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)