Police to probe NTB rights abuse
Eva C. Komandjaja and Luh Putu Trisna Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Police say they will send a team of five officers to probe allegations that local police personnel violated human rights when they clashed with farmers in Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara.
"The team's main task is to find out whether the local police officers violated regulations when they tried to disperse the crowd during the clash," National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko said on Tuesday.
He said the team would consist of officers from the police's internal affairs, general monitoring, legal affairs and security affairs divisions.
Fifteen farmers were injured on Sunday when local police officers fired shots at farmers attending a conference on a block of land in Penujap, where an airport is to be constructed.
Police claim 36 officers were wounded, some of whom were shot with arrows by protesters during the riot.
The violence erupted when the police forced the conference participants, all of whom opposed the airport project, to leave.
Among the participants were activists from the NTB Farmers Union and members of the international La Via Campesina farmers union.
A source at the East Nusa Tenggara Police said that farmers attending the conference received Rp 10,000 (US$1) each.
Some farmers and activists involved in the clash said the local police, by firing shots at them, had committed a human rights abuse.
The allegation was, however, denied by the spokesman for the Central Lombok Police, who said the officers had acted in line with procedure.
Soenarko said the East Nusa Tenggara Police had named 10 suspects and were questioning dozens of others, some of whom were believed to have masterminded the incident.
In Mataram on Tuesday, West Nusa Tenggara Police chief Brig. Gen. M. Tosin said his office had obtained a video recording of the clash, including of speakers addressing the conference before the police broke up the gathering.
"I have ordered my investigators to the site of the clash and to question the conference committee because I heard the head of the farmers union did not even attend the meeting as he was in Mataram," he said.
Tosin said the conference participants, including elderly people, had carried sharp weapons such as knives and machetes.
"The West Nusa Tenggara intelligence agency head went there yesterday (Monday) and found that there were molotov cocktails and other weapons at the site," he said.
He suspected that the molotov cocktails had been prepared to attack the police.