Komnas HAM to investigate Manggarai shooting
P.C. Naommy and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) revealed on Monday that it planned to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the shooting by police officers of demonstrating farmers in Manggarai, Flores, last week.
"There are a number of reasons for the sending of the team to Manggarai, including the fact that the shooting killed five people and injured dozens of others," Taheri Noor, a member of the commission, said during a meeting with a group calling itself the Manggarai People's Advocacy Team.
Promising to send the mission soon, Taheri said that the deaths of civilians indicated possible rights violations.
He did not name the members of the team or when exactly the team would leave for Manggarai.
Erwin Usman, who led the advocacy team, said he expected the commission to investigate how it had happened that police officers had opened fire directly on civilians.
In Ruteng, Flores, the Manggarai diocese announced that an independent fact-finding team had started an investigation to find out what had really happened, Antara reported.
"The team will conduct investigations on the ground so as to determine the facts of the case from various sources, including the police, local religious leaders, community leaders and the people actually involved in the incident," said Rev. Mali, the head of the diocese's justice and truth commission.
Meanwhile, National Police Headquarters announced on Monday that the Nusa Tenggara police had arrested ten suspects in the March 11 bloody incident.
None of the suspects, however, were police officers.
"They were involved in the attack on the Manggarai subprecinct police office," deputy police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko told reporters here Monday.
All of the suspects were caught red-handed carrying machetes during the incident, Soenarko said.
East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Police chief Brig. Gen. Edward Aritonang told reporters in Kupang on Monday that Manggarai police sub-precinct chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Bonifasius Tompoi had been suspended from his post so as to facilitate the investigation.
Tompoi had been replaced by Adj. Sr. Comr. Wasiran Robert, the head of internal supervision with the NTT police.
"The internal investigation aimed at finding out why our officers fired on the protesting farmers," he told reporters.
Around 400 coffee farmers stormed the Manggarai sub-prescient police office on March 11 to demand the release of seven locals who had been detained by police for planting coffee in a protected forest.
The police claimed they had opened fire on machete-wielding and stone-throwing farmers, who had ignored warning shots to disperse.
Edward accused "provocateurs" of instigating the attack on the police office.
The Manggarai regency has banned agriculture in protected forests but locals have been ignoring the ban as they consider the land involved to be their ancestral land.
Despite protests from farmers, the local administration has destroyed about 15,000 hectares of illegally cultivated coffee since last year.