Yogyakarta's New Airport Construction Project is Evicting Entire Villages

The road to Wijianto's village on the outskirts of Yogyakarta was in pretty poor shape. The 34-year-old farmer had to slowly maneuver his motorbike past potholes where the two strips of cement running the length of the rural road had crumbled from repeated use.

But no one is ever going to repair the road. The entire village, a place called Glagah that's about 34 kilometers from downtown Jogja on Java's southern coast, is scheduled for demolition to make way for a new airport that the central government believes will help it reach its goal of doubling the number of tourist arrivals by 2020.

The airport project seized land form 37 families in five villages in the Temon subdistrict and begun demolition for what's being called the New Yogyakarta International Airport. The project has stripped the farmers of land that many of them inherited through ancestral lines and sparked a protracted land conflict that has succeeded in pitting neighbor against neighbor and farmers against the government.

Wijianto is firmly in the anti-government camp. I met him one week before the state-owned airport operator Angkasa Pura I erected a two-meter-tall metal fence across the main road into his village, blocking access to anyone from the outside and enclosing the families who refused to leave inside a barbed wire-rimmed fence that encircles an area that's more than 600 acres wide.

When we met, Wijianto's village was still accessible. The farmer tends to 2,000 acres of land, much of it planted with seasonal crops. It's this land, soil that his family has worked for generations, that inspired Wijianto to try to fight the government.

"You can plant anything here and it will grow," he told me. "We plant rice in the rainy season, and secondary crops in the dry season, as well as fruits, vegetables, and red chilies throughout the year. You could say that this land is heaven for us farmers. There's no floods during the rainy season; no droughts during the dry season."

Wijianto's home was still surrounded by trees and a small field, but less than 100 meters away you could see backhoes digging up the earth. He knew that one day, those same backhoes were going to rumble into Glagah village and tear down his home—unless he can do something about it.

So he formed a coalition with other local families called Paguyuban Warga Penolak Penggusuran Kulon Progo (PWPP-KP) that raises awareness about their struggle and works with activist and legal aid nonprofits to try to fight the eviction proceedings through protest and legal avenues.

"For farmers here, the land is our soul," Wijianto told me. "If we lose our land, that's like losing half our soul. We won't know if we'll live or die tomorrow."

Land conflicts like these are the dark side of Indonesia's economic development. During former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's decade in office, there were nearly 1,400 land conflicts raging across the country in a given year. The vast majority were linked to government infrastructure projects or resource industries like palm oil plantations or mines. It's a well-worn beat here at VICE's Indonesia office. We've written before about how plans to build a different airport, a cement plant, and a power plant displaced local communities.

It's been this way for years. As Indonesia averaged 5.6 percent GDP growth annually under SBY's leadership and an estimated 7 million people climbed out of poverty, millions of others were being left behind, hobbled by government policies that confiscated their land and relocated them to new communities where they were unable to rebuild.

The situation has gotten better under President Joko Widodo, but an estimated 650,000 families were still impacted by land conflicts last year, according to estimates by NGOs and activist groups working with affected communities. Inside that figure are houses like Wijianto's, where he lives with his wife, their 12-year-old daughter, and his in-laws.

"Ninety percent of the villagers here are farmers,” he told me. “If the airport is built, they won't know what to do for a living or how to feed their families."

So Wijianto and his fellow villagers hatched a plan to resist. When officials from Angkasa Pura I first arrived in 2012 and began to mark-out people's lands to calculate resettlement packages, the families of Glagah village struck back. But in the ensuing protest, security forces arrived and the whole thing spun out of control.

"Women were standing face-to-face with the authorities and they were pushed around,” Wijianto recalled. “The authorities didn’t care. Some villagers were choked like they were little more than goats.”

The violence continues today. In November of last year, hundreds of armed security forces showed up to raid the homes of three protest organizers in a clear show of force. During the raids, the police intimidated the other families, breaking windows and busting down doors. On the way out of the village, they cut power to some of the homes, smashing the electricity meters in the process.

Two weeks later, police were in the nearby village of Palihan, where they arrested 15 men and women who were trying to prevent a bulldozer from destroying a plot of land not yet signed over to the airport operator. And then it happened again in early January as armed forces stood guard while a bulldozer destroyed the land of another villager who was trying to oppose the airport project.

