Police put on alert to stop villagers from attacking dam

Yuliansyah, The Jakarta Post, Banjar, South Sulawesi

Security personnel remained on guard on Tuesday at the Riam Kanan dam in Banjar regency, South Kalimantan, as thousands of local residents persisted with their threats to demolish it.

The dam is the biggest hydroelectric power plant dam in South Kalimantan.

The demolition threats come as part of a protest by the villagers against state-owned electricity company PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), which has refused to pay them around Rp 162 billion in compensation for land taken over for the project.

An agreement was signed on Jan. 23, 2002, between PLN, the Banjar administration and representatives of the residents under which the electricity firm must pay compensation by early January of next year.

But PLN has refused to do so and is planning to take the dispute to court, arguing that the 108,119.478 square meters of land used for the reservoir consisted of state land rather than land belonging to local residents.

The local administration denied any responsibility as regards the compensation demanded, saying it supported the planned legal move to settle the case.

Deputy Banjar Regent Mawardi Abbas admitted on Tuesday that his office could do nothing to help the local people.

"The effort to recover compensation for the Riam Kanan villagers, a total of 2,292 families in 9 villages, is still constrained by several obstacles," he told journalists in Banjar.

The obstacles included PLN's refusal to pay the compensation by challenging the residents in court.

Separately on Tuesday, the Riam Kanan villagers said they would accept the legal challenge but despite that, they would go ahead with their plan to demolish the dam and cut electricity in the regency and surrounding areas.

"We will remain united in fighting for our rights, and we would remind PLN once more that based on the agreement, we will forcibly cut the power if PLN refuses to pay compensation," an unnamed representative of the residents said.

Mawardi said the Banjar administration would support the local residents in their struggle for compensation through legal action.

"According to the agreement, if a power blackout takes place as a result of the dispute the regency administration along with the local residents can sue PLN," he added.

However, he admitted that it would take a long process so as to ensure that the residents' demands were fulfilled.

Mawardi said his administration had sent a team to Jakarta to meet PLN leaders to resolve the case immediately.

"We have strived to get the compensation before the Jan. 1, 2003, deadline, but PLN is sticking to its earlier stance, namely refusing to pay the compensation and instead going to court. And it's already a fixed price for PLN," he said.

Mawardi said the local administration had set up an independent team of lawyers from the law faculty of the province's Lambung Mangkurat University to defend the local people's interests.

In an apparent move to avoid responsibility for the case, the head of PLN's South and Central Kalimantan division has reportedly left the region on a three-month break.

Commenting on the report, Mawardi said that if it was true, it meant that the PLN manager was trying to "escape from his responsibilities and the case he is dealing with".

"As an executive who is responsible for financial affairs, he should not be washing his hands of the matter in such a way," he said.

The reservoir was constructed in the 1970s under the regime of former strongman Soeharto. It was to have become an important economic resource for villagers, mostly farmers, in Riam Kanan.

However, they have long been struggling to get compensation for the land cleared for the project, but the effort has so far been fruitless.