A representative of residents of Indonesia's Sumatra Island who were forced off their property by the construction of a dam funded by Japanese aid told a Tokyo court Thursday how the project has devastated their lives.

"Before we were forced out, the lives of the villagers were simple but satisfactory," Iswadi Abdullah Salim, 30, told the Tokyo District Court. "We had nice houses, vast fertile farmland, clean rivers and rubber plantations, where we could work and gain income for children's education and other necessities.

"But now we live in a sort of refugee camp, with barren land and a well without water," said Iswadi, one of the residents who were forced from their village in July 1993.