Tension still grips Lombok rival villages

JAKARTA (JP): Tension continued to grip the border between the warring villages of Bongor and Parampuan on the resort island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara on Friday amid a heavy security deployment in the area.

"Security personnel were deployed to guard Parampuan village, which was attacked by locals from Bongor village," West Nusa Tenggara Police chief of detectives Comr. I Gusti Kesuma told The Jakarta Post by phone from Mataram on Friday.

Clashes broke out between the villages on Wednesday afternoon and continued until Thursday morning, claiming nine lives and injuring dozens of others. Most of those killed and injured suffered slash and gunshot wounds.

"We fear for the safety of Parampuan villagers since they were attacked by thousands of rival villagers, while actually the dispute was only between the Bongor and Parampuan hamlets.

"The clash on Thursday involved no less than 35 trucks of armed people from the Central Lombok and East Lombok regencies. They were members of the traditional security force Pamswakarsa Amphibi who were retaliating for the death of a Bongor villager named Helmi in an overnight fray," the officer said.

The Pamswakarsa Amphibi was originally a grassroots organization of village security guards, but the group has continued to grow on Lombok island and in the rest of the province. The group claims to have 172,000 members, which would make it the largest organized traditional security group in the country.

Lombok Timur regency is known as the stronghold of the group, with thousands of members from the surrounding villages.

"People are now restless since the group has often taken the law into its own hands and played cop. We cannot just disperse the group since it's already too big and it grew from the grassroots level," Kesuma said.

Differing from other militia groups in the country, the organization in Lombok has a high sense of pride in their villages and is independently organized, he said.

"What we can do now is persuade the group to stick to the existing regulations," Kesuma said.

Most of the casualties in the two-day fray were members of the group, the officer added.

The two-day melee broke out after four residents of Parampuan village were ambushed by thugs from Bongor, a neighboring hamlet.

The neighboring villages are located in different districts, with Bongor in Gerung district and Parampuan in Labuapi district.

The injured parties are still being treated at Mataram General Hospital.

A company from the Bali Police's Mobile Brigade also has been deployed to help secure the area. (edt)