Retired officers, families defend homes

Hasyim Widhiarto ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 04/09/2010 11:20 AM  |  City

Kicked out: Ruri, a resident of state-owned the State Administration Institute (IPDN) housing complex, screams while clinging to a gate at a rally at the complex on Jl. Ampera in South Jakarta on Thursday. Residents protested eviction plans by the Home Ministry. JP/J. Adiguna
Dozens of residents of a state-owned education and housing complex in Cilandak, South Jakarta, rallied to defend their homes Thursday against eviction officers from the Home Ministry.
Forming a human barricade in front of the entrance of the complex, called the State Administration Institute (IPDN), the protesters closed off part of Jl. Ampera Raya, causing severe congestion along the street, which stretches between Cilandak and Kemang.
Protest coordinator Andy Ramses Marpaung said the residents rejected the eviction on the grounds that they could not afford to live anywhere else because they were living on small state pensions.
“If they evict us, we will be homeless,” he said.
The protesters claimed that according to a 2006 government regulation on state-owned property management, a state-owned property could only be put up for sale or returned to the state if it had been out of use for a long time.
“Almost all of the teaching and administrative services that were here have been moved to Jatinangor, West Java, after the ministry decided to merge the Institute of Public Administration and the Institute of Public Administration Sciences in 2004,” said Ahmad Malkan Lubis, another protester.
“So there is no urgent need for an eviction,”  he said.
The 10-hectare complex in Cilandak consists of several administration buildings, houses of various sizes, a sports field, a mosque, a chapel and deserted student dormitories.
Ahmad said there were 80 houses in the complex, 23 of which housed the families of retired civil servants from the ministry.
The ministry first told the residents to vacate the complex in 2008.
On Thursday, a joint team consisting of officers from the Home Ministry and the Jakarta Public
Order Agency attempted to evict families living in six of the 23 houses, but their efforts were halted by the protesters.
“We will reschedule [the eviction],” Soetjahjo, an official who led the eviction team, said.
In a show of support for the residents, the NGO Jakarta Legal Aid Institute said Thursday it would provide the occupants with an advocacy team.
A lawyer with the NGO, Edy Halomoan Gurning, said the NGO had decided to support the residents after it had learned that the ministry had not offered the residents alternative housing.
“All of the retired residents spent dozens of years working or teaching at the IPDN, but it seems that the ministry never gave a thought to helping them ensure their future,” he said. “If the ministry insists on evicting them, they should at least relocate them,”  he said.