Three held in Medan labor protests

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)