Two hurt in clash over cable installation

JAKARTA (JP): Another two local residents were seriously injured during another clash between police officers and protesters of an installation of high-voltage electric cables yesterday.

The clash which started at 5 a.m. in two villages broke out as police officers flattened tents erected by villagers of Ciseeng and Cibentang around a newly erected high-voltage electric tower in an effort to block the plan.

The incident was the fifth to take place between officers and residents who demanded the state-owned electricity firm PLN pay compensation for not only their trees over which the cables are being installed but also their land and houses.

They said they were not opposed to the installation but were afraid of electric radiation from the cables.

Reports said authorities are of the opinion that residents do not deserve land and building compensation because they need not sacrifice property to make way for the cables.

The cables also pass over the villages of Cihohe, Kauripan, Gunung Cilincing, Desa Setu, and Tiwul. Residents of these villages hardly reacted.

Asked to comment on the incident, a Bogor high-ranking police officer, who refused to be identified, said "nothing happened at the project yesterday".

"It is not our problem, it is between the PLN and local residents," said the officer who oversees security affairs in the area.

Meanwhile an official of the Nusantara Legal Aid Institute, who represented residents, told The Jakarta Post during a blackout from Monday night to yesterday morning that PLN officers had started to install the cables.

Residents said electric power in the two villages had been disconnected between Monday midnight and yesterday morning. The police denied there was a blackout there.

Deti Arsanti, the institute's secretary, said security officers, who wielded steel shields and rattan sticks, arrived in seven trucks Monday night. Their number reached 280, she said.

"The police threatened to shoot the people but the villagers did not react," she said.

She said two villagers were seriously injured in the head.

The Bogor police officer denied he had deployed hundreds of officers, saying only 30 officers were sent to the villages.

"We did not harm any person as reported by the press. We only guarded the project," he said.

He added that some people had exaggerated the facts and certain parties were behind the protests.

"I know there were students and other activists among the villagers," he said.

Earlier the officer had said the masterminds of the protest must be members of the banned Indonesian Communist Party or the defunct Islamic separatist movement. (05)