By: Maksum Syam

The sentence was read aloud slowly on the first morning of SPHR, handwritten on a small piece of paper by someone who did not dare reveal their name.

“Those camouflage-clad combat troops came back into our village. If previously they came armed for military exercises, this time they came to fight for real in a way beyond reason: their weapons were not rifles, but excavators, hoes, and shovels…”

I listened while standing at the front of the classroom we had prepared in Sentul, Bogor. Ten farmers from Rancapinang sat in a circle, and I suddenly realized that they were carrying burdens far heavier than the backpacks on their shoulders.

Excavators are less discriminatory than bullets. Bullets can miss; excavators do not. Dozens of hectares of plantations and rice fields were razed to the ground. Rice crops ready for harvest were destroyed without a trace. Thousands of productive coconut trees—trees that had stood since their grandfathers’ time—were flattened within days.

The Territorial Development Infantry Battalion (Yonif TP) 482/Badak Sakti called it all “for national food security.” The Ministry of Defense called it a Military Operation Other Than War (OMSP), a policy launched at the beginning of President Prabowo’s administration in 2024. Armed with Right-to-Use Certificate (SHP) No. 1 of 2012, they claimed entitlement to 364 hectares of land in Rancapinang Village, Cimanggu District, Pandeglang Regency.

The villagers never sold that land. There was never any agreement relinquishing their rights. The only thing that ever happened, around 1996–1997, was compensation for crop damage when the military used the land for combat exercises. Yet in 2012, the SHP was issued. And years later, boundary markers began appearing before anyone had the chance to ask why.

***

Monday morning, May 11, 2026. Teh Iis and Kang Warcan were among the participants, and their expressions spoke more clearly than words ever could. Their minds remained in Rancapinang, Pandeglang, hundreds of kilometers away.

For the next four days, we gathered in Sentul. Learning critical law, organizational strategies, and ways to survive while defending their homes and livelihoods. I was there not only as a facilitator, but as someone who wanted to understand: how extensive was the damage already done, and how much determination remained among the villagers to keep standing.

Before diving into the complexities of agrarian and human rights law, Fauzan asked them to do one thing: write down two things on a piece of paper. Their most honest hope, and their deepest fear carried from home. Of the eleven notes read aloud one by one, three spoke louder than the rest.

“We fear losing our livelihoods, because the people of Rancapinang depend on the land, plantations, and rice fields that are now being disputed.”

“Our concern is that we may not be able to return to our community.”

“I am worried that I won’t be able to fully absorb the lessons being taught.”

I looked at the woman who had read the last sentence. Teh Iis. Her statement was the simplest of them all, yet within that simplicity lay a courage many people would overlook: she had traveled far, left her home for nearly a week, to learn about something that had never before been part of her life.

When the session began, I saw her take out a small notebook. She was not taking notes on the lessons. She was writing questions that had long been circling in her head. How could an SHP be issued over land inherited from our ancestors? Who signed it? Can it be revoked? How?

Farming alone, she was beginning to realize, was no longer enough to survive in this country.

***

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

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

Bawor asked Warcan and Roni to tightly cover their eyes with scarves. In one corner of the room, I asked Tika and Iis to sit behind tables and chairs arranged as barriers. Jejen, a young man with a sturdy build, was instructed to stand beside the door handle while fellow participants tied him with raffia rope. Several others were placed closer to the source of life that I positioned in the center of the room.

Then Bawor gave the instruction: seize the source of wealth.

Chaos erupted within seconds. Three or four participants who could see and move freely immediately grabbed everything. Warcan groped around the floor in darkness, never getting close to the source. Jejen struggled against the ropes. Iis and Tika reached the center only after everything was gone.

The game had not even officially ended when Warcan tore the scarf from his eyes, looked around, and shouted. A strange kind of excitement. The excitement of a painful realization.

“This is exactly what happened to us in Rancapinang! Suddenly the land was flattened, the coconuts and rice fields were gone, but we never knew when the project started. There was never any public consultation. We only learned about the SHP after the boundary markers were already in place.”

Bawor let the sentence hang in the room for a moment before opening the discussion. Participants realized that the game was an exact replica of how law worked in their village: some people were forced to fight blind, deprived of information; unequal power relations tied people’s hands; a small group freely accumulated resources. A hollow democracy whose procedures were fulfilled but whose substance was absent.

After Bawor’s session, I asked them to divide into two groups: the men and the women. Their task was to formulate their problems, fears, and suffering in the form of folk literature.

The men’s group produced a dark and somber poem:

Forget having a place to live; even burying the dead has become difficult. Forget building a house; even building a hut is difficult. To survive at all, people are forced to migrate elsewhere.

The women’s group described the collapse of the household economy:

The coconuts we harvested every month have now been cut down, leaving nothing behind. Water sources are blocked by military buildings. We struggle to buy snacks for our children and pay for their schooling.

Teh Ika concluded with a pantun:

Take a stroll to Padang City,
Return home with salted fish in hand,
We hope that Rancapinang Village,
Will once again be peaceful and safe.

I was speechless. I simply took notes.

Then Ayo spoke. He made an honest confession about the bitterness of dealing with the legal system from another side. He had once been imprisoned in a baby lobster trafficking case and spent three years and nine months behind bars. Inside prison, it cost 2.5 million rupiah upon entry, 5 million rupiah per month for decent meals, and another 13 million before leaving that “state-sponsored hotel.” Meanwhile, the major figures behind the business were never touched by the law.

From the simulation, the women’s pantun, and Ayo’s prison story, Bawor emphasized a common thread: the legal system in this country is often coercive and unequal. Yet such realities always contain space for deconstruction. There are five patterns of interaction between formal law and people’s law: mutual influence, coexistence, competition for legitimacy, negotiation among equals, and outright conflict. In Rancapinang’s case, they were currently in the conflict phase, with power distributed very unevenly. We organized SPHR so that they could begin closing that gap.

