Rights body will report demolition case to President

JAKARTA (JP): The National Committee on Human Rights will soon send a letter to the President in its effort to deal with complaints from families living in Tebet, South Jakarta, about the demolition of their low-cost apartment complex on Jl. Rawa Bilal.

"The apartments on Jl. Rawa Bilal were constructed under the presidential aid scheme. Therefore, a letter to the President may help," Clemento Dos Reis Amaral, a member of the human rights committee, said yesterday.

Dozens of residents of the low-cost apartments reported to the rights body that PD Pembangunan Sarana Jaya, a city-owned developer, had started to demolish the apartment, even though the State Administrative Court favored them.

The apartments which were inaugurated by the President on April 30, 1982, have been rented to the residents, who are small- scale businessmen.

Yunus, a residents' spokesman, said that PD Pembangunan Jaya's action is based on a State Administrative High Court verdict, which favored the company.

"But the High Court's decision was made without taking the State Administrative Court's decision into consideration," he said.

Yunus said the residents have decided to appeal to the Supreme Court.

He said that PD Sarana Jaya, which granted permission for the condominium's construction, functions only as the apartment complex's management, as stipulated by Gubernatorial Decree No. 784/1982.

PD Pembangunan Jaya, which will build a condominium on the location, has set aside about Rp 9 million (US$3,829) in compensation for each family. There are 64 families living in the apartment complex.

The families demanded Rp 60 million in compensation each, as decided by the state administrative court.

The residents urged the rights body to survey the location of the apartment complex and set up a fact-finding committee to determine whether police and military officers have been intimidating the residents.

However, Amaral said that the rights committee can not interfere with the Supreme Court's ruling.

"We have no authority to change any decision made by the Supreme Court. What we can do is to monitor the Court and ask for help from a member of the body who is also a member of the court," he said.

J. Harahap, a resident of the complex, said he hoped the rights committee would help her get back her apartment. She could then convince her desperate husband, who went to Japan three years ago, leaving her with five children in the capital, to return.

She said her husband was desperate upon learning that the apartment they lived in would be demolished. "I don't have any hope in the country," he had once said.

They used to run a small-scale garment producing business which had eight employees. (jun)