Jakarta – Poor Indonesian farmers have sabotaged a luxury golf course in West Java, planting crops on greens and carving the word "reform" on the fairway.

The farmers were taking revenge on the Cimacan Golf Club for the meagre compensation they received nine years ago when the land was taken from them, the Kompas newspaper reported yesterday.

It said the peasants planted cassava and bananas on the greens on Monday and that 50 caddies lost their jobs after damage to the course forced the club to close. It carried a front-page photograph of slogans carved into one fairway with the words "reform", "people's land" and "we are taking what is ours". Like many land disputes during the later years of former president Suharto's 32-year rule, the farmers received paltry compensation for land they had worked for generations.

The newspaper said the farmers in Cimacan were in 1989 given the equivalent of US$630 (HK$4,870) for the 31 hectares they had worked since 1961 by the golf course owner, PT Bandugn Asri Mulya.

"The police will not pull out the cassava plants. The farmers have promised not to increase the planting area on the golf course, but everything concerning the dispute must be discussed," local police chief Lieutenant-Colonel Panjang Yuswanto was quoted as saying.