***

On the second and third evenings, we invited two guests who appear in no curriculum: Pak Maman and Ibu Neneng from Rumpin, Bogor.

These two are living legends who have not grown tired of struggle. Since 2007, they have resisted the seizure of approximately 1,000 hectares of community land claimed unilaterally by the Air Force. I invited Maman to speak first.

He recounted the lowest point of the struggle. Violent clashes erupted when the military attempted to build facilities on community farmland. Live ammunition and rubber bullets were fired. Dozens were tortured. Some fled into the forest. Entire villages emptied, from children to elders. Farmer organizations were shattered.

From those ruins, Maman and Neneng chose a quieter path: consolidating village by village. Their target was simple: identify three key organizers from each village while bringing religious leaders into the movement to sustain resistance. Their weapons were neither excavators nor rifles.

Their weapon was religious study circles.

Kiai Madroi used traveling Islamic study gatherings as a vehicle for political education and community organizing, discussing religious teachings about defending land rights while weaving prayers for struggle into the sessions. Once the villagers became organized, they began holding mass recitations of Shalawat Nariyah every Saturday night. After three to four years of patiently building strength, the result came in 2011: around 6,000 people marched to Jakarta.

On the third evening, Ibu Neneng spoke. She delivered her testimony as if addressing the government directly. I sat at the back of the room, observing the increasingly tense faces of participants.

Neneng told stories of her uncle, Haji Amir, who had been kidnapped, electrocuted, and stripped naked at a military base. Of her own experience as a kidnapping target. Of years spent traumatized whenever she saw brown or camouflage uniforms. Of hiding behind trees while enduring painful wasp stings, unable to scream or cry for fear of being discovered by military patrols.

From four women’s religious groups in the village, she built a women’s movement. Nearly two hundred women became actively involved in discussing their case. These women often stood at the front lines during land occupation actions. Neneng always emphasized: women suffer first and most deeply when land is lost. The domestic sphere feels the pain first when food sources disappear.

In the corner of the room, I saw tears gathering in Teh Iis’s eyes. Beside her, Teh Nia, a young woman, took notes intently. When the session ended, I overheard a conversation: “We need to learn a lot from Bu Neneng and Pak Maman. Hopefully one day we can invite them to our village.”

***

There are things that cannot be learned from Rumpin. Some things must be faced alone.

In Sentul, there was physical distance from the village. Space to think clearly. I asked participants to choose a single moment: a dividing line between the past and the future. Several minutes passed in silence. Then one participant spoke.

“Mid-October 2025. When the gate was opened. Not long after that, our unity began to fall apart.”

That gate had once been their defensive line. Villagers guarded it in shifts, successfully blocking vehicles transporting construction materials for the military project. Then, in mid-October 2025, a meeting mediated by the Deputy Regent of Pandeglang was held. One outcome was the reopening of the gate. Some villagers felt excluded from the decision. From that point on, the cracks widened.

In the village, the military did not merely build a battalion. They also built relationships. Some young soldiers boarded in villagers’ homes, identifying themselves as “foster sons” or “adopted sons,” taking advantage of local hospitality. Militancy was eroded from within households. Distrust deepened, and unity weakened.

At the same time, food stalls, laundry services, and construction jobs emerged around the project site. The narrative promoted was one of improved local economic opportunities. Participants called it something else: An illusion. A temporary economic illusion masking the permanent loss of 364 hectares of productive land capable of feeding generations.

Teh Iis finally voiced her deepest anxiety. “We have been sedated so that we do not realize that our land, water, homes, and our grandchildren’s future have been taken from us permanently.”

***

On the final morning of SPHR, I opened the session with a reminder often forgotten: the rights to land, information, and a healthy environment are not things citizens should have to beg from the state. They are guaranteed by the Constitution. The state’s obligation is to fulfill them. Therefore, when the Pandeglang Land Agency refused to provide a physical copy of SHP No. 1 of 2012 under the pretext that it was “exempt public information,” it violated Article 28F of the 1945 Constitution.

Together, we dissected the Basic Agrarian Law. The conclusion was clear: an SHP can only be issued if preceded by a legitimate agreement relinquishing land rights. The villagers never signed one. They never sold their land to the military. The only documented transaction was compensation for crop damage in 1996–1997. The issuance of SHP No. 1 of 2012 by the Pandeglang Land Agency was therefore legally defective, violating the principle of clean and clear title.

That afternoon, I witnessed something that does not always happen in forums like this: the villagers made their own decision, without instruction, without prompting. They agreed to establish a preparatory committee that would build the Rancapinang Union.

I watched them take turns speaking, proposing ideas, and reaching consensus. Teh Iis was among them. No longer merely taking notes. She was speaking.

***

Three to four weeks later, news arrived from Rancapinang. On Wednesday, June 3, 2026, villagers packed the courtroom of the Administrative Court (PTUN) in Serang, Banten, for the first evidentiary hearing in their lawsuit against the Pandeglang Land Agency. The following day, they visited the National Human Rights Commission. Accompanied by lawyers from LBH Jakarta and a coalition of supporting organizations, they arrived not with empty anger, but with stacks of evidence: decades-old SPPT and IPEDA documents, neatly organized and ready to be submitted before the judges.

The military could no longer rely solely on physical power. The villagers had succeeded in forcing them into a new arena: the legal terrain of administrative proof. They may win. They may lose. But the most important thing is this: They now know where they stand.

Years of labor had hardened farmers’ fingers into calluses. But the calluses formed during those four days in Sentul were different. They had become a clenched fist.

From fingers once wounded, the people of Rancapinang are learning how to make a fist.