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ver the past few days, we have witnessed evidence and belated testimony describing violent clashes between local residents and private security forces of oil palm plantation companies in both the Lampung and South Sumatra parts of the Mesuji area. The clashes in Mesuji are said to have killed at least 32 people since 2008.

The clashes were so violent and brutal that some victims were reportedly beheaded — a grim reminder of brutality of December 1996-January 1997 in which ethnic conflicts in Sanggau Ledo, West Kalimantan, claimed hundreds of lives, and subsequent violent ethnic clashes continued in other parts of Kalimantan until 2001.

A special team dispatched by the House of Representatives has confirmed that nine people were killed in connection with land disputes in the Mesuji area. Seven people were killed in a clash between local farmers and private security forces working for palm-oil plantation company PT Sumber Wangi Alam (SWA) in the South Sumatra part of Mesuji in April 2011. Two people were killed in November 2010 in a similar dispute between locals and private security forces of oil palm plantation firm PT Silva Inhutani Lampung and PT BMSI (Barat Selatan Makmur Investindo).

The continuous violence in Mesuji — an area located on the border between the provinces of Lampung and South Sumatra — obviously points to the failure of the government, including official security apparatuses, to restore peace and order and generally tackle the root cause of the clashes, i.e. land disputes between local residents and oil palm plantation companies.

The acts of violence at the southern tip of Sumatra are also an obvious example that such conflicts can happen at any place across the archipelago, thus dismissing claims that troubled regions in the country are restricted to more well-known areas, like Poso in Central Sulawesi, Ambon in Maluku, Papua and Aceh.

One thing is certain, however, that clashes in Mesuji had occurred since 2008 and therefore only confirmed that official security apparatuses — the police and to a certain extent the Indonesian Military (TNI) — had failed to perform their basic duties of maintaining security and order in the country.

And if the claim made by a member of the Mesuji residents’ advocacy team — former assistant to Army chief of staff, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Saurip Kadi — that oil palm plantation companies in the area had hired so-called Pam Swakarsa (private security forces) comprised of police and military personnel was true, the internal reforms that have been boasted by the National Police and the TNI are solidly on the wrong track, as they are obviously against the spirit of professionalism introduced by both forces immediately after their separation in 2000.

We have had enough of such abuses of power and constitutionally deviant attitudes on the part of our security personnel. In the name of professionalism and the Constitution, the police and TNI headquarters need to take firm actions against such practices. Reform measures have rolled on; it would be unwise and unprofessional to go back to square one.