Parbuluan tense as disputed land area cordoned off
Parbuluan tense as disputed land area cordoned off
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights is rekindling the hopes of terrified displaced farmers in Parbuluan, who are trying to regain their communal land now controlled by a Jakarta-based company.
In the Parbuluan village, residents remained tense over the weekend as security forces cordoned off the 1,300 hectares of land under dispute.
When meeting with eight representatives of the farmers in Jakarta last week, the commission promised to form a fact finding team and to seek a solution acceptable to the conflicting parties.
"The team will reach Parbuluan by Feb. 23," commission member Albert Hasibuan told the delegates, who claimed to represent more than 40 farm families from Parbuluan, some 200 kilometers from here.
The delegates asked the commission to back their demand that the plantation company PT Agrocitra Wahanamas Gemilang, which they say is strongly backed by the military, relinquish the 1,300 hectares of land which belongs to the Bius Lottung Sinaga Situmorang clan.
They also pleaded with the commission to provide legal protection from the security forces that they say have cordoned off the area under dispute since 1991.
Dozens of terrified farm families have fled their homes in the Dairi regency to take refuge on the premises of Medan's provincial legislative council last week.
The conflict, involving some 350 residents of Parbuluan and PT Agrocitra Wahanamas Gemilang, started in 1991. When the company, partly owned by a member of the House of Representatives (DPR), eyed the farmers' land, it made plans to establish a Rp 10 billion (US$4.5 million) ginger plantation on the 1,300 hectares of land owned by the villagers.
In 1992, a small group of villagers, including two of their clan leaders, secretly sold the communal land to the company and sparked further clashes with PT Agrocitra.
According to the residents, customary laws forbid trade in property, although the laws allow the owners to lease it to a third party.
Mistreatment
The farmers reported to the commission their claims of intimidation and mistreatment carried out by the authorities.
"We only realized that we had lost our land in December 1992 when employees of PT Agrocitra Wahana Gemilang fixed their boundary poles," Brentus Sihombing, one of the farmers told the commission.
Sihombing said the land was sold by the "traitors" at Rp 100,000 (US$45.3) per hectare.
Opung Andi Sagala, another delegation, said that she had been beaten unconscious once by security officers who were fixing boundary poles on her land. Other villagers, she said, had received similar treatment when they tried to defend their land.
Sagala said that many villagers began to flee their own lands when the intimidation and torture was stepped up.
"We also ask the commission's help to guarantee our safety upon our return to the village," she added.
Similar stories were told by farmers who are currently shacked up in the provincial legislative council premises in Medan. They left their homes for Medan on Feb. 13 seeking legal protection.
"I had to leave Dairi because I was afraid that I would be abused if I didn't," N. Situmorang told a councilor.
They terrorize those who refuse to surrender their land," added Sitanggang, another displaced farmer.
Dairi regent Sabam Isodorus Sihotang has denied the residents' claim of intimidation, saying that the local military and government officials did not use force in handling the conflict.
"(The residents' reports) are not true. The boundary poles were planted by a team from the Dairi government with help from security officers...I personally asked them to safeguard the residents," Sihotang said in a press conference.
According to government files, the local investment coordinating board issued a letter of approval for PT Agrocitra on March 20, 1992. The letter automatically becomes ineffective if after three years the company fails to show realistic activities in the area. (imn/24/pwn)