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Indonesian Land Grab Cases ‘Remain Unresolved’
January 09, 2012

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The Indonesian Forum for the Environment says hundreds of conflicts over land ownership in 2011 have still not been resolved.

“We have reported instances of land grabs to the authorities, but the standard response we have received is ‘we will handle it,’ ” Berry Nahdian Furqon, executive director of the group known as Walhi, said on Saturday. “These are empty words.”

He said Walhi was looking for two outcomes to the cases: the rightful return of the land to the people, and appropriate sanctions against the offending parties, including those who used violence against the people.

Walhi reported 103 incidents of land grabs throughout 2011, and said that the conflicts led to the deaths of 12 people and left more than 120 injured.

“We have submitted reports on all the conflicts to the Forestry Ministry, the National Land Agency [BPN] and the relevant administrations,” Berry said. “There needs to be political pressure for us to see progress on these cases.”

He called on the public to get engaged in large-scale peaceful demonstrations to get the government to act on the cases.

“I also hope members of the press help to bring this issue to the fore,” he added.

Land conflicts that have resulted in the recent killing of villagers in Mesuji and the police’s heavy-handed repression of protests in Sape, West Nusa Tenggara, are only the tip of the iceberg, Berry added.

Many conflicts do not receive the appropriate response from the government, and instead civil society groups are drawn to the cause, leading to Walhi, the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) and academics establishing a joint secretariat to receive reports from people who have had their land unfairly expropriated by large firms such as mines and plantations.

Walhi’s reports on the number of land grabs in 2011 is conservative compared to a report issued by the KPA, which identified 163 such cases last year. The KPA also claimed that 22 people were killed in the conflicts.

The KPA said East Java had the most reported cases, at 36, followed by North Sumatra (25), Southeast Sulawesi (15), Central Java (12), Jambi (11), Riau (10) and South Sumatra (nine).

It also said more than 472,000 hectares of land was expropriated, affecting 69,975 households.

Iwan Nurdin from the KPA said that there was an increase in the number of incidents and in the level of violence in 2011 compared to 2010, when there were 106 cases and three deaths reported. 

Antara