Jenny Grant – Faced with increasing demonstrations, the Governor of North Sumatra has armed hundreds of his staff with rattan sticks.

Governor Rizal Nurdin ordered 600 of his 1,124 employees to be issued with rattan and wooden sticks to protect their colleagues and offices. "This is done in self-defence, to defend the Governor's office and to guard our self-respect," said Rida Amran Siregar, of the Governor's office.

Mr Siregar said half of the workers would be issued with 1.5 metre-long sticks. The others were free to bring weapons from home, he said. "The important thing is it [the weapon] cannot be made from metal or be a sharp article," he said in the daily Kompas newspaper.

The Governor's office has, in recent weeks, been deluged by thousands of students, farmers and drivers protesting against corruption and the rising prices of food and spare parts.

Yesterday, thousands of farmers protested peacefully in the heavily secured capital, Medan, urging the Government to return land that was taken from them. Last week a strike by 2,000 minibus drivers near the Governor's office in Medan led to the looting of shopping centres.

Civil servants around the country have been targeted in violence since former president Suharto fell from power in May. Crowds destroyed five local government vehicles in the town of Sumenep, on Madura island, on Monday after their applications for housing credit were ignored.

In other recent cases, hundreds of villagers in Bekasi, near Jakarta, destroyed the local regent's office in protest against an unfair election. Last month, residents on the holiday island of Lombok pelted the regional council offices with stones after alleged corruption at the ballot box.