Rorotan farmers bring eviction case to House
JAKARTA (JP): Holding an Indonesian flag aloft, a group of farming families from Rorotan, North Jakarta, gathered at the House of Representatives yesterday to protest against their forceful eviction from land which they have been cultivating since the early 1980s.
Representatives of the group, which was accompanied by Cathy Lengkong, the leader of the Indonesian Scavengers Association, said that their houses had been burnt down by developer PT Green Garden and that they had been intimidated by thugs hired by the company.
The farmers were received by the ruling Golkar faction in the House of Representatives.
The House members, led by the Golkar faction's Vice Chairman for Political Affairs and Security Ali Mursalam, condemned the alleged intimidation and the destruction of homes as violations of the protesters' human rights. The faction promised to convey the protesters' complaints to the city administration and the developer, the Antara news agency reported.
The dispute between developer PT Green Garden and farmers in the Rorotan subdistrict began when the farmers vowed to remain on four hectares of land which the developer insisted belonged to it. It appears to be common ground in the dispute that the farmers have occupied the land since the early 1980s.
"We'll have them (the farmers) out of the site because it's our land. We have the legal documents," Hengky, president of PT Green Garden, told the Jakarta Post last week.
According to Hengky, his company obtained the title to the 43,000 square-meter plot of land from the Jakarta city administration in the early 1980s to build a housing complex to be called Kompleks Green Garden.
Hengky claimed that the company brought 19 farming families from Indramayu, West Java, in the early 1980s to till the land and guard it until the construction project could begin.
According to Hengky, 17 of the 19 families involved left the area after he gave them Rp 50,000 (US$22) each and free transportation to their home town. (01)