Residents reject transportation money
Residents reject transportation money
JAKARTA (JP): Most slum dwellers in North Kedoya and Kembangan subdistricts in West Jakarta have rejected the Rp 7,500 (US$3.28) offered to them by the West Jakarta mayoralty as a transportation fee for them to leave the areas.
"How could we survive with only Rp 250,000 ($109), with no shelter?," Masa Tarigan, one of the residents affected, asked yesterday.
About 900 shanties in the northern Kedoya and Kembangan areas were demolished earlier this month as part of the government's Clean River Program.
Earlier, the dispossessed residents had protested against the administration's failure to provide them with warning about the demolitions.
A lawsuit was against the West Jakarta mayoralty office by 110 residents through the State Administrative Court early this week. The residents are being represented by the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute in the case.
Amid ongoing protests staged by the homeless residents at the House of Representatives, the West Jakarta mayoralty announced early last week that it would provide each of the dispossessed residents with Rp 7,500 toward their transportation costs to their hometowns.
The mayoralty has also suggested that the homeless residents join a transmigration program to Indonesia's outer islands.
"We refuse both the money and the transmigration program because we deserve to get fair compensation for our land," said Tarigan, who is among the residents bringing the lawsuit against the mayoralty.
West Jakarta Mayoralty Secretary Solichin Djayadikusumah told The Jakarta Post yesterday that some of the displaced people had already accepted the transportation money.
Of the 900 families living in the bulldozed areas, only between 30 percent and 40 percent had owned the shanty houses, Solichin said. The rest were merely tenants and did not deserve any compensation, he added.
Out of 400 house owners, about 200 had received the Rp 7,500, Solichin said.
"They rest might have left the area for lack of reason to claim compensation," he said.
But Tarigan told the Post that none of the 111 house owners who have filed the lawsuit have received the money. He said he did not know whether other people had.
"As far a I know, the residents will never accept the payment because such an amount is nothing compared with our sufferings," he said.
A member of the National Commission on Human Rights, Roekmini Koesoemo Astoeti, said yesterday that about 80 families of the Kembangan area, located on the opposite side of the river from Kedoya, had also refused to accept the transportation money.
"They want to discuss compensation with the authorities because they had lived there for more than 15 years," she said.
The residents of both districts say they bought the land legally, adding that they have paid property tax on it. (03)