Sawangan land dispute lingers after 20 years
JAKARTA (JP): Some 125 people from Sawangan, in Bogor, staged a protest here yesterday renewing compensation demands for their land acquired by a property developer 24 years ago.
They demonstrated outside the Bank International Indonesia (BII) headquarters on Jl. Thamrin, Central Jakarta, where the company, PT Cisadane Persada, has its office.
The protesters accused the company, owned by tycoon Eka Tjipta Widjaja, of appropriating some 77.5 hectares of land in Sawangan subdistrict without giving compensation.
They demanded that Eka Tjipta, who is also one of the bank's commissioners, pay them Rp 150,000 ($18) for each square meter of the land that belonged to 285 families 24 years ago.
Company officials refused to meet the protesters because they said the case was already closed.
"We want the problem to be settled today. We will not go home until our demands are met," Solichin, spokesman for the protesters, said.
He said that it was the ninth time they had protested at BII headquarters over the case. "We have never received a satisfactory explanation."
Cisadane Perdana is developing a housing complex called Telaga Golf Sawangan on the disputed land, which now reportedly costs between Rp 500,000 and Rp 1 million per square meter.
The company, which used to be called PT Sawangan Hill, bought the land in Sawangan through a West Java gubernatorial decree in 1974.
Twenty years later, after changing its name to Cisadane Perdana, the company cleared the land to develop a housing complex and a golf course.
The residents had repeatedly complained about the land appropriation to the local authorities, the House of Representatives, the National Commission on Human Rights and to the former state minister of agrarian affairs/head of the National Land agency.
But the company is continuing the development and is now selling houses at Telaga Golf Sawangan.
Johanes Haryanto, one of the company's executives, told reporters yesterday that the protesters should take the case to court and stop rallying in front of his office if they were still dissatisfied.
"As a developer, we bought the land legally. We have the land titles and also an official permit to build on the land," he said.
He said that the protesters must have a certificate of ownership to prove their claim that they are the rightful owners of the property. "Otherwise, we will not consider their demands for compensation."
Solichin said that the protesters' original documents for the disputed land were stolen by one of the residents, named Sulaiman, who had to give up his land. The man was convicted and sentenced to 10 months in jail in Bogor for the offense.
According to Solichin, the stolen documents were then taken by another resident named Sanusi, now an employee of the property company, and nothing has been seen or heard of them since. (09)