Statement by the Executive Director
Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria (KPA)
Erpan Faryadi

I will try to divide my presentation into two themes. First of all, the context and then the struggle of land policies in Indonesia .

You know that Indonesia is an archipelago consisting of 13,000 islands scattered throughout the region. This makes a difference in land ownership between the Java Island (main island) and the outer islands where the foundation of ownership is still communal ownership. We inherited the remanants of Dutch colonialism regarding the plantations. This also created many problems regarding the rights of the people over the areas of the plantations.

After 30 years of dictatorship of General Suharto, actually the land reform ideas, land reform, has not been implemented at all. In essence, land reform is regarded as an idea from the left, subversive groups related to the communist party of Indonesia . This also created political trauma when we entered into the rural areas to convince the people, especially the peasants and farmers, that land reform is a neutral ideology. So land issues, especially land reform issues, in Indonesia have been related to leftist movement, in this case the communist party movement in Indonesia .

In 1960, this land reform issue was the cause of about one million killings in rural areas. So, we say that the past still kills our future. That is the context, up to the point when the New Order (as the Suharto regime was known) took the power from the Old Order under Sukarno's leadership. Under the New Order leadership headed by Suharto, many ideas regarding land issues were subordinated beyond the planning of government agencies, or beyond the talks within the concerned communities. So it was difficult to raise the issue of land reform under Suharto.

That is the brief history before entry into a new phase. At the moment, after this dictatorship, we still have the remnants of the New Order of bureaucrats and officers within our administration. So, this has also created many constraints when we are trying to deal with officials from the government agencies regarding land issues and land reform.

It is true that the structures of authoritarianism mostly remain in place, but the democratic space of the pro-democratic movement is safe from this authoritarianism regime. This creates the opportunity, for example, for journalists to publish critical newspapers and magazines today - it means the old system of self-censorship has been overturned. In the context of agrarian struggle the fall of the new order regime also becomes a big momentum for several groups of people to articulate openly and frankly - I mean the people can frankly face the armed forces, for example, who must restrain their power when they are facing people in the field. The phenomena of land reoccupation and land reclamation should be viewed in the light of the absence of appropriate agrarian policies for the people. So, it is important for the new leaderships, the new administration in Indonesia , and also for the agrarian movement to advocate for the implementation of appropriate agrarian policies. Oour organization Consortium for Agrarian Reform has been conducting dialogues with the national and local administration regarding this issue.

We feel that policy reform is an extremely important issues which should be pursued vigorously. Today, several new policies in the agrarian field, in the context of agrarian reform processes, have a stronger possibility of being introduced under the current legislation at both national and local levels, as well as by executive institutions. Therefore, Consortium for Agrarian Reform has placed agrarian policy reform and advocacy as the first thrust of their strategic programme for 2002-2005. Our main targets for the policy reform for these years are the implementation of the Decree on agrarian reform and natural resources management, by the People's Consultative Assembly - the highest decision-making body in Indonesia - and also conducting some local land reform implementation.

We are also promoting the need for the institution for agrarian reform, agrarian conflict resolution, because according to our agrarian conflict database, during the new order - 1967- end-2001 - we calculated that there were at least 1,700 cases concerning more than 10 million hectares of land involving one million families in the rural areas. Among these there were at least 500 cases with army involvement. Meanwhile the private companies have become the most troublesome in these cases.

Another impact of the New Order is that of the policies in agrarian sectors which were created by the central government and always characterized by destruction and exploitation. This links the environment and land problems. It is important to bear in mind that Indonesia has the second largest tropical forest after Brazil and this is now decreasing. This ties in with the problems of inadequate policies for the forest areas. Based on these facts, KPA as a national coalition of many NGOs and peasant groups, pursue issues that can only be overcome by a national programme where the state commits itself to adopt the agrarian reform as part of their national political agenda.

In conclusion, I would like to say that Indonesia is entering into a political transition with a democratic atmosphere. But, in the agrarian struggle, because of the remnants of officials of the New Order, it is difficult to negotiate and implement land and agrarian reform with the legislative institutions in Indonesia . Therefore, it is vital in Indonesia to promote at the highest level the need for land and agrarian reform.