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)