Three held in Medan labor protests

MEDAN (JP): Police fired warning shots on Thursday and arrested three people in a day of protests involving land tillers and plantation workers.

Early in the day about 2,500 workers of PT Perkebunan Nusantara II Tanjung Morawa in Deli Serdang rallied at the North Sumatra legislature. They demanded that hundreds of hectares of the firm's plantations, particularly coffee crops, which had been tilled by residents, be freed of tillers within a week to enable the firm meet overseas orders.

The land had been tilled by residents since June 1998 with crops such as corn, cassava and chili, union spokesmen said. A leader, Josem Ginting, said tillers also looted crops.

Their actions "threatened" the livelihood of 130,000 workers, Ginting said, and orders of tobacco from Germany had had to be delayed. Workers then walked to the office of Governor Rizal Nurdin but were told he was out of the country. Some workers waited as their leaders met his assistants while others headed for the firm's Helvetia plantation in Medan after they heard that tillers had started burning crops.

In the morning tillers at Helvetia closed Jl. Kapt. Sumarsono, the road to the plantation. They destroyed a truck belonging to the plantation, which was thought to have been used to pick up protesting workers. Tillers displayed destroyed crops on the front of the truck with a poster saying: "These are our crops destroyed by irresponsible security personnel. Help us."

It was at this stage that the security forces opened fire to clear the area. The truck was almost set on fire after its tires were deflated and its windows smashed. Police almost clashed with the residents, who were mostly women.

Thousands of plantation workers then arrived, many brandishing wooden clubs. But the tillers had fled so the workers instead burnt the remains of their huts which had already been set on fire on Wednesday in another encounter with the tillers. (21/anr)