SBY mulls creating task force to address agrarian conflicts
Yudhoyono, who campaigned in a platform that included agrarian reform, instructed Coordinating Minister of Political, Law and Security Affairs Djoko Suyanto to hold regular meetings with Komnas HAM to discuss a possible taskforce.
“The President is strongly committed to settling agrarian conflicts. He agreed to set up a taskforce or committee to speed up the settlement of land conflicts,” Komnas HAM chief Ifdhal Kasim said at a press conference after meeting with Yudhoyono at the Presidential Palace on Friday.
Komnas HAM said the number of conflicts of land ownership, including for plantations, mining, forestry and Indonesian Military (TNI) land had increased.
Ifdhal said that an integrated task force was needed to settle conflicts since each department had its own policies that have failed to address the problem.
Members of the public have sought immediate redress. Thousands of people in Sukamulya village in Bogor staged a rally at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Wednesday, demanding that land claimed by the armed forces be returned to them.
Village head Suganda, who took part in the rally, said 3,800 people had joined the protest. The protesters claim to be seeking justice after the Air Force claimed 1,000 hectares of a 1,070 hectare area in Sukamulya.
“I joined the rally because I don’t want the TNI to seize our land,” a protester, Ibrahim, said.
Several protesters climbed over the gate at the House building and erected banners, while protest organizers entered the House building to speak to legislators from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
Legislator Tubagus Hasanuddin met with protesters and said the Sukamulya case was one example of the numerous disputes between the public and the TNI. “There are 13 billion square meters of land under the control of the armed forces, of which 8.4 percent is disputed,” Tubagus, a former high-ranking military officer, said.
He cited the Kebumen case as a recent example of a land dispute between residents and the TNI. Last month, clashes broke out when the TNI attempted to stop residents from protesting a military exercise in Sentrojenar village, Kebumen, Central Java.
Tubagus said there were a lot of reasons for the disputes, ranging from the absence of land certificates to long-standing post-colonial issues.
He said the land administration was clear under colonial rule, but became chaotic following Japanese occupation, when land was appropriated for military bases to counter possible attacks by allied forces.
“Unfortunately, when Indonesia claimed its independence, former Japanese bases were directly handed over to local armed forces,” he said.
The land in the Sukamulya dispute was used as an airstrip by the Japanese. Villagers claim they did not mind if the airstrip was run by the TNI, but said the area allocated for the airstrip was 36.6 hectares, not the 1,000 hectares claimed by the TNI.
Villagers point to several documents from the Agriculture Ministry issued in 1958 and from the Bogor administration in 2003.
Air Force spokesman Bambang Samoedro said the military’s claims were backed by letters from the TNI chief of staff, the Home Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry dated 1950. (rcf)
