Residents have regularly asked the ombudsman’s office in Jakarta to speed up the process after in April last year it revealed the finding of maladministration in the issuance of 62 freehold certificates (SHM) and 14 building permits (SHGB) to PT Bumi Pari Asri, which plans to turn Pari Island into a tourist destination.

The residents’ prolonged fight has resulted in the criminalization of some of their friends.

Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) public defendant and Save Pari Island Coalition member Ayu Eza Tiara said the residents’ demands had fallen on deaf ears.

“One year is a long time. According to the regulation, within 60 days [a finding of maladministration] should be upgraded into a recommendation. If the ombudsman is still studying the issue, we fear that there is also maladministration within the ombudsman,” Ayu told reporters.

“We are concerned that the interests of the residents will be set aside with the tourism development,” she said, adding that the coalition supported the ombudsman’s investigation.

Ayu added that prolonging the situation would put the legal certainty of the land in question on hold and warned that it would create leeway for Bumi Pari Asri to continue staking its claim on the island.

“We are concerned that the interests of the residents will be set aside with the tourism development.”

Fatilda Hasibuan of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), also a member of the coalition, said a recommendation from the ombudsman would help speed up establishing legal certainty on the island.

“[With the recommendation] residents would be certain of their ownership of the island, right now they are cautious,” Fatilda said.

She said the recommendation would support the ombudsman’s earlier finding of maladministration in the issuance of certificates and help invalidate them.

Fatilda added that the recommendation would also prevent the criminalization of residents, which was being used to delegitimize their claim to the island.

In April 2017, Pari Island resident Sulaiman was named a suspect by the Thousand Islands Police after allegedly breaking into a house on a 4,999-square-meter plot of land claimed by Pintarso Adijanto, the president director of Bumi Pari Asri, and was charged under Article 385 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) on trespassing.

However, in November last year the North Jakarta District Court declared Sulaiman not guilty in the case.

Three Pari Island fishermen have also had run ins with the law. Mustaghfirin, Mastono and Bahrudin were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment by the North Jakarta District Court, which declared the three guilty of violating Article 368 (1) of the KUHP on extortion with intimidation for charging Rp 5,000 (32 US cents) per person to five visitors of Pasir Perawan Beach on the island.

However, in October last year the Jakarta High Court overruled the North Jakarta District Court and cleared the fishermen of all charges.

Last month, the residents found that employees of engineering service company PT Pratama Widya had been conducting activity on the island without the consent of locals.

The company reportedly planned to construct an overwater villa in the area and residents feared that it would deprive them of their livelihood as fisherfolk and small business owners, so they protested the plan.

Meanwhile, the head of the ombudsman’s office in Jakarta, Teguh Nugroho, said it was still studying the issue, hence it had yet to publish a recommendation.

“We will check all the documents that the land agency has yet to give to us,” Teguh told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He added the ombudsman had also found that the 14 SHGB had expired.

He said the North Jakarta Land Agency had been cooperative with the Jakarta office, hence there was no need for a recommendation just yet.

“[The ombudsman should upgrade the report status into a recommendation] within 60 days [only] if the defendant does not carry out the corrective measures that we propose,” he said.

Bumi Pari Asri spokesperson Ben Yitzhak did not respond when the Post contacted him for comment.

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