Kairul Saleh and Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Palembang/Semarang | Tue, 12/22/2009 9:29 AM
The Palembang Legal Aid Institute (LBH) will provide legal assistance to residents in South Sumatra if police charge them for involvement in a recent riot over land rights at a state plantation company.
The statement was made following a recent police announcement that it was ready to name seven residents as suspects in the riot early this month at the state plantation company PTPN VII Cinta Manis.
“We have prepared a strategy to assist the residents,” Andri, an LBH Palembang employee, said at the weekend.
Eleven villagers were wounded when members of the Ogan Ilir Police’s Mobile Brigade (Brimob) fired at them in an attempt to disperse the riot, while three employees sustained knife wounds.
The violence is reminiscent of an incident two months prior when more than 1,500 Rengas villagers felled and burned sugarcane crops at the company’s District 6 site in an effort to seize a 1,529-hectare plot they claimed belonged to them.
“There should be no delay in the legal process of this case, especially because the riot was a reaction against the shootings by the security officers and the forceful take over of the land by the company,” Andri said.
He said the strategy that his organization had prepared included dividing the legal assistance into three different categories.
The first group will assist the victims of the shooting by security personnel, the second will assist in the legal case in relation to the conflict over land rights, while the third can assist residents who could be charged with damaging the company’s property.
“The shooting by the Brimob members and the damage to the company’s property by Rengas residents occurred simultaneously. However, the authorities have not yet named any suspects [from the Brimob],” Andri said.
“What we have heard so far is that police have questioned 26 Brimob members involved in the case,” he added.
Andri also said that LBH Palembang would coordinate with the South Sumatran branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and other concerned NGO’s, as well as mass organizations and regency administrations to discuss the case.
Meanwhile, LBH Semarang has compiled a database listing victims of land rights disputes in Central Java from 1998 to 2009, which revealed 279 similar disputes.
“The victims were tortured, criminalized and even shot,” LBH Semarang director Siti Rahma Mary Herawati said during the launch last week.
Rahma explained that six of the victims were shot to death, eight suffered gunshot wounds, three were tortured and the remaining 262 people were criminalized.
She said most of the conflicts occurred in plantations and forest areas.
Among the conflicts, 10 cases occurred in Kendal regency, seven in Temanggung regency, six in Batang regency, four in Pati and Cilacap each, three in Banyumas, two in Semarang and Pekalongan and one case in Blora and Pati.
The size of land that was disputed reached 10,000 hectares she added.
“The perpetrators were land owners, forest rangers and police officers,” she said.
She also said the victims were taken to court and jailed.
“There is an increasing tendency to bring victims of land conflicts to court.”
Rahma said the victims had tried to settle their case through mediation or non-litigation, but the results were unsatisfactory.
“So the government should provide the best solution. The government should protect the victims.”
