Tapos farmers protest police intimidation

JAKARTA (JP): At least 30 representatives of farmers from Cibedug village near Tapos in Bogor visited the National Commission on Human Rights again on Monday, complaining of fresh intimidation by police over a dispute with former president Soeharto's Tri-S Tapos ranch.

The farmers' spokesman, Juhari, said Bogor Police recently questioned 10 farmers and four student activists as witnesses over damage to property on the ranch.

"Some of us were declared suspects after the questioning. It's a kind of intimidation ahead of evicting us from the land," Juhari said. "But we have not been detained so far," he added.

He said the confrontation started last month when the ranch employees, guarded by dozens of police officers, burned the farmers' makeshift structures on the disputed ranch land.

The employees also destroyed plants cultivated by the farmers and substituted grass for cattle, he said.

On Oct. 13, another group of farmers went to the commission to air the same complaint after some of their associates were injured in a clash with the employees who tried to drive them away from the land.

According to Juhari, they were initially allowed to cultivate an empty plot of land on the ranch, following a verbal agreement with the ranch manager, identified only as Made, reached in September.

They then started to plant bananas and other crops on 70 hectares of land of the 751-hectare ranch, he said.

The commission members, Baharudin Lopa, Clementino dos Reis Amaral, M. Salim and Soegiri, promised on Monday to send a letter to the police to ask them to stop questioning the farmers.

The farmers also visited the commission in July to ask for support for their efforts to regain the land which they accused Soeharto of appropriating illegally.

They also asked to be allowed to plant on the ranch's fallow land, while preparing their legal case to regain the land.

Rejo Sari Bumi first began to operate in the area in 1974 to breed high-quality livestock. A number of Soeharto's children own shares in the ranch management company.

After Soeharto resigned on May 21, dozens of local residents raided the ranch and staked out land claims. (jun)