Transmigrants lose their chance to earn a living

Transmigrants lose their chance to earn a living

Bonifasius Gunung, Indonesian Advocacy Service for Justice and
Peace (PADMA), Jakarta

Transmigration, a program that promotes public welfare, has
come back into the spotlight. In Sintang, West Kalimantan, 3,500
families of farmers participating in the transmigration-related
nucleus estates and smallholders project (PIR-Trans) in various
settlement units in West Kalimantan, have been plagued with
poverty and a great deal of suffering from errors committed by
the government and the nucleus company in charge of implementing
the transmigration.

The farming communities initially believed that the government
and relevant agencies in the transmigration scheme had spent time
considering, planning and preparing all the facilities promised.
But when the participants arrived at the project locations, the
promised facilities of a house on a 0.5-hectare plot and a two-
hectare estate with oil palms were not there.

The government's insensitive, inconsistent, arrogant and
discriminative attitude in law enforcement has caused scarce job
opportunities, a high mortality rate among infants and pregnant
women, infant malnutrition, a high dropout rate among high school
students and child labor, and the sale or exchange of children
for rice -- clear indications of how the transmigrants have been
left to live in absolute poverty.

It is important and urgent to address the following questions
to the government: (1) Why haven't the government and all
agencies concerned with the transmigration scheme taken concrete
measures to settle the transmigrants' problems? (2) Why has the
government appointed a nucleus company, which has shirked its
responsibility and not shown any remorse?

These are only a few questions among the many that need to be
raised to find out the causes behind this transmigration failure.
The longer they remain unanswered, the stronger will be the
public's impression that the government is not only incapable of
solving the problem but is also purposely allowing them to live
without an opportunity for survival. Perhaps the transmigrants'
situation has created an opportunity for affluence within the
government circles through corruption, collusion and nepotism.

The poverty suffered by the 3,500 transmigrant families is a
direct result of the government's failure to grant them legal
rights as required by the law on transmigration, therefore, the
government should be held accountable for their misery. As a
public instrument authorized to undertake efforts to promote the
welfare of society, the government is legally bound to alleviate
the transmigrants' poverty.

Therefore, it is imperative and urgent to make comprehensive
and fundamental efforts to solve the transmigrants' problems.
With reference to the project participants in the ninth
settlement unit in Singkup, Kedawangan, fifth and ninth
settlement units in Marau and Manis Mata districts, Ketapang and
the second and third units in the Ketunggu Ilir district,
Sintang, West Kalimantan, the urgent efforts that need to be made
are the following:

o A revision of all regulations designed to implement the
transmigration program. Presidential Instruction No.1/1986, for
instance, cannot be effectively implemented because (a) there are
too many agencies involved in the PIR-Trans program
implementation, (b) there are overlapping areas of authority
delegated to the agencies, (c) there is no clear boundary of
coordination between the agencies, and (d) the government, in
this case the agriculture minister, has no authority over its
supervision or to seek the accountability of the nucleus company
appointed as the government's business partner.

o A review of regulations relating to acquisition of communal
property land in transmigration locations. This is important
because often the new transmigrants are driven away by locals who
feel they have not yet received proper compensation for the land
acquired by the government for the transmigration. The potential
potential for conflict between locals and newcomers must be
minimized. Rational and natural assimilation should remain a
priority to strengthen social stability, a main goal of
transmigration.

o Stern action needs to be taken against all parties abusing
authority and power. Otherwise, transmigration will pose major
issues in the future and can even disrupt the nation's
sociopolitical stability.

o Concrete steps should be promptly taken for the
transmigrants now struggling for their rights, such as returning
them to their areas of origin and giving them compensation or
moving them to another resettlement area and providing them with
a sufficient living allowance.

By not fulfilling its obligations, the accusations that the
government has committed deception, which is a criminal offense,
and a legal infringement, a civil offense, will be hard to evade.