What the city gets from evictions

What the city gets from evictions

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The ambition to turn Jakarta into a slum-free capital city
triggered the recent string of evictions ordered by Governor
Sutiyoso at all costs, including alleged human rights violations.

Arguing that squatters, living in makeshift houses, were
responsible for turning state-owned land or private property into
slums, Sutiyoso refused to provide shelters for the evictees. He
repeated his reason: that the squatters were not his residents.

He ignored the fact that some of the evictees hold Jakarta ID
cards. He rebuffed those who explained that the squatters had
paid to obtain permits from certain officials in subdistrict
offices to live in the areas, to access water, electricity and
sometimes telephone lines. He did not even care that some of the
evictees had contributed to his administration by paying their
property tax.

Sutiyoso may well not want to realize the impact of his
eviction orders, some of which were conducted with full force.

This year alone, more than 5,000 evicted families were left
homeless. Next year, this number looks set to increase with the
city continuing to evict residents. The failure to provide low-
cost housing or low-cost rental apartments is callously
neglectful of the city's poor.

In this year's forcible evictions, two lives were lost and
dozens of people injured. In certain cases the administration or
the land owners allegedly hired thugs to turn families out of
their own homes.

When the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure
proposed to set up low-cost housing in several provinces, Jakarta
turned down the offer reasoning that the price of land in the
capital had skyrocketed and would better serve commercial
services.

With no available, affordable housing the poor have built
shanties on all manner of vacant land, including land already
cleared in previous evictions.

Dozens of evictees in Jembatan Besi, West Jakarta, live a
strange half-life. At night, they erect makeshift tents on the
land they had once lived on. During the day, the site is
disbanded and the tents are gone.
Hundreds of evictees in Cengkareng Timur and Tanjung Duren
Selatan, both in West Jakarta, have taken shelter at the office
of the National Commission for Human Rights's (Komnas HAM) in
Central Jakarta.

Fishermen families, who had lived on the banks of Muara Angke
river, are sleeping cramped-up on their boats or on the edge of
the protected mangrove forest across from their previous houses.
Some of the families had already been evicted twice, decades ago,
from Ancol and from Muara Karang.

The eviction processes did not only destroy the houses of the
poor, they destroyed their spirits, their livelihoods, their
futures.

Children had to stop studying as their parents could not pay
their tuition fees. Fathers could not longer work as they had to
secure their families.

The evictions were apparently funded with money from the city
budget and from the taxpayers, as admitted by head of the City
Public Order Agency Soebagio.

He revealed on Oct. 15 that some agencies in Jakarta
administration had escalated their spending prior to the end of
this year. The administration was criticized for its sluggish
development programs as it was only able to spend around 25
percent of the total Rp 11.5 trillion (US$1.35 billion) city
budget in the first semester.

Public order officers carrying out evictions receive a Rp
50,000 daily allowance. If they are asked to clear private
property, the allowance is paid by the land owner.

The city must also pay the evictees compensation, although the
amount is relatively small -- between Rp 250,000 and Rp 500,000
for each demolished house.

Experts and urban activists have suggested better ways to
overcome the housing problem.

A housing and community development specialist with the World
Bank, Parwoto Sugianto, suggested that the city administration
create fair conditions for both the rich and the poor to obtain
land.

He called on the administration to see the community as an
active participant or a subject, instead of the object of
development.

But such a humane outlook was considered redundant. The
impatient administration opted for the quick-way-out and tackled
the city's housing problems by cleaning the city from slums.

Wardah Hafidz from the Urban Poor Consortium suggested an
alternative scheme.

She explained that on lands owned by individuals or private
sectors, 10 percent of the land could be leased to home-seekers,
either with low-cost apartments or alternative housing
arrangements.

She argued, that under such deals, should land-ownership
issues arise in the future, both sides would be legally bound and
thus ensured of legal certainty.

Franz Magnis-Suseno, an expert in philosophy and human rights
from the Dryarkara School of Philosophy in Jakarta, emphasized
that Indonesia acknowledged the legal basis of shelter by
adopting the principle of human rights in its Constitution and
signed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and
also the People's Consultative Assembly Decree No. 17/1998 that
guarantees citizens a place to live.

He argued that the right to housing was an absolute right and
should not be overridden by the individual rights of land owners.

Desperate evictees urged Komnas HAM to probe forcible
evictions but a compromise between the administration and
Komnas HAM, the National Commission of Child Protection (Komnas
Anak) and the National Commission of Anti-Violence Against Women
(Komnas Perempuan) resulted in a joint concept of "more humane
evictions".

Without any realistic solutions so far, the promise from the
North Jakarta municipality administration, to provide low-cost
rental apartments in Muara Angke, is a relief for the evictees,
although no details of the intended time frame are available.

State-run low-cost housing company Perum Perumnas has also
promised to build a low-cost rental apartment block in Cengkareng
Timur.

As Sutiyoso will be busy securing the capital for next year's
elections, and political parties are pursuing their own agendas,
the evictees must look after their own welfare and stand ready to
be driven away from the hustle and bustle of the capital.

.rm72
List of evictions in 2003

No. Location, District Municipality Evicted houses Month

(est. number)
1. Kalijodo, Penjaringan North Jakarta 150 March
2. Jembatan Besi, Tambora West Jakarta 1,700 August
3. Cengkareng Timur, West Jakarta 500 September

Cengkareng
4. Tanjung Duren Selatan, West Jakarta 500 October

Grogol-Petamburan
5. Tegal Alur, Kalideres West Jakarta 250 October
6. Muara Angke, Penjaringan North Jakarta 1,200 October
7. Cipinang riverbanks, East Jakarta 500 December

Jatinegara
8. Pulomas dam, Pulogadung East Jakarta 300 December
9. Muara Baru, Penjaringan North Jakarta 64 December

Source: Media reports