MMI Ahyani/GB, Bandung – Thousands of peasants have descended on the provincial parliament in Bandung, the capital of West Java. They joined hundreds of textile workers occupying the building. The peasants protested their fate at the hands of corrupt government officials and institutions which have impoverished them and demanded the parliament be disbursed.

Despite pelting rain, the thousands of peasants and factory workers were determined to hold orations and generally draw the attention of Councilors to their cause. The factory workers demanded their minimum wages be lifted to the level prescribed for the Jakarta area.

According to the government's new minimum wage legislation, West Java workers receive less than their counterparts in Jakarta but more than other areas where the cost of living is lower.

Ari Wahab, head of the Central Leader's Council of the West Java Peasants' Union, the current provincial government is not aspirative or responsive towards the lower strata of society. He said it was ironic that West Java, famous for its agriculture was seeing its land increasingly seized, sometimes with little or no consultation with the owners, and turned over to industry.

The protesters, therefore, gathered to demand the prioritisation of peasants' land rights. They also protested noisily the current state of the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) which handles the purchase and distribution of rice for national consumption.

They said the Agency was not fulfilling its proper function, namely, protecting peasants' welfare through monitoring rice prices. Rather, the Agency was continuing to be treated like a money machine protecting the political interests of the government, as it had done under the fascist regime of former President Suharto.

They further accused Bulog of collaborating with the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and the World Bank to import low quality rice the quality of livestock feed to sell at low prices within Indonesia. This caused the price of their produce to fall. The protesters demanded the government raise tariffs on imported rice to 150%.