Returning the Land to the People
The 1960 Basic Agrarian Law is a populist law for sure, but its implementation was blunted by other laws subsequently enacted by the New Order regime in favor of government and business. This week’s investigation by TEMPO looks at the scandalous methods employed by greedy developers working in cahoots with corrupt officials to rob illiterate farmers of their land. Hundreds of land disputes are yet to be resolved. Will parliament revise the 1960 BAL to give it more power to protect the small farmers?
Tempo
September 18, 2000
DUDU Masduki is a landless farmer. For 13 years, the 48-year resident of Cimacan village in West Java’s district of Cianjur, has been without any land of his own since his 1,000-square-meter holding was forcibly transferred to a developer in 1987. Today, Dudu can only look in sadness at the property—where he and his parents before him had lived and worked for over three generations—being transformed into a golf resort for the
...