Rights team returns to Bulukumba for probe

Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar, South Sulawesi

A National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) team arrived back in Makassar, South Sulawesi, on Tuesday to further investigate reports of human rights violations in Bulukumba regency, where at least two protesters were shot to death in July.

The team, which includes Hasballah M. Saad and M.M. Billah, is scheduled to return to Bulukumba for three days of investigations.

Their previous inquiry found strong indications of human rights abuses when police fired shots at some 1,000 villagers who were demonstrating on July 21 in a protest against decades of the alleged occupation of their ancestral lands by rubber plantation firm PT London Sumatra (Lonsum) in Bulukumba.

The police claimed two people were killed, but non- governmental organizations put the death toll at five. Dozens of others were injured.

Billah said they would be gathering additional data to prove whether the alleged human rights violations blamed on the police could be categorized as a serious crime or perhaps accidental.

The team is also seeking to mediate in finding a solution to the land dispute between Lonsum and local villagers, he told journalists after a meeting with South Sulawesi Governor Amin Syam in Makassar.

Billah said the team would also meet with people to answer questions about the principles of human rights so as to prevent them from becoming victims in the future.

He and Hasballah said several witnesses and suspects had told them that not only did the police fire shots at the protesters, but also other villagers who were merely watching on the sidelines of the demonstration.

After the incident, most of the male residents in at least two villages near the PT Lonsum-controlled area fled to a nearby forest to hide from security personnel.

Bulukumba police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Tigor Situmorang, his deputy Comr. Gatot Budiwiono and nine other police officers had been questioned in connection with the deadly shooting.

It was not clear whether the 11 officers had been named suspects, although South Sulawesi Police chief Jusuf Manggabarani said the examination found security procedure violations as Tigor and Gatot did not brief their officers before deploying them to quell the protesters.

"Apart from that, the weapons used by the police also had certain weaknesses or are substandard," Jusuf claimed without elaborating.

Even after the shooting, the Bulukumba Police arrested at least 29 people as suspects in the violent protest at the Lonsum plantation.

The suspects included several NGO activists and a member of the Bulukumba Elections Commission (KPU), Iwan Salassa.

Tigor had said his office was searching for 26 more suspects for their alleged role in the unrest.