Indonesian indigenous group seeks return of ancestral land

'We have the right to cultivate our own property,' protester says.

Jakarta:  Nearly 200 indigenous people in Indonesia's predominantly Catholic East Nusa Tenggara province are staging a sit-in protest to regain calling for the return of their ancestral land they said was taken decades earlier by a farming corporation.

Members of the Manbait tribe from Kuimasi village are staging the sit-in, which began April 4, in a tent erected in the middle of 225-hectares of land, they said is theirs.

"We strongly maintain that we have a historical evidence showing that this is our land, our ancestral land," Wensesius Bait, a protester, told ucanews.com on April 6.

Bait said the indigenous group did hand over 1,000-hectares of land to a state-run company in 1962. The company, PT Mekatani, went bankrupt in 1973.

"The provincial government later took over management of the land. It turned 775-hectares into a public facility. The other 225-hectares was given to PT Sasando in 1983," he said.

Bait said that as part of the original agreement, the land was supposed to revert back to the Manbait people once PT Mekatani ceased operations.

PT Sasando eventually went bankrupt too, leaving the land untouched.

"We have the right to cultivate our land," he said.

Bait said the land will be shared among 1,000 indigenous families and former East Timorese refugees who have lived in the village for 17 years.

"We want to make use of the land for our lives," Bait said.

Yustinus Darma, a spokesman for the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, said some villagers began planting their own crops on the disputed land, resulting in charges against one tribal member in January.

Source: UCAN