Over 300 families lose homes in forced evictions
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Just a few days before Ramadhan begins, hundreds of families living in Pinang Ranti subdistrict, East Jakarta and Srengseng Sawah in South Jakarta, were forced to leave their homes in separate evictions on Tuesday.
"We were just told to dismantle our houses last night at about 8 p.m.," a resident of Pinang Ranti, who requested anonymity, said, while witnessing his semi-permanent house being bulldozed by the city's public order officers.
At least 550 public order officers, the police and the military, as well as the subdistrict and Makasar district administrations arrived at 10 a.m. to vacate the state land of the more than 40 houses without building permits.
The area housed around 450 people.
Angry evictees at first tried to deter the officers from getting in the area, but no clashes erupted.
The demolition of 200 houses in Srengseng Sawah, Jagakarsa district, also took place smoothly at 9 a.m., as the residents had been told on Sept. 28 about the plan.
"The subdistrict office had told us that the house owners would be compensated, up to Rp 500,000 (some US$54), from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8. We would also get an additional Rp 1 million if we dismantled the house ourselves," Miswardi said.
"Since I didn't have the money to dismantle the house, I had left one week ago and rented a room nearby ... I didn't want my two children witnessing the eviction," said the sidewalk vendor who works outside the Tanah Abang textile market in Central Jakarta.
The residents tried to delay the eviction by pleading with the National Commission on Human Rights, the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and the City Council. The newly installed councillors had wrote to the South Jakarta administration for a delay at least until Idul Fitri, the end of the fasting month in November.
Many of the residents had lived on the site since 1991.
"We asked the administration many times whether we could buy a land title, but the officials never told us whose land it was until now," Miswardi said.
The evictions contradicted Governor Sutiyoso's earlier promise that he would relax his eviction policy until next year, taking the sensitive election process over last six months into consideration.
His administration has been quite active in evicting squatters despite calls made by councillors, urban activists and the human rights body to provide the people with shelter and appropriate compensation beforehand.
The Urban Poor Indonesian Network (Uplink) just launched its five-year nationwide Zero Eviction campaign on Monday, in which they called on the new government and lawmakers to draw up a concept on city development, which offers a fair solution to overpopulation and poverty.
The campaign was launched in conjunction with World Habitat Day, which fell on Oct. 4 and the World Poverty Alleviation Day on Oct. 17.
Uplink recorded 700,000 people who have lost their homes and jobs in a string of evictions since 2003. That number is part of the 14 million people in the world who have become victims of eviction.