Crowds loot rice mills, stores and plantations

Crowds loot rice mills, stores and plantations

JAKARTA (JP): Troops clamped down yesterday on mobs attacking
and pillaging rice mills, shops and plantations in several
regions yesterday, leaving one dead, several injured and scores
arrested.

Reports indicated that lootings were occurring in the East
Java town of Bondowoso and in the surrounding districts of Pujer,
Tlogosari and Wonosari yesterday.

Similar incidents reportedly took place in Deli Serdang, North
Sumatra, on Wednesday. One died and nine others were wounded when
security forces fired warning shots at hundreds of people
attacking an office of a state-run palm oil plantation there.

In Bondowoso, security forces reportedly arrested at least 50
people for instigating the looting. The Armed Forces (ABRI) said
yesterday it was tightly guarding the town and its surrounding
districts, with troops concentrated outside a number of rice
mills and shops.

As of yesterday morning, 176 metric tons of rice, 12 tons of
coffee beans and 150 sacks of cement were reported to have been
looted. Dozens of barrels of cooking oil and kerosene, as well as
various other basic commodities, were also taken from stores.

Incidents of looting started Tuesday when hundreds of women,
youths and children carrying empty flour sacks marched to the
Pancoran Mas rice mill in Pancoran village, Bondowoso.

There, they helped themselves to the mill's newly processed
rice. The looting then spread to various other mills in
neighboring villages. Groups of villagers also started to loot a
number of stores.

Besuki Police chief Col. Budi Utomo said he was forced to call
for additional forces from Jember, but that the situation was now
under control. "So far, we cannot find any political motive
behind the incidents. These were purely criminal acts," he said.

No casualties were reported during the incidents in Bondowoso,
but the local military commander was said to have threatened to
shoot looters if they persisted.

Maj. Gen. Joko Subroto, the chief of the Brawijaya Military
Command which oversees security in East Java, was quoted by
Kompas as saying that he had instructed security forces to shoot
looters if earlier warnings went unheeded.

"The instruction was issued because the looters are becoming
more reckless and brutal," Subroto said in Surabaya, the
provincial capital.

East Java Police chief Maj. Gen. M. Dayat had also said police
would shoot looters if people persisted in pillaging the local
cacao and coffee plantations as well as rice mills.

In a related development, Malang Police detained 15 people
suspected of looting a state-owned cacao plantation in Tirtoyudo,
Malang. Hundreds of people reportedly foraged through the 2,000-
hectare plantation.

Some of the suspects said the crowds wanted to claim the land
which they argued they had bought from certain individuals in the
plantation company.

The crowd set fire to many of the cacao plants on Monday. The
area is now being guarded by some 100 troops.

Widespread looting and attacks on stores, plantations and rice
mills have taken place in various areas in East Java in past
months as the economic crisis has increasingly gripped the
country.

Prices of basic commodities, including rice which is the
nation's main staple food, have soared. In Bondowoso, the price
of one kilogram of rice is Rp 4,000 (36 U.S. cents), or about the
daily wage of a farm hand.

Anarchy

In Medan, North Sumatra, police spokesman Lt. Col. Amrin Karim
said security forces had to open fire on mobs attacking an office
at the PTPN II plantation in Sei Bekala, Pancurbatu, Deli Serdang
regency on Wednesday, killing one of the attackers.

In justifying the use of force, he claimed the mob had "become
anarchic".

Hundreds of villagers from Durin Tonggal, Tebing Ganjang and
Sembiringin villages gathered and tried to burn down the
plantation office to protest the earlier arrest of three
villagers accused of stealing five tons of palm oil kernels.

One of the protesters, Poniran, 35, died shortly after he was
shot in the chest. Nine people were seriously injured in the
incident and were taken to the police hospital in Medan.

It was unclear if the death was caused by live ammunition or a
rubber bullet.

A nurse at the hospital, however, told AFP that only four
people were admitted Wednesday.

"Three were shot in the leg and they have already been
released. One person, with a bullet wound in the chest, is still
hospitalized, but he's in stable condition," the nurse, who
refused to be identified, said. (nur/45/21/swe)