NGOs reveals rights abuses in Bulukumba
NGOs reveals rights abuses in Bulukumba
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here on
Tuesday revealed that the police had committed human rights
abuses when they violently quelled a recent riot in Bulukumba
regency, South Sulawesi.
Police claimed to have shot dead only two people during the
July 21 incident, but the NGOs said the death toll reached five.
Also, dozens of others were injured when police fired shots
into the crowd of more than 1,000 villagers, who were rioting in
protest at the alleged occupation of their land by rubber
plantation company PT London Sumatra (Lonsum).
The incident occurred in Bonto Mangiring village in Bulukumba,
some 210 kilometers from the provincial capital of Makassar.
The coalition said the police had resorted to repressive
measures against the protesters, who were fighting to reclaim
their ancestral land.
The police went too far. They killed protesters, the coalition
stated.
The coalition, including the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute
Foundation (YLBHI), the Indonesian Forum for the Environment
(Walhi) and the Commission for Victims of Violence and Missing
Persons (Kontras), said human rights abuses continued, after more
than one month of clashes.
Speaking at a press conference, attended by two of the
victims, M. Ridha Saleh of Walhi said police were still hunting
down villagers they accused of being involved in the protest.
"They threaten elderly people, women and even children to
reveal the hideouts of relatives who fled after the incident," he
said.
Terrified residents of the villages of Bonto Mangiring and
Biraeng, vacated their homes to hide in the nearby jungle, Ridha
added. "And they have not returned home as yet."
The villagers were fighting for 1,800 hectares of ancestral
land, which they said had been illegally occupied by PT Lonsum
for decades, after the violent eviction of its original
occupants.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had
dispatched a team headed by M.M. Billah to Bulukumba to gather
first-hand information from the scene.
Billah had earlier confirmed there were indications that human
rights violations had been committed by police.
A victim of the alleged police brutality, who wished to remain
anonymous, told reporters that people in Bulukumba now live in
fear. "I heard, just before I fled to Jakarta, that police have
imposed a curfew there," he said.
He said, that in resolving the conflict between the villagers
and PT Lonsum, the police had blatantly sided with the company.
"We had staged a peaceful rally but the police chased us and
fired shots. Then, I heard a policeman shout "shoot them"," the
victim remembered.
"The South Sulawesi Police chief should take responsibility
for all of this because they (the police officers) treated us
like animals," he added, in tears.