Sutiyoso warns against illegal land confiscation

JAKARTA (JP): Governor Sutiyoso warned Jakartans yesterday not to be provoked into pillaging other people's or government property by using poverty and starvation as their justification.

"No matter what the reason, actions which include seizing other people's or government land cannot be tolerated. It's a bad habit and against our religious beliefs, so stop doing it," he said.

Sutiyoso particularly addressed his warning to the people who illegally occupied 12 acres of idle land belonging to city-owned sports and tourism company PT Pulo Mas Jaya in the Kayu Putih subdistrict of Pulo Mas, East Jakarta to grow vegetables and other food crops.

He said the administration would act more firmly against the perpetrators in any future cases.

A Pulo Mas Jaya official, Haji Ilyas, said yesterday that not one of the trespassers, who occupied the plot for about one week, was arrested by the police.

"One of them was brought here (the company's office) for questioning on Sunday but he was released after negotiations with the local district head," he told The Jakarta Post.

Ilyas said the perpetrators, who mostly consisted of natives of the nearby Kampung Ambon subdistrict, entered the company's property on Aug. 1, and divided up the land as if it was theirs.

The people argued that they had the right to use the land to help them get through the hard time because they had no other resources to utilize, he said.

"They marked out the whole area, including the Pulo Mas horse race complex. Only the race track and our office building were not affected," he said.

He said company officials had asked the intruders to leave but their requests fell on deaf ears.

Ilyas said the officials were involved in a clash on Sunday afternoon with the intruders after the "farmers" attacked people who went to the site to remove all the markings planted to identify the trespassers' stakes.

"One was seriously injured, while one of them (the trespassers) lost an arm and five others were injured during the fight," he said, adding that all the intruders had left the site after police were deployed Monday to guard the site.

Sutiyoso stressed that poor people were allowed to temporarily utilize idle land belonging to private or city-owned companies.

"But they must follow the procedures and promise to immediately give the land back to the owners of the land if the latter wishes to use it in the future," he said. (cst)