John Aglionby, Cibedug – Being beaten up by Indonesian soldiers was worth it, Ujung Jusuf says, if that is the price of recovering land he and his fellow villagers say was stolen from them by the former dictator Suharto.
Mr Jusuf was injured when he and about 100 other residents of Cibedug, in West Java, 50 miles south of Jakarta, invaded a 1,850-acre farm belonging to Mr Suharto, to reclaim the 500 acres they believe is theirs.
Thirty soldiers wielding wooden clubs and rattan canes forced them to retreat last Wednesday, but they returned the following day and the day after that. "We're going to enter every day until we get our land back," Mr Jusuf said. He added: "It hurt-when they hit me but not as much as when they took the land without giving us any compensation."
That was in 1972, and for the next 26 years the people of Cibedug and the four neighbouring villages 3,000ft up the dormant volcano Mount Gede were powerless to prevent their land being used to line Mr Suharto's pockets. Locals were not employed on the ranch; Mr Suharto brought in 600 workers from East Java and paid them 11 pence a day to tend his cattle and till the land.
"Suharto said he was doing research to improve farming methods," said Hasanudin, another Cibedug resident. "But the only people who ever benefited from it were Suharto and his family. We used to be able to afford to go on the haj [the annual Mu~slim pilgrimage to Mecca, but after 1972 we were lucky to make ends meet."
Little changed immediately after Mr Suharto was forced to resign in May after 32 years in power. People tried to reclaim their land, but the ranch security guards, backed up by soldiers from the local military command, kept trespassers at bay.
Yet in the past two months the impact of Indonesia's economic crisis has become more acute. Prices show no signs of stabilising, food shortages and unemployment are worsening and 40 per cent of the population now lives below the poverty line.
"I have one good meal a day and that is only rice and salted fish. If I'm lucky I get chicken once a month," Mr Jusuf said. "Last week we agreed that we could not go on like this so we decided to invade the ranch again. If we can't grow more crops to feed ourselves we are going to starve to death."
After being driven back on Wednesday, details of the villagers' fight reached the local branch of the country's legal aid institute, the lawyers are preparing a lawsuit against the former autocrat. They also negotiated with the ranch managers to allow the villagers to cultivate fallow land until the case is settled. Yesterday soldiers looked on as 400 triumphant villagers swarmed into the ranch and planted banana trees to mark out their land.
Their actions are by no means unique. In the past week Indonesia's poor have started taking the law into their own hands to hold off starvation. On Friday dozens of traders in the town of Jember, in East Java, were forced to flee as a mob attacked their shops and rice mills.
Four days earlier 2,000 residents of Tangerang, just outside Jakarta, stole 1.5 tons of shrimps from local ponds to sell to fend off starvation. They were so desperate they ignored warning shots fired by soldiers guarding the area. Signs of unrest are also evident in the capital. On Saturday a market selling cheap goods descended into a free-for-all only an hour after it was opened by President B. J. Habibie.
The armed forces commander, General Wiranto, said on Friday that people were "totally disregarding the law" and that "they cannot get away with this". But foreign diplomats believe that empty threats will not work.
One said: "It is clear that people are now so desperate and so hungry they are willing to risk everything to get food for themselves and their families. It will take much more than Wiranto's words to halt what appears to be the start of a slide into anarchy."
[On July 21 the South China Morning Post reported that the Indonesian government is planning to give Suharto 26.5 billion Rupiah to build a house. Khofifah Parawangsa of the United Development Party was quoted as saying "As a former president he does have right to that house but because he is already bathing in wealth and his current house is already more than appropriate and I think this expense is not appropriate". Suharto currently resides in the elite suburb of Menteng in Central Jakarta. Starting with a single house, neighbouring houses were bought up one by one and interconnected to form a massive residence straddling the entire block - James Balowski.]