The sentence was read slowly on the first morning of the SPHR, handwritten on a piece of paper by someone who dared not mention their name.

“The combat troops in camouflage uniforms came back into our village. If before they came armed for combat training, this time they came to fight in an irrational way: their weapons weren’t guns, but hoes, pickaxes, and shovels…”

I heard it while standing in front of the study room we prepared in Sentul, Bogor. Ten farmers from Rancapinang sat in a circle, and I just realized that they carried a much heavier burden than their own backpacks.

A hoe is more indiscriminate than a bullet. Bullets can miss, but hoes cannot. Dozens of hectares of plantations and rice fields were burned to the ground. Ready-to-harvest rice crops were destroyed beyond recognition. Thousands of productive coconut trees, trees that had stood since the time of their grandparents, were leveled to the ground within days.

The Territorial Infantry Battalion for Development (Yonif TP) 482/Badak Sakti called all of this “for national food security.” The Ministry of Defense called it a Military Operation Other Than War (OMSP), a policy rolled out since the inauguration of President Prabowo in 2024. Armed with the Right to Cultivate (SHP) Certificate Number 1 of 2012, they felt entitled to 364 hectares of land in Kampung Rancapinang, Cimanggu District, Pandegelang Regency.

The residents never sold that land. There was never any agreement to release the rights. The only thing that existed, around 1996-1997, was a payment for the damage to crops when the military used the land for combat training. But in 2012, the SHP was issued. And years later, survey markers began to be planted before anyone had a chance to ask.

***

Monday morning, May 11, 2026. Teh Iis and Kang Warcan were among the participants, and their faces spoke louder than words. Their minds were still in Rancapinang, Pandegelang, hundreds of kilometers away from here.

For the next four days, we gathered in Sentul. Learning critical law, organizational needs, and survival tactics to defend their homespace. I was present not only as a facilitator, but as someone who wanted to understand: how much damage had been done, and how much will the residents still have to stand.

Before delving into the complexities of agrarian and human rights laws, Fauzan asked them to do one thing: write down two things on paper. Their most honest hope, and their deepest fear that they carried from the village. Of the eleven notes read in turn, three spoke louder than the others.

“We fear losing our livelihoods, because the people of Rancapinang earn their living from the land, plantations, and rice fields that are currently in dispute.”

“Our concern: not being able to return to society.”

“I am worried that I cannot fully absorb the material presented.”

I looked at the woman who read the last sentence. Teh Iis. Her sentence was the simplest among all the others, but within that simplicity was a courage that not many people realize: she took a long journey, leaving home for almost a week, to learn about something that had never been a part of her life before.

As the session began, I saw her take out a small book. Not to take notes on the material, but to write down the questions that had been swirling in her head. How could the SHP be issued on our ancestral land? Who signed to issue it? Can it be revoked? How?

She began to realize that just farming was not enough to survive in this country.

***

On the second day, Bawor opened the session with something not included in the module.

“Let’s play,” I said. “A game that will emotionally immerse you in how the legal system works in this country.”

Bawor asked Warcan and Roni to close their eyes tightly with a blindfold. In one corner of the room, Tika and I asked to sit behind a table and chairs that I arranged as obstacles. Jejen, a strong young man, I asked to stand next to the door handle while other participants tied him with a rope. I placed several other participants relatively close to the source of life I placed in the middle of the room.

Then Bawor gave instructions: seize the source of wealth.

Chaos ensued within seconds. Three to four participants who could see and move freely immediately grabbed everything. Warcan groped the floor in the darkness, never approaching the source. Jejen rebelled in the rope’s restraint. Iis and Tika only approached the source after everything was gone.

The game hadn’t even ended when Warcan took off