M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here on Tuesday revealed that the police had committed human rights abuses when they violently quelled a recent riot in Bulukumba regency, South Sulawesi.
Police claimed to have shot dead only two people during the July 21 incident, but the NGOs said the death toll reached five.
Also, dozens of others were injured when police fired shots into the crowd of more than 1,000 villagers, who were rioting in protest at the alleged occupation of their land by rubber plantation company PT London Sumatra (Lonsum).
The incident occurred in Bonto Mangiring village in Bulukumba, some 210 kilometers from the provincial capital of Makassar.
The coalition said the police had resorted to repressive measures against the protesters, who were fighting to reclaim their ancestral land. The police went too far. They killed protesters, the coalition stated.
The coalition, including the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (YLBHI), the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Commission for Victims of Violence and Missing Persons (Kontras), said human rights abuses continued, after more than one month of clashes.
Speaking at a press conference, attended by two of the victims, M. Ridha Saleh of Walhi said police were still hunting down villagers they accused of being involved in the protest. "They threaten elderly people, women and even children to reveal the hideouts of relatives who fled after the incident," he said.
Terrified residents of the villages of Bonto Mangiring and Biraeng, vacated their homes to hide in the nearby jungle, Ridha added. "And they have not returned home as yet." The villagers were fighting for 1,800 hectares of ancestral land, which they said had been illegally occupied by PT Lonsum for decades, after the violent eviction of its original occupants.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had dispatched a team headed by M.M. Billah to Bulukumba to gather first-hand information from the scene. Billah had earlier confirmed there were indications that human rights violations had been committed by police.
A victim of the alleged police brutality, who wished to remain anonymous, told reporters that people in Bulukumba now live in fear. "I heard, just before I fled to Jakarta, that police have imposed a curfew there," he said.
He said, that in resolving the conflict between the villagers and PT Lonsum, the police had blatantly sided with the company.
"We had staged a peaceful rally but the police chased us and fired shots. Then, I heard a policeman shout "shoot them"," the victim remembered. "The South Sulawesi Police chief should take responsibility for all of this because they [the police officers] treated us like animals," he added, in tears.