IRIGATION JATIGEDE

West Java mega-dam looms

A notorious dam project, designed during the Suharto era, is due to go ahead next year despite opposition from local people and NGOs supporting them.

The Jatigede dam, in Sumedang, West Java, is being billed as the answer to flooding and drought problems in the northern lowlands of West Java. The government claims it will provide 90,000 hectares of farmland with irrigated water, increase the rice harvest as well as generate electricity for industry and supply clean drinking water for residents. But the dam will also flood around 6,000 hectares of land - much of which is highly fertile farmland - and drown 30 villages, forcing over 28,000 people to move from their homes and land.

These people want the project stopped. They have suffered a series of human rights violations since the land acquisition process started in the 1980s (the project has been planned since the 1960s). In September around 400 protesters gathered outside the West Java governor's office in Bandung, demanding a halt to the dam. They said the project would harm their futures and cause social problems. They called for the dam to be built on an alternative non-productive site.

History of intimidation and torture

A September 2003 report compiled by the Bandung branch of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Bandung) documents the human rights violations associated with the project's land acquisition process, and describes how this process broke various laws and regulations along the way. The report, which characterises the case as "an extraordinary crime", describes the intimidation against villagers who refused to accept the low compensation levels set by the government. As was common during the 1980s and 1990s, people who objected to poor treatment at the hands of the government were threatened with being branded as members of the outlawed communist party, the PKI. In one incident in 1987, a group of 16 villagers were summoned to the Sumedang district military command. They were accused of stirring up political unrest, interrogated, and two of the group were severely beaten and kicked. As a result, says the LBH report, some of these people suffered permanent physical disabilities (including hearing loss) and/or psychological problems.

The history behind Jatigede invites comparisons with the World Bank-funded Kedung Ombo dam in neighbouring Central Java. This also involved forcible evictions, low compensation levels unilaterally set by government officials, plus a campaign of violence and intimidation against anyone who resisted. The World Bank admitted some of the failings of this project, but the dam's victims have never seen justice for the human rights violations they suffered and the compensation dispute remains unresolved today. (For more background to Kedung Ombo