Rorotan farmers bring eviction case to House

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)