T

he government will freeze the land certificates of traditional communities in Padang Lawas, North Sumatra, following strong opposition from the communities to the government'€™s plan to repossess and take over management of a 47,000-hectare (ha) plot of land in the area.

There are at least 1,800 households with freehold land within the disputed area, according to Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Ferry Mursyidan Baldan.

'€œEach household has two hectares of land,'€ he told reporters after a meeting at the Environment and Forestry Ministry'€™s office in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The local communities have claimed that they had been given permits to manage the disputed land, also known as the Register 40 area, issued by the National Land Agency. Evidence for those permits has been found in Forestry Ministerial Letter No. 1680, dated Sept. 26, 2002, with validity until 2017.

Ferry said that the past administrators must have given the permits to the local communities as a part of an agrarian reform attempt.

'€œBecause each household received exactly two hectares,'€ he said.

Despite having won the rights to the land in court in 2007, hostile opposition from the local communities has prevented the government from taking over the 47,000 ha from Daulat L. Sitorus, a jailed prominent businessman who allegedly still operates his business from behind bars.

About 23,000 ha of the land was owned by the Bukit Harapan Oil Palm Plantation Cooperative and PT Torganda and the other 24,000 ha by the Parsub Cooperation and PT Torus Ganda.

The plantation was supposed to be confiscated from Sitorus after he was found guilty of converting protected forest into a plantation. According to the government, Sitorus obtained control of the protected forest in 1998.

Sitorus was arrested in 2005. He was sentenced to eight years'€™ imprisonment by the Central Jakarta District Court in July 2006. He filed an appeal at the Jakarta State Administrative High Court, which found in his favor.

But the Supreme Court reinstated the Central Jakarta court'€™s 2007 verdict, and its sentence of eight years'€™ prison.

Then in 2010, Sitorus and his lawyer Adner Sirait were found guilty of bribing Jakarta State Administrative High Court judge Ibrahim with Rp 300 million (US$22,438) in a separate land dispute against the Jakarta City Administration. Sitorus was sentenced to four more years in prison.

As the government plans to finally take over the 47,000 ha after years of failed attempts, it is important for it to freeze the permits owned by the local communities, according to Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar.

'€œWe will freeze the certificates until the state takes possession of the land,'€ she said on Tuesday. '€œThe repossession process is not yet finalized. That'€™s why we need to freeze the certificates first.'€

Ferry said that local community members would not be able to sell the land to other parties while their certificates were frozen.

'€œIf someone convinced the local communities to sell the land by arguing that the government would take it over, the government will suffer a loss,'€ he said.

When the government has frozen the certificates, the local communities will still be able to cultivate the land, according to Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno.

'€œThe local people there will not be disturbed [by the take over]. The only change will be the management of the land, which will move from the cooperative to a state-owned company,'€ he said on Tuesday.