On February 20th, the Rantau Prapat District Court sent a letter to the Labuhan Batu Police Department. The letter ordered them to evict the people occupying the ‘Padang Halaban Plantations’ out of their homes and farmsteads.

The people living there are descendants of (indentured) plantation workers of the ‘Padang Halaban Plantations’, who occupied and reclaimed the colonial plantation lands after the Indonesian National Revolution of 1945. On the plantation lands, stretching almost 3,000 hectares in size, they built the Six Villages of Padang Halaban, upon which they enjoyed a prosperous social, economic, and cultural life, along with a thriving and democratic political culture.

Tragically, that prosperous life was cut short when, during the outbreak of the 1965 genocide and its aftermath, hundreds of villagers were killed, tortured, raped, and kidnapped. During the early 1970s, the survivors’ homes and farmsteads were demolished by a private plantation company guarded by military and police personnel. Following this, they were rounded up and taken as forced plantation labourers for the company, working without pay.

In 2009, some survivors, their descendants and relatives, as well as several activists founded the Peasant Union of Padang Halaban and Surrounding Areas (KTPHS; Kelompok Tani Padang Halaban dan Sekitarnya). They returned to occupy and reclaim the plantation lands, demanding but a glimpse of the prosperous life their forebears once enjoyed albeit for a very brief moment in history. They managed to build new villages on 87 hectares of land, a minuscule amount compared to that of their forebears. SMART Corporation, the plantation’s current owner, filed a civil suit against KTPHS, and the former won. Afterwards, the people of KTPHS slept restlessly at night, not knowing whether or not tomorrow will bring bulldozers and excavators guarded by military and police personnel to throw them out of their homes and farmsteads once more.

Last Thursday (February 27th), excavators and bulldozers finally came with military personnel with orders to evict the people of Padang Halaban and destroy their village. Despite pressure from the public and various central government bodies recommending the eviction’s postponement, the local District Court did not relent, and instead rescheduled the eviction for Thursday, March 6th, 2025. “In the name of the law”, they persisted on standing with SMART Corporation who, in their arrogance, refused to “let go” of a mere 87 hectares of plantation land out of the 7,550 they currently hold!

Now, representatives of the Padang Halaban people are in Jakarta, holding audiences with government bodies and campaigning to the public about the plight on their land. With their forebears massacred and memories of a once prosperous life fading into obscurity, they are on the brink of suffering as victims of yet another gross human rights violation and mass violence. As Muslims all over the world—including those in Padang Halaban—enter the holy month of Ramadan, in which they abstain from eating and drinking and other worldly desires from dawn to dusk, SMART Corporation and the Rantau Prapat District Court threatened to swallow the lands of Padang Halaban’s people.

We invite our international network and the international community to extend their solidarity for the people of Padang Halaban, by putting pressure on SMART Corporation, a limited public company and a subsidiary of Sinarmas Group, as well as spreading awareness on their dirty products.

Click here to see the preliminary reconstruction of our research in Padang Halaban, which aims to explain land dispossession as an integral part of genocide.

A brief overview of Padang Halaban’s history can also be found on our X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram accounts.

A Luta Continua!