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| Eviction in Kampung Pulo - (C) Kompas.com |
Introduction
In August 2015, the Jakarta
administration evicted 925 poor households from their houses in Kampung Pulo
which located in East Jakarta Ciliwung’s riverbank (Jakarta Post 2015: n.p).
Jakarta Administration has planned to condemn all houses built in riverbanks
across the capital city to normalise Jakarta’s riverbanks as one of the integrated
solutions to the floods affected the city every year (Padawangi and Voorst
2015: n.p). According to the police report, there were 12 injured victims both
from residents and police officers during the eviction and 27 residents were
arrested (Jakarta Post 2015: n.p; Coconut Jakarta 2015: n.p).
Jakarta administration
claimed that all settlements on riverbanks are illegal, but residents consider
that they legally own their land and houses. Kampung Pulo already exists since
the era of the Dutch colonialism and some residents have their proof of
property ownership in the form of verponding
issued by the Dutch administration (Jakarta Post 2015: n.p) and some of the
residents also have their legal certificate issued by the Indonesian
Government. Moreover, Kampung Pulo is also registered as a village and lead by Lurah (village leader) appointed by
Jakarta administration (Kompas 2015: n.p) and the residents also pay the
property taxes every year (Jakarta Post 2015: n.p). These facts are among the arguments
that Kampung Pulo is not an illegal area to live and the residents are not
squatters.
Why the government is trying to
evict residents
Solving Jakarta’s chronic
problems such as floods and traffic jams are among the promises of Joko "Jokowi"Widodo during
his candidacy as Governor of Jakarta in 2012 gubernatorial election. Before the
gubernatorial election in 2012, Jokowi was a Mayor of Surakarta City and known
as his pro-poor policies. One of his popular words was: menggeser bukan menggusur or shifting/relocation without eviction (Detik
2013: n.p; Tempo 2013: n.p).
In 2007, Jokowi succeeded
in relocating about 1,000 street vendors in Surakarta from Banjarsari Park to a
new place to make the face of the city much friendlier to tourists and visitors
without any violent and the relocation was even celebrated by all street
vendors (Poer 2008: n.p). This success story was a result of about 50 informal
meetings between Jokowi and the community of street vendors (BBC Indonesia
2011: n.p; Detik 2012: n.p).
Kampung Pulo was among
the important sites he visited during his campaign and again he promised that if
relocation must be done in order to normalise the function of Ciliwung River, then
Jakarta administration will give compensation to all households (Republika
2014: n.p). Jokowi also promised that Jakarta administration will also build
‘kampung deret’ (village of row houses) for them. Kampung deret project was among Jokowi’s champion program aimed at
rebuilding slum areas in Jakarta (Jakarta Post 2014: n.p).
Jokowi’s promises and
track records attracted people to vote for him and he won the gubernatorial
election in 2012. Unfortunately, some programs and promises were stopped and
cannot be fulfilled by his successor when Jokowi won the presidential election
in 2014.
In 2015, when Jokowi was
no longer the governor, Basuki (his successor) started the eviction of Kampung
Pulo as the first stage of major flood mitigation project along the Ciliwung
River. Jakarta government claimed that the eviction is necessary to avoid major
economic losses due to floods that cripple the city every year (Setiawan 2015:
n.p). Unfortunately, Basuki rejected to
give compensation to residents as they illegally occupied state-owned land and
forced them to move in to government-owned renting apartment about a kilometre
away and this is the only option given by the government (Jakarta Post 2015:
n.p).
Later, after the
condemnation finished in late August 2015, Jakarta administration announced
that they will build a number of apartments on the site to be developed by a
private company and the ground breaking is expected to be done this year
(Jakarta Post 2015: n.p).
The ideological and political
issues
Cunningham and Cunningham
(2012: 38-39) believe that politicians are motivated by particular ideologies
which shaped their actions. In the
context of Kampung Pulo, it can be analysed that neo-liberal perspective has
shaped the way government acted because state (Jakarta government) was avoid
the responsibility to secure the economic and social needs of the people
(Cunningham and Cunningham 2012: 40).
