Indonesian Dam--World Bank Project Displacing Indigenous Peoples
8/11/94
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
The World Bank is coming under increased criticism for large-scale
development projects which do not meet local people's needs, and in fact
may trample on those in the project's way. The following article from IPS
relates the situation surrounding the Kedung Ombo dam project in Indonesia.
This article comes from IPS, and as such CAN NOT BE redistibuted for
commercial use of any type. The following was found in the econet
conference headlines.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Indonesian Dam--World Bank Project Displacing Indigenous Peoples
Source: InterPress Service
Date: 8/11/94
Author: Pratap Chatterjee
Copyright 1994 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
WASHINGTON, Aug 11 (IPS) - The Indonesian government this week
asked its supreme court to review a one-year old decision to
compensate farmers who were evicted to make way for a World Bank-
funded dam.
The court ruled last year that the government should pay 50,000
rupiahs (23 dollars) a square metre to 34 farmers who lost their
farms and land to the Kedung Ombo dam project in Semarang, central
Java. The government was also told to pay another two billion
rupiahs (one million dollars) in non-material compensation.
The ruling, signed by Indonesian chief justice Asikin Kusuma
Atmadja, was only made public in early July this year.
Indonesian sources told IPS the ruling was kept secret until
then so the government could gain sympathy at an international
lenders' meeting in July in Paris where the Indonesian government
was under pressure for human rights violations.
But right after the Paris meeting, the government asked the
high court to delay compensation. When the delay was approved
Saturday, Singgih, the Indonesian attorney general, followed up
the decision Monday with a request to review the ruling.
The Kedung Ombo dam, constructed with a 166-million-dollar soft
loan from the World Bank, covers an area of 6,700 hectares and
displaces 5,268 families from 20 villages. When completed in 1989,
it flooded thousands of hectares of land and houses.
At the time, the government offered farmers from villages like
Nglanji that were submerged 500 to 800 rupiahs (25 to 40 cents)
per square metre of land including crops. The Nglanji villagers
sued the central Java administration and the ministry of Public
Works, but the Semarang district court and a higher court turned
down their lawsuit.
The villagers won their battle four years later, but according
to Indonesian chief justice Purwoto Ganasubrata, the government
had used the little money earmarked for compensation to fight the
court battle.
The government bases its decision to challenge the court ruling
on the fact that the farmers only asked for 10,000 rupiahs (4.60
dollars) per square metre in compensation in the first place.
"The court's ruling is strange since it also ordered the
government to pay two billion rupiahs in non-material losses that
were not requested by the farmers," Moerdjono, the chief of the
central Java high prosecutors office, told journalists.
E)
According to Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, one of the lawyers
who represented the farmers, the government's request is not
valid. "The only thing that can trigger a review is when new
evidence surfaces," he said.
"The Supreme court decision is an ultimate decision that
should be respected. It should not be changed because of the
government's interests and pressure," Nurina Widago, the
assistant secretary of the International Non-Governmental
Organisation's forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) told IPS.
"It shows that there is justice for poor lay people in
Indonesia who involuntarily become victims of development
programmes. The people and NGOs would like to see an execution of
the compensation because that will show that the people can win a
legal case against the government in such matters," she added.
Other lawyers say this is precisely why the government is
challenging the ruling -- because it could make other villagers
who had accepted the government's offer rethink their decisions.
INFID also says compensation for villagers has not extended to
all of the families that had to move for Kedung Ombo.
In a letter sent in April to World Bank president Lewis
Preston, INFID accuses the dam builders of ignoring the plight of
many villagers who are still waiting for land.
"There are still 1,000 people living near the Kedung Ombo
reservoir who have not been properly resettled and the majority of
the people displaced by the project have not regained their
standard of living," said the letter.
The letter was sent after Indonesian activists learned of an
internal review at the World Bank which showed that four million
people are to be forced off their lands under Bank projects now
underway or to be commissioned by 1996.
The review notes that one in seven dollars spent by the Bank
goes to projects that are forcibly resettling people.
The report, prepared by the Bank's sociologist Michael Cernea,
says there is not a single project in the world where the
resettled people managed to regain their level of income. Under
the Bank's own directives, resettlement can only be conducted if
it results in maintaining or raising the income of the resettled
people.