WHY LAND CONFLICT IN RURAL CENTRAL JAVA NEVER ENDED: IDENTIFICATION OF RESOLUTION EFFORTS AND FAILURE FACTORS

Abstract

The plantation land conflicts that occur in the village of Darmakradenan in Central Java, Indonesia, between farmers and the Indonesian National Army (TNI) have been going on for 20 years. Various conflict resolution efforts that have been carried out have always failed. Based on this, the purpose of the research is to identify conflict resolution efforts and their failure factors. The method used was a qualitative method involving parties directly involved (farmers and TNI) or indirectly involved (land tenants, village government officials, and district governments) in the land conflict as research respondents. The results of the research showed that both conflict parties had taken various ways to achieve conflict resolution, such as with military intervention, negotiation, mediation, and arbitration, but all these efforts lead to conflict resolution failure. The driving factors of this failure are a substantial structural gap between farmers and the TNI, the involvement of mediators who are not neutral, the existence of government officials who are not always in line with farmers expectations, and the farmers attitude and behavior that are hard and difficult to collaborate. The implication of the results of this research emphasizes the importance of conflict resolution efforts that lead to improving the welfare of farmers in the form of joint land management. The welfare improvement of farmers can be an alternative to the actual conflict resolution if the land ownership by farmers is impossible because the TNI has legally controlled the land.