Sutiyoso warns against illegal land confiscation
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)