On 15 September 2005, at 8 a.m., about one thousand peasants were waiting for the arrival of an international Via Campesina delegation on the island of Lombok. They were planning to discuss with the delegation current violations of their basic human rights and threats of eviction. However, although the delegation had received official authorization to visit the area, local police prevented its arrival and dispersed the crowd with gunshot. A total of 27 people were injured, some seriously. This sad event is by no means exceptional. In Indonesia the State, with total contempt for local populations, often serves as an armed wing for private investors. Moreover, the authorities seem to have no intention to change their attitude. A new presidential decree has strengthened the State’s arbitrary power to evict peasants in order to implement its grand projects. Over 500,000 people might thus be dispossessed of their lands.

For the past ten years Lombok peasants have been facing repression. The authorities want to evict them from 850 hectares of fertile and well-irrigated land, in the centre of the island, to build an international airport and promote tourism. This project is supposed to benefit the population. However, in reality it will be at the expense of food production on the island, in a region suffering from malnutrition and related diseases.

Private militia, the police and henchmen try to intimidate peasants and to organize a pretence of democracy by selecting only individuals in favour of the project to participate in consultations. In August the municipality and police threatened to evict 2,631 peasants from their land near the village Tanak Awu if they refused to leave. ’We are deeply shocked that it is impossible for Indonesian peasants to defend their rights without putting their lives in danger [...] We’re going to make this known in our country’, commented Paul Nicholson, one of the European representatives of Via Campesina present on Lombok on 18 September.

An alarming decree

On 3 May 2005 the Indonesian State President passed a decree (N° 36/2005) concerning the acquisition of land for development projects in the public interest. In terms of this decree, owners can lodge an appeal if they disagree with the proposed compensation. However, the committees to ’free the land’ and those which assess land prices are appointed by the authorities, and it is those same authorities who process the appeals. They are therefore both judges and stakeholders! Moreover, the government has the right to expel people, including by force, even if an appeal is lodged.

Finally, application of the decree will have disastrous consequences for those families who do not have an official deed of ownership. In rural areas property is often governed by customary law and only 25% of the population has an official deed. Many people are therefore likely to be evicted without compensation, especially the most vulnerable groups of small peasants and indigenous groups, whose access to natural resources such as land is crucial.

Over 500,000 people threatened

Previous regulations were already a source of conflict and corruption. NGOs and Indonesian peasant movements such as the Federasi Serikat Pentani Indonesia (FSPI) [1] and the Urban Poor Consortium foresee that Decree N° 36/2005 will worsen tension and violations of rights.

The Indonesian government’s real intention is to extend its possibilities to cancel land ownership and to acquire land in the name of the ’public interest’. But that interest has to be proved, for governments often readily favour big business rather than protecting rural populations’ rights. In a context in which the State owns and manages some 70% of the land, where the army is a big landowner, and where the authorities are predators rather than protectors, the peasants are often powerless.

The evictions planned on Lombok are therefore not an isolated event. The FIAN network has highlighted the consequences of projects such as the Mangarai-Jatinegara-Cakung-Bekasi railway (affecting 1,700 families), the Pluit dam at Muara Baru (affecting 30,000 people) and the building of the East Jakarta canal (affecting 500,000 people). The idea is not systematically to challenge the validity of the planned projects; rather, it is to ensure that expulsions are accompanied by appropriate measures for rehabilitation and compensation, even in the case of informal users of the land. As the FIAN has noted as the first cases of expropriation draw near, ’it is obvious that many people concerned will be unjustly expelled or excluded from such compensation programmes’. This is a violation of the Indonesian Constitution [2] and human rights, especially the right to food.

Indonesian movements and their international support are therefore protesting against the violence committed against peasants and demand the revocation of Decree N° 36/2005.

MORE INFORMATION:

Call in liaison with the FIAN:
Réseau d’Information et d’Action pour le Droit à se Nourrir
15, rue Georges Jacquet
38000 Grenoble
Tél. : 04 38 21 05 08
fianfrance@no-log.org
www.fian.ras.eu.org

What to do ?

By letter: cut and paste the standard letter below or use your own wording. Send your letter to the addressee in the letter and remember to add your own name and address and to sign your letter.
Deadline: as soon as you receive this call and not later than mid-November 2005.

PROTEST LETTER:

Mr. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Republic of Indonesia
Jl. Kebon Sirih No. 14
Jakarta, Indonesia

Dear Mr. President,

I have been informed by Réseau-Solidarité / Peuples Solidaires (France) and by Foodfirst Information & Action Network (FIAN) of events in Lombok on 18 September, where 27 peasants were wounded by the police.

I have also been informed of the possibility of forced evictions due to the new Presidential Regulation No. 36/2005 on the expropriation of land for public interest projects. I am deeply concerned about the fact that the said regulation allows for evictions without appropriate compensation for losses of land and the access to other productive resources. Evictions, without guaranteed compensation for those whose means of subsistence are endangered, are a violation of human rights.

I therefore wish to request that you:
  revoke the said regulation and put in place an amended regulation which protects people against eviction from their properties without compensation and proper rehabilitation (land for land), and which ensures a legal process to stop evictions while the case is pending;
  regularize informal land claims and ensure that the loss of the respective land in case of evictions is properly compensated;
  prevent evictions without proper rehabilitation and compensation.

Please inform me about the measures taken by your government to that end.

Yours sincerely,

[1] Federation of Indonesian Farmers’ Unions

[2] Article 27 of the National Constitution stipulates that ’each citizen has the right to employment and to a standard of living beneficial to human beings’.