To date, three activists have been arrested and 11 others were badly injured by the police. Despite all of the pressure, Wijianto told me that he has no intentions of giving up.

"We're used to it," he said of the police raids. "We're not afraid at all. It will only make us bolder. We don't care if they shut down the road, we just want to continue living here. We'll do everything we can to resist them. Nothing can stop us."

But there's another side to this story. Only a few kilometers away in Janten village, the airport project was the start of the boom years. The village dramatically expanded as 54 families from Glagah village who agreed to the airport's cash compensation package moved in and built new homes.

The new village is two blocks deep and lined with brand new modern homes that hug the curbside. The homes were so new that many of them weren't even finished being built when I arrived. Sacks of cement, mountains of sand, and scattered construction equipment were everywhere. So were the construction crews who were busy building walls, polishing furniture, and mixing fresh batches of cement.

“I moved in here after they demolished my house,” said Suroto, a 58-year-old former resident of Palihan. "But it’s not finished yet. The back of my house is still not done yet.”

His living room was furnished with a set of brand new chairs. His neighbor's home had an expensive new motorbike parked out front. All of it was bought with resettlement money that totaled between Rp 300 million and Rp 1 billion per-household for most families. The process was easy Suroto told me, the company didn't even try to negotiate him down to a lower price. Angkasa Pura I instead just paid the resettlement fees in cash to the families who agreed not to fight the project. But those who resisted haven't received anything yet, despite the fact that bulldozers continue to destroy their land.

“It’s like we're rich now,” Suroto said. “We can build and buy anything we want.”

Suroto knows his farming days are behind him, but he doesn't care. Angkasa Pura I promised his son a job at the airport once the construction is finished—a job with the kind of salary and benefits you don't get from farming. Most of the other relocated families were promised the same thing, Suroto explained.

"The transition from living in a village to living in a city is progress," he said. "The people who refuse to advance will be left behind. We have different ways of thinking."

In total, an estimated 60,000 farmers will lose their livelihoods to the airport project. Some will likely secure jobs at the new airport, but plenty of others won't. Suroto is one of them. Despite feeling happy about the relocation, he hasn't been able to find new work since moving to Janten village.

"If it takes a me a long time to find a new job, it will be a real headache," he told me with a laugh.

Some of the relocation families used their newfound wealth to open shops and small food stalls in town. Others took jobs with the construction crews, working to build the metal fence that one week later trapped the resistance families, their former neighbors, in their villages.

Wijianto dismissed claims that some people were better off after accepting the buyouts. He called them short-sighted. They all sold off something that was worth more than money, and eventually they're gong to realize that it left them worse off, he explained.

"If everyone opens a shop, then who is going to buy your products?" he said. "We choose to keep farming. It makes me laugh how easily they all were fooled. Back then, we were all our own boss, and since it's impossible to work the land alone, we hired laborers. But now, they are getting paid by other people. Now, they are the laborers."

Wijianto isn't holding out for a bigger payout, despite what some of his critics say. He just wants to be left alone to keep farming.

“It’s not about the amount of money," he said. "I really don’t care about that."

But Wijianto won't be able to hold out forever. A local court heard a case regarding the assessment of land prices and the dispersal of compensation packages and it ruled in favor of the airport company. Angkasa Pura I had acted in accordance with the law, so the matter was closed, the court ruled on 22 March.

"We're going to inform the villages that the land within the airport zone is now owned by the state," said Sujiastono, the manager of the new airport construction project with Angkasa Pura I. "We legally own the land and we can use it for the airport. It's no longer owned by the residents."

The district court's ruling was in contradiction to the findings of the local ombudsman's office, which found that Angkasa Pura I had broken regulations during the evictions and resettlement payout process. It ordered the airport company to stop evicting villagers and demolishing their homes. But now the court's ruling has allowed the company to continue on with their plans to drive the last 34 families from their land.

This process will likely repeat itself in the coming years. The central government has identified nine key areas in need of new airports, and the construction of a new airport in West Java has already displaced hundreds of families. Eventually, Wijianto may end up living alongside his neighbors who took the buyouts early and let the bulldozers move in. But he's not holding any grudges.

“I’m fine with the pro-eviction neighbors," he said. "Even though we have different opinions, we’re all victims of development. We’re the same.”