Ulma Haryanto – A class-action suit against the Tangerang administration is in order, academics at the University of Indonesia said on Thursday, over attempts to evict forcibly at least 1,007 people living along the banks of the Cisadane River.
On April 13, about 120 Satpol PP, or public order officers, tried to evict people from the impoverished Cina Benteng Chinese-Indonesian community in Tangerang's Neglasari subdistrict. At least nine people were injured in the ensuing clashes between the residents and the authorities.
"Evictions mean that people will be forcefully cut off from their social identity, relationships they built in the area and their home," sociologist Lugina Setyawati said, adding that the administration should have behaved as a mediator instead of being simply a regulator or enforcer. "They need to include matters of the economy, social and cultural aspects in spatial planning."
Anthropologist Sulistyowati Irianto said the people living along the Cisadane River needed to be made aware of their legal rights.
"A bylaw does not override or eclipse existing regulations [on human rights]. Therefore they cannot ignore articles that assure protection of the economy, social and cultural rights of each citizen. What they did could be basis for a class-action suit," Sulistyowati said. "The administration, ironically enough, acknowledges the people there by providing them with electricity, voting rights, ID cards. But now they want to take it all away." Residents of Cina Benteng are descendants of Chinese laborers brought to Indonesia by the Dutch in the 18th and 19th centuries. For generations, members of the community have lived in Neglasari.
Thung Ju Lan, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said any eviction of the Cina Benteng community should be viewed in the context of a marginalized group that lacked access to power to keep up with city development.
"They share a similar history with the Betawi people, who are also mixed [in terms of ethnicity]. They get too comfortable [because they live close to the capital]. Then one day, they get evicted," he said.
Asep Kambali, founder of the Indonesian History Community, said people should be wary of bringing up the historical or cultural aspects of the people in Neglasari. "Not all of them could be associated with Cina Benteng because... the term does not specifically refer to everybody who lives in the subdistrict."