Students cancel protest at Benhil fire site
Students cancel protest at Benhil fire site
JAKARTA (JP): Twenty University of Indonesia (UI) students
canceled their plans to protest at the fire site in Bendungan
Hilir, Central Jakarta, after hearing a comprehensive explanation
by Central Jakarta's deputy mayor yesterday.
"I believe that you all have good intentions, but staging a
protest here will provoke a new problem. The people will be
confused and there is also a possibility that certain quarters
will exploit it," Deputy Mayor Mora Tua Simamora told the
students at the site.
The students of the most prestigious university in the country
arrived at the site at around 11 a.m led by chairman of UI
Student Senate, Zulkieflimansyah.
Their presence caused the Bendungan Hilir (Benhil) subdistrict
administration to deploy more than 50 policemen and dozens of
other security officers at the site of recent clashes between
squatters and demolition teams.
Mora then invited Zulkfieflimansyah and the other students to
the subdistrict office to discuss the matter.
During the talk, Zulkifliemansyah read the official statement
of the UI Student Senate, which was followed by the deputy
mayor's explanation about the present situation and the
historical background of the Benhil area.
In the statement the students demanded that the city
administration postpone the construction of the low-cost
apartments there until the dispute over the land compensation
rate is settled.
Responding to the students' appeal, Mora said that the
municipal authorities had never intentionally used force in the
demolition process.
He said that the target of what was described by the media as
"dawn attack", an incident in which anti-riot officers used tear
gas and rattan sticks to expel squatters from the 1.5-hectare
slum area on the morning of Oct. 7, was not the residents.
He said that the security officers were ordered to blockade
the slum area at dawn because they were informed that some
outsiders from the Petamburan and Pejompongan Indah areas were
going to join the slum inhabitants to resist the demolition
process.
"The move was aimed at preventing those people from joining
the residents there in their efforts to resist the demolition
process. But because the officers in charge were greeted by
thousands of flying stones, they were forced to use the tear
gas," Mora said.
Underway
The deputy mayor also told the students that the sooner the
apartment construction began the better it would be since this
would reduce the number of slum areas in the city.
He said the slum inhabitants will be given first priority to
purchase the low-cost apartments.
Mora said that the city rejected the squatters's demand that
the administration pay them a sum of between Rp 1 million
(US$458) and Rp 5 million for land compensation not only because
the city do not have the money but also because the land is state
property.
Meanwhile, Central Jakarta Mayor Abdul Kahfi told Antara news
agency during his visit to Benhil yesterday morning that the
construction process of the low-cost apartment is already
underway.
"The construction cost of the 10-story apartment buildings,
which will have a total of 600 units is Rp 23 billion," he said.
The mayor said the city will subsidize around 50 percent of
the price of each apartment for every inhabitant of the Benhil
slum area.
The mayor said that the city has designed an installment
payment plan of 20 years for the residents.
Mora said that the recent fire was not the first to sweep the
area.
"A big fire razed the area in the early 1970s. At that time
the city planned to use the site as a plant nursery. The
municipal administration offered the slum inhabitants some houses
in Kalideres area, West Jakarta, but they refused them. They
rebuilt another slum instead," he said.
The city administration has repeatedly warned the residents
not to rebuild houses in the 1.5-hectare area, which was ravaged
by fire on Sept. 9, because the city will construct low-cost
apartments for them. (mas)