Siswono ordered to resettle more squatters

Siswono ordered to resettle more squatters

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto has ordered Minister of
Transmigration Siswono Yudhohusodo to resettle more forest
squatters to improve their welfare.

After meeting the President at Merdeka Palace on Wednesday,
Siswono said that 674,000 families were squatting in forests
around the country and farming almost seven million hectares.

Their number would keep rising as long as farmers' land
holdings continued to dwindle, he said.

"The number of squatters already resettled is nothing compared
to their growth rate," he said.

The government has blamed deforestation on squatters, who
practice slash-and-burn farming in the forests.

Siswono said the president had ordered him to coordinate the
resettlement program with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the
Ministry of Forestry.

Many people become forest squatters in search of pay for
illegal logging.

Siswono said the number of forest squatters was increasing
partly because of poor forest supervision.

He also talked to the president about the planned resettlement
of farmers at a one million-hectare peat moss agricultural site
in Central Kalimantan.

Siswono said 316,000 farming families would be dispatched
there soon; 40 percent of them will finance their own
resettlement. (06/aan)