Residents seek help

BANDUNG: Hundreds of Tenjolaut and Cikalong villagers went to the provincial legislature on Monday to protest alleged intimidation by state-owned tea plantation company PTPN VIII Panglejar in a land dispute.

The villagers, accompanied by several students, said they could no longer stand the terror and intimidation which they believed was being committed by a group of thugs hired by the firm's management.

Spokesman for the group, I'ie, 50, said the terror began after residents rallied at the National Land Agency for their rights over a 195-hectare plot in the plantation on April 26.

The residents insisted that since December 1997 the firm no longer held the license to till the land, so the plot should be returned to them.

Another local, Mak Aning, 50, told the legislators that a group of men attacked her house and threatened to kill her if she refused to reveal where the students who helped the villagers were from.

The terror peaked with the disappearance of Ubay Sudrajat since April 28, the coordinator of the student solidarity campaign for the Cikalong villagers. Police have so far been unable to locate Ubay's whereabouts. (25/sur)