Adianto P. Simamora And Desy Nurhayati, Jakarta – A 65-year old farmer from Banten province still has no idea why he was put in prison for five years, as his family cultivated their land that was later taken over by a state-owned forestry firm.
The father of seven children, Rais Amsar said the land dispute came after PT Perhutani claimed ownership of 3,000 hectares of land covering four villages there in 1982. "I was born in Cibalio village. I have a document showing ownership of a four-hectare piece of land and my family pays annual taxes to the government. But the company came and used its power to force us to abandon the land," Rais told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
"If I had no ownership papers or did not pay the tax, I wouldn't dare claim the land as mine."
Since the land conflict, Rais, who had been sent to jail twice, has no land for farming.
"And to survive with my family, I became a street vendor selling various snacks to school children. But I sometimes work for a landlord as many others in my village do," said Rais, whose youngest child is now in third grade at elementary school.
Rais is one of about 1,000 farmers from 26 countries who are gathering in Jakarta, urging the United Nations to set up an international legal framework to recognize peasants' rights and stop violence against farmers.
"Peasants represent almost half of the world's population and are the backbone of the food system, but their rights are still systematically violated," said Henry Saragih, coordinator of the La Via Campesina, an international farmers movement organizing the five-day conference.
"Via Campesina requires each government to take responsibility and implement small producers' rights by supporting sustainable family farming, agrarian reform and promoting local food markets," he said.
The conference, which began on Saturday, is being held when dozen of countries including Haiti and the Philippines are facing severe food crises triggering social conflicts in the two nations.
Henry said many small farmers with less than one hectare of land were expelled to create space for large plantations, industrial or commercial projects.
Data from Via Campesina shows over 196,179 hectares of agricultural land were expropriated in Indonesia last year, with at least eight people killed in agrarian conflicts and more than 166 peasants arrested.
Similar incidents took place in other countries thanks to the liberalization of trade policies, it added.
Via Campesina said land disputes in Brazil left about 4,340 families expelled from their land by private companies in 2007, while 259 people received death threats.
"In Europe, one farming family disappears every minute. In Turkey, one farming family leaves the land every 50 seconds. And in the EU, farmers only account for 3 percent of the population," said Paul Nicholson, a member of the international committee of La Via Campesina for the Basque country.
He said the European La Via Campesina has been struggling to defend the rights of an agriculture policy that prioritizes domestic markets, in order to ensure food sovereignty.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to housing said an average of 71 percent of rural households in Africa, Latin America and Western and Eastern Asia are landless.
Indonesia, home to over 200 million people with many of them farmers, is currently facing problems with land shortages, forcing people to work for landlords.