Three houses torn down for Cilandak mall
The Jakarta Post Jakarta
South Jakarta public order officers on Thursday bulldozed three houses on Jl. T.B. Simatupang, Cilandak Barat, to make way for extensions to Cilandak Town Square mall, despite the ongoing legal fight over the ownership of the land.
Having lived there for 37 years, Sunarno, Handoyo and Luhut Simatupang refused to comply with an order issued by the municipality's Housing Agency on July 12, 2003, which gave them a deadline to vacate the land on Wednesday.
Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) lawyer Gatot said they would file a report with the police over the incident, saying the agency had no legal right to evict the residents.
A clash erupted between the evicted residents and a group of unidentified men in red who were seen assisting the public order officials and police to tear down the houses. But the clash soon stopped as the house owners gave up.
Luhut argued the housing agency had mistakenly torn down their houses because the July 12 order was addressed to the house numbered 18A, while Sunarno lives in house number 30, Handoyo's house is number 32, while Luhut's is number 29.
"The particular house mentioned in the order had been torn down last year and the area is now a part of the Cilandak Town Square movie theater," said Luhut, who had tried to stop the eviction by reading out a copy of the Supreme Court's ruling upholding their rights to the land. He was ignored.
Five trucks were seen parked to remove the three families' belongings.
The three claimed they were the valid owners of the land, which is upheld by a ruling of the Supreme Court issued in 1997.
The case began in 1974 when housing developer PT Dasawarna sold the property to insurance firm PT Asuransi Jiwasraya, who is one of the shareholders of the mall.
PT Dasawarna had given the promise to vacate the land and therefore paid compensation to 33 families in 1975.
But the three remaining families stayed. In 1980, they lost the case in South Jakarta District Court, but the Supreme Court in 1997 found they had the legal title of land ownership.
Unfortunately, the three did not realize the land title was due in 1998.
It was in the year, according to Sunarno, that PT Asuransi Jiwasraya claimed to have the land certificate and had tried to expel them from the houses through the housing agency.
"As we traced down the issuance of the certificate, we found that it was made based on a fictitious land title that is not registered either in Cilandak Barat subdistrict or Cilandak district offices," Sunarno said.
Based on their reports, the South Jakarta Land Agency froze the certificate owned by PT Asuransi Jiwasraya, while Jakarta Police issued a letter stating that the housing agency had no right to seize their land on Oct. 8, 2002.