Reclaiming Adat Land
The Summit Conference on Adat Law took place last October in Jakarta, attended by legal experts from 22 provinces of Indonesia. They agreed that adat (customary) lawseen as the better defender of public interestmust be integrated into the state legal system. For so long, many adat people have suffered or been placed at a disadvantage when their lands were taken over by companies or confiscated by the government. Today, hundreds of legal aides and facilitators voluntarily help adat people to fight for their rights over their ancestral land. Tempo English reports from West Sumatra and South Sulawesi.
December 10, 2013
A Victory for Customary Land
More than 40 years after villagers in West Sumatra were intimidated into giving up their land to a man who threatened to brand them as communists, his daughter brought a lawsuit against them. Thanks to some generous lawyers, the locals were able to win the case.
A light rain fell as Edrinal walked through the thick afternoon fog. Trotting along a tiny path, he hurried to a cowbarn on the lower slopes of Mount Sago in N
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