'Ghost Houses' Haunt Site of New West Java Airport

Rows of pastel plywood shacks had suddenly appeared in the town to house those who wanted to remain behind. They were set up by thugs and speculators who hoped to capitalize on the semi-abandoned land, according to one official. Most of them remained empty. Locals have dubbed the shacks "ghost houses." I peered inside one of them. It was uninhabited, its earthen floor carpeted in grass and unruly weeds.

"Some of us chose to stay since the airport hasn't destroyed our homes yet," said Otong, one of the 88 or so families who stayed behind. "But we're ready to move out at any time."

Desa Kertajati wasn't destroyed by a natural disaster or an economic downturn. Instead it's the victim of something that runs beneath the surface of much of modern-day Indonesia: progress. Progress, the country's ongoing development, often cuts both ways. The same economic progress that turns villages and towns into small cities and raises millions out of poverty also pushes others further to the margins. Villages like Desa Kertajati routinely disappear. And new ones crop up in places where economic opportunities thrive.

It's such a common fact of life here that it's easy to ignore the changing landscape. But in some communities, like Desa Kertajati and hundreds of others across Indonesia, progress and land grabs go hand-in-hand. And life after losing everything you own can be difficult. Just ask the people who stayed behind.

"If you have a steady job, you still get paid every month," Otong said. "But for me, to live like this, I have to hustle every day to keep the kitchen cabinets full."

The village was once home to more than 900 families, mostly farmers who grew chili, shallot, rice, sugar cane, and corn. In 2013, most of the villagers sold their land for a pittance and moved on. Demolition crews then moved in to make way for a new international airport the central government said is needed to reduce pressure on Bandung's crowded Husein Sastranegara International Airport.

But construction of the Kertajati International Airport is well behind schedule. The company awarded the contract, PT Bandarudara International Jawa Barat, has no experience running an airport or managing a construction project of this magnitude. Delays and funding issues plagued the project under the supervision of PT BIJB. The West Java provincial government set aside only Rp 500 billion ($37.6 million USD) of the estimated Rp 2.5 trillion ($188 million USD) needed to finish the project. Land acquisition took six years, remains incomplete, and left many villagers dissatisfied with low payouts. In the 13 years the project remained under provincial authority, only a single runway was built.

President Joko Widodo handed the project off to the Ministry of Transportation in early 2016, declaring the airport a project of national strategic importance. The Kertajati International Airport will serve some 5.6 million passengers when it opens, providing a needed alternative airport in West Java—Indonesia's most-populated province.

The president, a man popularly known as Jokowi, inherited the airport project, and dozens of other infrastructure projects—some of them stalled by funding and land acquisition issues—from former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. SBY earmarked a planned Rp 32 trillion ($2.4 billion USD) in funding for the construction and expansion of airports in his sweeping national development plan known locally by the acronym MP3EI. The plan would've increased connectivity and infrastructure spending by fostering public-private partnerships (PPP). It also hoped to raise the country's per-capita income to more than $14,250 per year, placing the country on equal footing with China's current level of personal income and making Indonesia one of the world's largest economies.

But SBY was unable to keep the country on-course amid global financial headwinds and a series of corruption cases back home. The former president hoped to keep economic growth above 6.4 percent through 2014 and set policies in action to more than halve inflation by 2025. But by 2011, turmoil in the international markets threatened to undermine SBY's ambitions. In the ensuing years, the Taper Tantrum and the commodities crash made 6.4 percent GDP growth well out of reach.

There was still an unintended consequence of the MP3EI plan: a dramatic rise in land conflicts. During SBY's ten years in power, land disputes soared to nearly 1,400 individual conflicts by the end of 2014, according to figures by the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA). At least 70 people died in these conflicts. More than 920,000 families were impacted by land disputes and the ownership of some five million hectares of land was thrown into question.

The MP3EI plan was a key driver behind much of this rise. In 2012, a new eminent domain law was passed in order to support the MP3EI's infrastructure ambitions. By 2014, conflicts linked to infrastructure projects had rose 104 percent in a single year, according to KPA data. "The MP3EI project shows how government domination is… [behind] agrarian conflicts in infrastructure sector," the consortium's general secretary Iwan Nurdin said at the time.

President Jokowi adopted much of the MP3EI's aims, but he no longer uses the plan's name. He, instead, is more focused on building maritime connections and increasing the nation's resilience in food security issues. Jokowi also attempted to mend frayed ties with Indonesia's indigenous communities—who are often impacted by land conflicts. The president handed over some 13,000 hectares of customary land to indigenous groups in North Sumatra in a move heralded as a victory for indigenous peoples. He has promised wider land reforms totaling in excess of 9 million hectares in the future.

The airport projects remain on the books. The president attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Yogyakarta to mark the start of construction on that city's new airport—another project plagued by land disputes and protests. And in West Java's Majalengka district, the Kertajati International Airport is now a little more than a year from opening.

