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