Police to probe NTB rights abuse

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.