A skinny man with tanned skin and curly black hair, Otong carries himself with ease, often making light of his situation with a self-effacing joke or stray observation that recast his life as one where his relative poverty was a choice.

"People care so much about money, but why do we need so much if we can still live comfortably with less?" he remarked.

He told me that he took the payout for his house and reinvested the money into new money-making ventures. Otong built a shack on rented land and he now owns several small-scale businesses selling timber, cattle, and rice.

"You can be as angry as you want, but it won't change anything," he said. "I'd rather do anything I can [to rebuild my life]."

A spokesman with PT BIJB told me the company was fine with farmers like Otong using the land while the airport was still under construction. But eventually, Ali Sodikin explained, the airport will take control of all the land it purchased—even tracts currently "rented" back to the farmers by small-scale criminals.

"There are these preman [thugs] who rent rice fields to the villagers even though we never told them to stop farming," Ali said. 'But, one day, if we want to use the land, they can't say no."

The problem, he explained, are the speculators who moved in when the original land owners vacated the village. They built the "ghost houses," in part to rent to those who remained behind, but also to try to convince PT BIJB and the government that the land is still occupied. Ali said the speculators might eventually try to collect compensation from the government on a wooden shack that didn't even exist before the project began and that no one ever called home.

"There are speculators who wish to receive compensation when we clear the land," Ali said. "They split the profits with the initial land owners."

"We do need more [land]," Ali admitted. "Some villagers did say no, but by looking at the number of 'ghost houses,' we can assume that many people are OK [with the airport project]. They just want their land and houses to be bought at a higher price."

But the process is also far from transparent, according to experts. Residents of Desa Kertajati were offered an average of Rp 67 million ($5,047 USD) for their homes and Rp 700,000 ($52 USD) for every 14 square meters of land, a price so low that few were able to afford the relocation costs. News of the low prices spread and soon the residents of the nearby Desa Sukamulya were organizing a resistance.

Desa Sukamulya, a village of more than 5,000, is located at the tip of what will become the airport's runway. So far, the airport has only secured 12 of the village's 731 hectares of land. The residents, instead, organized and began to file complaints with the central government and human rights organizations detailing what they saw as corruption and erroneous data in the land purchasing process.

"We have filed reports of the suspected violations to the Indonesian ombudsman's office and [the National Commission on Human Rights] Komnas HAM, but there have not been any follow-ups," said Bambang Nurdiansyah, the leader of a group called the Sukamulya People's Front of Struggle (FPRS). "We suspect the land clearance compensation has been corrupted, not to mention the issues with data manipulation."

On 17 Nov. 2016, the conflict boiled over as some 2,000 bureaucrats and police arrived at the village to conduct measurements without any notice. Thousands of Desa Sukamulya residents took to the rice paddies and a brawl broke out between the villagers and the police. Officers fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd. Several villagers were injured. Eight others were detained.

"Of course we were angry," said Heri Susana Kalangi, the local village chief. "We were left out of the conversation."

It was the second time government officials attempted to suddenly survey the land without prior notice. A previous effort, back in 2014, also ended in a clash with Indonesian security forces. That demonstration left dozens injured and convinced local residents that the government had no interest in involving them in the land acquisition process.

"We are not opposed to the airport construction project, we only want the government to pay attention to the future of our village," Heri told me. "We don't want this village to vanish and its people to be separated."

Other local government officials denied claims that they were purposely leaving villagers in the dark. Both times surveyors arrived at Desa Sukamulya, they were only there to measure the land of residents who already agreed to sell, village secretary Ade Hari explained. "Some residents protested, but we are always open if somebody needs information," Ade said.

"Regarding the conflict, some residents were supportive and some others were against it," Ade explained. "But the land measurements were only done on the lands of those who agreed [to sell]."

Human Rights Watch's Indonesian researcher Andreas Harsono explained that the root of the disagreement has to do with the price of land. The government offers residents compensation based on the price listed by the local tax office. But that price is often far below what the land is worth on the market. Throughout Majalengka district, local residents were being offered Rp 25,000 ($1.88 USD) per square meter when the same land was worth Rp 500,000 ($37 USD) to Rp 2 million ($150 USD) per square meter at the market rate.

"From a legal perspective, the government has authority to evict [the village] if it's in the public's interest," Andreas said. "However, there are a number of procedures to follow. The government has to guarantee the welfare of the evicted residents. They can't just evict them like that. If there has not been a discussion since the beginning, that's just wrong."

The residents of Desa Sukamulya told me they were concerned about their future. The airport was inching closer to completion by the day, and no one expected a small village to survive at the end of the runway for long. But, without a clear answer from the government, or a chance to play a role in their own relocation, many residents remained in opposition to the plan.

"The people living here are anxious, they live with uncertainty," Heri, the village chief, told me. "They are afraid that one day their lives will be completely different."