Moreover, capitalism also
underpins the policy because one of the reasons of the eviction was to avoid
major economic losses due to floods in the capital. This explains one of the
Marxist perspective on the role of the state that social policies are geared
towards meeting economic needs rather than the welfare of citizens (Cunningham
and Cunningham 2012: 40). In addition, Jönsson (2010: 394) argues that
the globalisation has created ‘capitalist world system’ which forces many
non-western countries to implement the western models of ‘development’ which
mostly relates to economic growth whereas poverty and other social problems
often described as individual problems.
Basuki is now preparing
for his gubernatorial election in 2017 through the independence channel and he
needs about 300,000 copies of identification of supporters. In addition,
solving the floods problem also becomes his campaign. The media also portrayed
the poor people and their ‘illegal’ houses as the main cause of floods in the
city and this attract people’s willingness to give their copy of
identifications to support his candidacy in 2007. This explains the argument
given by Cunningham and Cunningham (2012: 39) that the aim of most politicians
is to govern and win the election.
It can be seen from the
explanation above that the ideological and political issue are strongly affect
the decision making by the Governor.
Living in an apartment: creates new social problems
Most of the residents are
now living in a renting apartment provided by the Jakarta government. Each
household received a 30 square metres unit with 2 bedrooms (4 square metres
each) and 1 tiny bathroom. In addition, the residents will be charged 300,000
rupiahs (AU$30) a month excluding charges for water and electricity (Kompas
2015: n.p). In total they can spend about AU$50 – AU$100 a month depend on the
usage of water and electricity.
Most of the families
cannot afford to pay this amount as they only engage in informal economic
activities such as making tofu, growing and selling chickens and mechanical
repairs (such as radios, televisions and motorcycles) and all these activities
would not be allowed and almost impossible to be done in an apartment
environment (Setiawan 2015: n.p).
Other social problems
also emerge when a 30 square metres must be used for family with more than 5
members because the unit will not enough to accommodate them. In addition, from
the total of 925 households in Kampung Pulo, only 518 units were available in
the apartment (Okezone 2015: n.p).
Easthope
and McNamara (2013: 4) argue the important of the neighborhood for community
cohesion and social interaction and living in apartment tends to create
individualism. Also, important to note that the
poor people cannot be self-sufficient in solving the problem of poverty and
they need a community as a system to support them (Berner and Benedict 2005:
20).
Violations of Human Rights Principles
Responding to the forced
eviction in Kampung Pulo, several actions performed by the Jakarta
administration can be categorised as violations of human rights principle. The
National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) – based on their investigation and
reports from public – found several human rights abuses cases during the
demolition of houses such as the use of violent by Public Order Officers, the
custody of innocent citizens, and several actions classified as ‘repressive’
and ‘inhuman’ (Tempo 2015: n.p).
The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (UDHR), the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (UN n.y: n.p) and,
at national level, 1945 Indonesia Constitution and Law No. 39/1999 on Human
Rights (UDHR 2013: n.p) are among the frameworks that can be used to analyse
this issue. Based on these frameworks, several violations of human rights
principles can be listed as follow:
Tabel 1. List of Violations of HR Principles in Kampung
Pulo Case
|
No
|
Actions performed by Jakarta administration
|
Violation of HR principles
|
|
1
|
Forced
eviction uses obsolete approach: excessive use of force (about 2000 security
personnel).
|
-
UDHR article 12, 17
-
ICCPR article 2 (1)
-
ICESCR article 2
|
|
2
|
The use
of violent during eviction.
|
-
UDHR article 3, 5, 9
-
ICCPR article 7, 10, 20
-
1945 Constitution, article 28G (1), 29 (2)
-
Law No. 39/1999, article 36 (2)
|
|
3
|
The custody of innocent citizens.
|
-
UDHR article 9, 11
-
ICCPR article 9
|
|
4
|
Most of
the residents lost their daily income as most of them were employed in the
informal economy.
|
-
UDHR article 23, 24, 25
-
ICCPR article 1 (1)
-
ICESCR article 1, 2, 5, 6
|
|
5
|
City
spatial planning was not open publicly and the development of spatial
planning was not participative.
