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View all search resultsRiau land seizures raise concern on state’s land grabbing
People residing within Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau urge the government to allow comanagement of land and plantations with state-owned PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, rather than given to third party companies.
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Protesters stage demonstration in front of the Riau High Prosectuor's Office in Pekanbaru, Riau on Thursday, rejecting the relocation of local communities residing within the Tesso Nilo National Park in the province to other areas as well as urging the government to allow the comanagement of cultivation land within the national park between local communities and state-owned firm PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara. (JP/Rizal Harahap)
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protest against the confiscation of land and plantations within the Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau has cast a spotlight on alleged state-sanctioned land grabbing practices, amid an increasing rate of seizures under the President Prabowo Subianto government.
On Thursday, thousands of farmers, activists and students staged a demonstration in front of the Riau High Prosecutor’s Office in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, protesting the government’s forestry task force for seizing smallholder palm oil plantations within the national park vicinity.
A group of protesters calling themselves the Victims of Forest and Land Governance Forum rejected the relocation of people who are claimed by the government to be residing in Tesso Nilo. They also pushed the authorities to legally recognize the land and plantations cultivated by locals for decades.
Another protesting group, the Community Coalition for the Dignity of Riau (Kommari), demanded the government’s task force return seized plantations to the residents.
“We object to our plantations being given to the PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, with management later given to other third parties,” Kommari deputy head Datuk Tarlaili said during the protest, referring to the name of a state-owned palm oil producer.
“We have suffered many conflicts because the people have fought for land rights, which the government never responded to. Some of us have even been silenced and detained,” he went on to say.
Read also: Govt to continue oil palm cultivation on confiscated land
