F

rom inside her closed house, Wagirah, 40, was reciting prayers in a last-ditch effort to defend her house and land against the development of a new airport in Yogyakarta.

But dozens of police, military and provincial public order personnel did not hear her prayers. Some of them came forward, forced open her door and dragged Wagirah and her son, Yuli, out.

Wearing pink praying attire, she fought off police officers who tried to carry her away from her house. They dropped her to the ground but she fought to stand up, trying to bite the hands that were trying to restrain her.

“I don’t want you to demolish my house. You are an oppressor of small people,” she screamed repeatedly on Thursday.

That day, Wagirah’s house in Temon, Kulon Progo regency, was demolished to pave the way for a new, bigger airport for the province, called The New Yogyakarta International Airport (NYIA), to replace the overcrowded Adisutjipto International Airport in Sleman regency. The demolition continued until Saturday, when all 10 houses were flattened to the ground.

Wagirah and her neighbors, all of them women, continued to defy the personnel. They threw dust and challenged the officers to a one-on-one fight.

The fight, however, came to a bitter end for the residents. Two excavators quickly destroyed her house and nine others.

At the same time, two women, Wagirah’s neighbors, tried to protect their belongings, which were going to be taken away by state-owned airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I.

Also wearing praying attire, they sat on their furniture while reciting prayers. They sometimes interrupted their prayers to express their anger to the people who wanted to take their land.

“Don’t you think about our children? They will come home from school to find they no longer have a house,” a woman yelled.

Ika Rochyanti, a resident, said she was punched in the nose by a policewoman while she was trying to defend her house. She showed a spot of blood on her white praying dress. “They took my Quran and I was dragged out of the house,” she said.

Wagirah, Ika and the other women are part of 86 families who still refused to sell their land for the airport’s development. From Thursday to Saturday, AP I officials and 700 joint personnel finally demolished the rest of houses except for the village mosque.

Their fight to defend the land that was not just their home but also a source of income from agriculture had continued for years since 2012.

The fight escalated last year when the company finished the legal process to buy the land. Some residents accepted the purchase, while others, like Wagirah, refused and claimed the legal process validating the land purchase did not have their consent as land owners.

The 86 families were united under the Association of Residents Rejecting Kulon Progo Forced Eviction. In 2012, there were thousands of members defying the acquisition. But many of them left the fight after they got a price they agreed with.

In April, the 86 families were the only ones left fighting AP I when the company cut the electricity supply and damaged their farmland.

They remained in the village and replanted their fields. “Because planting is fighting,” farmer Tuginah said in April.