Farmers abandon transmigration site

Farmers abandon transmigration site

MANOKWARI, Irian Jaya: Hundreds of frustrated farmers have
thrown in their hoes and left the Stenkool Transmigration Site to
return to Java after repeated failures to till the land, Antara
reported on Wednesday.

Several residents told the news agency that many of those who
abandoned the land were not farmers in the first place, but
beggars and homeless people rounded up by the Ministry of Social
Services and sent to transmigration sites in Irian Jaya.

Upon arrival, the group only ate up food supplies from the
Ministry of Transmigration and "watched" while the farmers worked
the land, the residents said. (swe)