Industrial Workers of the World

Call for solidarity Agrarian reform now!

Peasants in Indonesia need land: Land to the tiller!

Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) Building up to National Farmers’ Day, September 24, 2010

More than 65 years of independence, the situation of agriculture in Indonesia is still far from justice. We witness and feel the imbalances in land ownerships. Consequently, the situation leads to the fact that the peasants continue to own a very small land, or even landless.

Projection from Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), a peasant’s movement struggling for agrarian reform, said that there are currently 28.3 million households involve in farming business—and 15.6 million of them are very small-holder farmers, owning only 0.4 hectare of land.

The consequence has been dismal for their daily lives. Out of 32.53 million poor people in Indonesia, 19.9 million of them still live in rural area. Some of them are paddy producers, but as consumers they cannot afford to buy rice. These people are also amongst the most severely hit from food price crisis. Meanwhile, there are about 9.17 million hectares of arable land ready to be redistributed all across Indonesia.

The government said to launch a National Agrarian Reform Program (PPAN) soon. Until now, the implementation is still up in the air. Meanwhile, expansion of export-commodities plantation is beyond imagination. Palm oil, rubber, cacao, you name it. Sad but true, only one-third of the total width is owned by the people. The rest of them are owned by the corporations or state-owned.

This sparks agrarian conflicts. But since forever, peasants are victims. Our rights are very vulnerable to get violated. We are being increasingly and violently expelled from our land and expropriated from the source of our livelihoods. Criminalization in agrarian conflicts is very often, and peasants also lack the access to justice. This fact also made the people to act directly to reclaim their rights to land.

Since 1960s, we have been trying to take back our land from British and Dutch plantation. Later on, this made the government issued the Basic Agrarian Law—one of the law that support the agrarian reform idea and make sure the land is for the tiller. Until now, we are trying to uphold our constitution by reclaiming our rights to land.

Since 1998, SPI and its members have been reclaiming hundred thousands of land all across Indonesia up until the year 2012. In this movement, we are ready to cooperate with the government to conduct the agrarian reform ‘by grace’. Nevertheless, we have been doing our own agrarian reform ‘by leverage’, and we are going to continue doing that.

In the commemoration of National Farmers’ Day this year, we call the government to immediately redistribute the 9.17 million lands for the poor. Implement the National Agrarian Reform Program right away! The peasants and the poor cannot wait anymore. We need jobs. We need to eat. We need to make a living! 20,000 of peasants’ members of Serikat Petani Indonesia will march to demand our rights on September 24, 2010 all across Indonesia.

This is to demonstrate our determination for these matters of life-and-death. We are calling for your solidarity in this struggle, sisters and brothers.

You are welcome to sign up here, or send your solidarity to us: Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) Tel. +62 21 7991890

Fax. +62 21 7993426

http://www.spi.or.id

Email: spi@spi.or.id; info@spi.or.id

Mobile. +6281932099596

-- International Operational Secretariat ----------------------------------------------------------------------- La Via Campesina – International Secretariat:

Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV No. 5 Jakarta Selatan 12790, Indonesia

Phone : +62-21-7991890,

Fax : +62-21-7993426

E-mail: viacampesina@viacampesina.org

; Website: http://www.viacampesina.org