'Sutiyoso unable to handle urban problems'

Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

City Governor Sutiyoso's plan to propose a bylaw banning outsiders, especially disadvantaged people, from entering the Jakarta reflects his inability to tackle pressing urban problems and his contempt for human rights, a local activist said.

"Every citizen is free to enter the capital -- freedom of movement is a basic human right in the United Nations Convention on Human Rights," said Azas Tigor Nainggolan, chairman of the Jakarta Residents' Forum (Fakta), on Tuesday.

Every year, the number of people arriving the city increases, especially after Idul Fitri Muslim festivities.

Last year was no exception. Jakarta received about 250,000 newcomers, most of them unskilled. And even though they failed to make a decent life for themselves, they remained in the city.

In an effort to force such people out of the capital, city administration officials had ordered operations to crack down street vendors, becak (pedicab) drivers and others who were considered of disturbing the public order.

Recently, they also evicted poor people living in the shanty towns along the riverbanks, to prevent deaths and injury from flooding.

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea strongly criticized the policy.

He called on the governor to immediately cease the evictions. A visiting sociologist, Arief Budiman from Melbourne University, meanwhile, publicly suggested that Sutiyoso accept reality, and make peace with the poor.

The National Commission of Human Rights has joined in to condemn the evictions, especially for having taken place ahead of Ramadhan.

Overcrowding, pollution, traffic jams and other problems commonly associated with disadvantaged people, are also a big sign that the city has been lax in monitoring and upholding the law, according to Tigor.

In the case of street vendors, for example, they were allowed to continue operating after paying illegal bribes to local police officers, or hoodlums in the area, he said.

With better monitoring, Tigor added, hundreds of billions of rupiah allocated for public order operations could be saved.

Unfortunately, many city officials still viewed the operations against the disadvantaged people as a project from which they could make an easy profit.

Tigor said that, instead of issuing the bylaw to make Jakarta a closed city, Sutiyoso should improve his policies in handling the social problems that have accompanied the recent influxes of newcomers.

Actually, Sutiyoso's idea was not new. Former Governor Ali Sadikin once issued a gubernatorial decree, No. 35/1970, which declared Jakarta as a closed city. The decree banned outsiders from living here without permanent jobs or houses.

The decree, however, has never been implemented due to criticism that it violates human rights.

Jakarta is now home to at least 8.3 million people, but during the day the number surges to about 11 million, when people from bufferzone areas of Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok come to work here.