NGOs offer help to farmers

JAKARTA (JP): Two non-governmental organizations have offered help to farmers in Rorotan, North Jakarta, who have been evicted from their shanties by a housing development company.

The NGOs, Ekanusa and Communication Forum for the '66 Generation, said in a joint statement that they could provide the displaced farmers with jobs.

They said they could arrange for the peasants to work on a sugar cane plantation and in a sugar factory run by PT Sweet Indo Lampung, which is owned by tycoon Sudono Salim.

The company needs about 5,000 workers in Desa Ujung Ilir, northern Lampung, they said.

Ekanusa Chairman John Musa Tobing and Forum Chairman Buyung S. Zapata said the eviction case should not be dramatized and politicized because it would only make the problem worse.

The NGOs also asked for the developer's support in sending the farmers to Lampung if they are willing to participate in the scheme. (01)