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Just come to Bukit Duri, you will think differently: Resident
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Residents watch a backhoe topple a two-story building in Buki Duri, South Jakarta, during an eviction operation on Sept. 28. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
D
esperate evictees of Bukit Duri in South Jakarta have criticized the public’s lack of empathy in regard to their fates, who have just lost their homes of decades without any compensation.
They criticize Netizens specifically, who they claim just have accepted the information of government officials without observing the actual conditions of the evicted residents.
"They are in favor of eviction policy because they never have visited this place. They only speak without seeing us [the residents]. Just come and see us for yourself and you will think differently," Muklis, who has four children, said in Bukit Duri on Thursday.
He was among many residents who were previously pleased when President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo promised during his election campaign that he would develop a kampung deret (elevated village) in Bukit Duri and other places, instead of evicting current residents.
But the 49-year-old man was among hundreds that were evicted from their houses on Wednesday.
Muklis, who does odd jobs to meet his family’s needs, now rents a house in a nearby area because the low-cost apartment in Rawa Babek, East Jakarta, is too far from his children’s school.
Dhyta Caturani, spokesperson of Gema Demokrasi, a movement initiated by activists from 70 civil organizations, said the impact of the eviction policy could not be solved by merely moving evictees to low-cost apartments.
"The residents have their social, economic and cultural activities in this village. When they're forced to move away, their livelihoods are taken from them," she said. (bbn)
