Regent escapes through back door

BOGOR: Bogor Regent Agus Utara Efendi slipped out the back door of the local council building on Friday to avoid hundreds of Parung market vendors protesting plans to evict them to make way for the construction of a shopping mall.

The regent was attending a meeting to endorse 11 new bylaws when the traders, most of them women, arrived at the building.

Aware that the regent was in the building, the protesters requested a meeting with him.

When the meeting ended, however, the regent slipped out of the room and left the building through the back door. Dozens of women attempted in vain to stop him, and several threw mineral water bottles at his departing car.

The head of the Parung traders communication forum, Mad Husen, said the vendors had repeatedly asked the council and the regency administration to delay the construction of the Parung Indah Mall until 2007.

Neneng, 39, who sells clothes at Parung market, said the vendors wanted the construction to be postponed because they did not have the money to buy kiosks at the new mall, which would cost millions of rupiah each.--JP