|
-
UDHR article 19
-
ICCPR article 19
-
1945 Constitution, article 28E (2) and (3)
-
Law No. 39/1999, article 23 (2), 28F
|
|
6
|
Poor
residents portrayed as the cause of floods in the capital therefore must be
evicted.
|
-
UDHR article 1, 6, 7
-
ICCPR article 16
-
ICESCR article 9
|
|
7
|
Social capital
was neglected in the relocation program.
|
-
UDHR article 29
-
ICESCR article 1
-
ICESCR article 15
|
|
8
|
The
absence of compensation for residents despite their legal status
|
-
Law No. 39/1999, article 37 (1)
|
|
9
|
Jakarta
administration categorized the residents as illegal citizens.
|
-
UDHR article 15, 17, 21
-
ICCPR article 24, 25
-
ICESCR article 1
|
|
10
|
Apartment
units provided by the government were too small for family with 5 members or
more.
|
-
UDHR article 25
-
ICCPR article 23
-
ICESCR article 1, 11, 12
|
Multistory kampung: A community
development approach
Tesoriero
(2010: 2) defines community development as a process of establishing human
community which enable them to organise their social life by promoting and
respecting human rights in order to meet their needs. Moreover, Kenny (2011: 8)
argues that community development is also about collective partnership, control
and responsibility of the decisions based on trust, mutual respect and sharing
knowledge and resources. In the context of Kampung Pulo, the solution given by
the government cannot be categorised as community development as it neglected
the role of community to solve the problems and at the same time, human rights
values were violated.
In 2000, a community
organisation (Kenny 2011: 13) named Ciliwung
Merdeka (Free Ciliwung/CM) established by social activists and communities
in Ciliwung’s riverbanks including Kampung Pulo. During its establishment, CM has been working to improve the
quality of life of poor people by several initiatives including the awareness
of rights, responsibilities, solidarity and also self-resilience. CM
also has tried to implement a community
development concept in their work. Residents were involved in every discussion
to identify their problems, needs, priorities and resources (Kenny 2011: 8).
In 2012, CM and several
community leaders met Jokowi (now President of Indonesia) to set up a blueprint
for the implementation of ‘multistory kampung’ as a more proper living
environment for the residents on the riverbank. The design of ‘multistory
kampung’ was prepared by involving citizens in all phases. It allows fire
trucks to pass and green space will also be provided. Moreover, each building
in the ‘multistory kampung’ compound will be provided for residents from one Rukun Tetangga (the lowest level of neighborhood
unit) and space for businesses will be provided on the building’s lower levels
(Jakarta Post 2012: n.p). After several meetings and presentation, the governor
agreed on the proposal given by CM and citizens (Jakarta Post 2015: n.p; Kompas
2015: n.p).
Looking at the advocacy
and activities have been done by CM from 2000, It gives the important values of
community development to involve people from the beginning, respect the
democratic principles and also understand the will of the people (Battacharyya
2004: 21).
The concept and idea of
‘multistory kampung’ in Indonesia is not a new thing. In late 1980s, the
‘multistory kampung’ firstly initiated by Mangunwijaya – a Catholic priest – in
Kali Code riverbank in Yogyakarta (Arditya 2013: n.p). This concept also
received several international awards including Aga Khan Awards for
Architecture in 1992 (AKDN 1992: n.p). Kali code ‘multistory kampung’ project
is one of the success stories of community development project in Indonesia
(Yossi and Sajor 2006: 299-301).
The
three principles of community development: self-help, felt need and
participation (Bhattacharyya 2004: 21) has already been
considered in the works of CM. They
encourage people in the community to be productive and take care of themselves
for their own future, respond and define community’s problems and needs as they
see them, and also involved people in every stage of their works for a long
period of time.
The works and concept by
CM were among the best solutions to solve the problem of slum areas in Jakarta as
they used the values and principles of community development and also respect
the human rights principles. The problem needs to be further addressed was the
political commitment of the government to involve citizens in the decision
making process and stick with their promises to acknowledge poor people as
partners and not enemies of development.***
Written by Agung Wasono (November 2015)
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***
