Affairs/Chairman of the National Land Agency Soni Harsono for saying over the weekend that preserving customary laws would be a "step backward".

Speaking in Yogyakarta, Soni, as reported by Antara, said customary laws regarding land ownership would disappear as Indonesia develops further.

With the trend toward individual land ownership, these customary laws would eventually die a natural death, he was quoted as saying. He said the government will continue to respect customary laws, but will not help preserve them.

The government marks the anniversary of the 1960 law more quietly because the legislation was often associated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The party, banned since 1966, politicized the 1960 law, turning it into a tool to force land redistribution.

Noer shared the view that the 1960 law has been mistakenly considered as communist-sponsored legislation.

"The content of the law was actually prepared by land experts from Gadjah Mada University of Yogyakarta," he said.

He said the unfortunate association with the PKI is one of the reasons why reforms have been slow and why massive land buying continues unchecked.

Many timber estates, oil palm plantations and the pulp industry have been built on vast forest tracts that were originally part of the local people's customary land, he said.

"The government has often labeled the indigenous people as 'forest wanderers', but really they are people who inhabit the forest and live by cultivating it," Noer said. (16)