Residents oppose planned cemetery

BOGOR (JP): Residents of Palasari village at Cijeruk district here rejected on Friday the Sri Asih Pratama foundation's plan to build a luxury cemetery on a 32-hectare plot of land which used to belong to them.

The residents questioned the plan as they were not consulted.

Ade and Wahyudi, two of the local residents, acknowledged that the land was cleared by the foundation in 1992, but it never told them what its objectives were.

"The foundation promised to build a new one-kilometer street in the village, but the promise never materialized," the two residents said.

Without informing the residents, the foundation provided an expensive burial for a former business tycoon from Jambi on Thursday. The burial reportedly cost about Rp 2.5 billion, and the deceased was transported there by helicopter. The burial was tightly guarded by military personnel in case of any anticipated resistance from the locals.

Ahmadi, another local resident, said that the family of the deceased had reportedly bought a 5,000-square-meter plot of land in the area from the foundation at Rp 500,000 per square meter.

He reiterated that the residents strongly opposed the foundation's intention to build a cemetery there. "The foundation should have talked to us before launching the development of the cemetery," he said.

Palasari village head Atay Suharta said he knew nothing about the foundation's plan. "I will report this to the district head as I'm afraid the local residents will be angry if I don't do it," he said.

He said that the foundation said it had secured recommendation No. 593/616 dated on Feb. 24, 1994, and it was signed by former West Java governor HM Sampurna.

But the recommendation was already out of date, Atay said, and the foundation should not enforce the plan.

Meanwhile, Jenner Simanjuntak, a spokesman of Bogor regency, said that the recommendation alone was inadequate.

It also needed a land use permit from the regency in line with the existing city spatial plan, he said.

The foundation could not be reached for comment as its address was unknown. (21/hhr)