Hasyim Widhiarto – The disturbing images of the aftermath of a deadly brawl in plantation company PT Sumber Wangi Alam's (SWA) campsite still linger in the mind of Habibur Efendi. He was among the first people to arrive at the crime scene in Mesuji district, Ogan Komering Ilir (OKI) regency, South Sumatra.
Efendi, the head of administration bureau at the Mesuji district office, along with several local administration officials and hundreds of police and Public Order Agency officers, could only get into the area a day after the deadly clash.
Furious villagers had blockaded all road access to the site, located at the heart of the company's oil palm plantation, to prevent authorities from entering. The clash between villagers and SWA workers claimed the lives of two villagers and five employees.
"The campsite was silent and deserted when we arrived in the morning after the incident broke out," recalled Efendi recently. "But then everyone's attention turned to a headless body hung by a power pole and two mutilated heads placed on top of a truck parked in front of the company's warehouse."
The chilling scenes, however, did not end there. Efendi saw two other dead bodies lying in another part of the site with large open wounds on their backs. "I've never witnessed such a horrible scene in my life before," he said.
The crime scene is located on the border of South Sumatra and Lampung provinces, more than 700 kilometers northwest of Jakarta. The area could not be accessed other than by four-wheel drive vehicle, due to 40 kilometers of muddy road in the middle of the oil palm plantation.
The area has come under the media spotlight after Maj. Gen. (ret.) Saurip Kadi recently led a delegation of local residents to the House of Representatives' legal affairs commission, showing lawmakers a purported video of the killings in the area.
Saurip also claimed at least 32 villagers had been killed in a series of similar clashes in the Mesuji area since 2008 as a result of long-standing land disputes between local residents and several plantation companies, including PT SWA, PT Silva Inhutani Lampung and PT Barat Selatan Makmur Investindo.
However, Saurip's claim could not be verified as there are only nine people killed in three different clashes in the area.
Video footage of a beheading shown to the lawmakers had also been edited, mixed with a killing scene in Thailand. This has distorted the truth about the real incident that took place in Mesuji's Sungai Sodong village.
The incident started when Saktu Macan, 21, and his colleague Indra Syafei, 18, were killed by SWA private security personnel. Saktu, the grandson of local leader Haji Jalang, was almost decapitated. Sabar, a member of SWA's security personnel, died on his way to the hospital being stabbed in the chest during a clash with Saktu and Indra.
The police recently exhumed Saktu's body for an autopsy, as witnesses believed he was killed by a gunshot wound.
Hours after the killings, hundreds of Sungai Sodong residents retaliated, attacking a SWA campsite located in the middle of the company's plantation, killing two company officers, Hambali and Hardi, and beheading two security guards, later identified as Sumanto and Saimun.
South Sumatra Police have named a local resident and 13 SWA security personnel suspects in the deadly incident. Eight security personnel, however, remain at large.
The Post's investigation found that only some parts of Saurip's video were really taken at the SWA campsite while some other remained unverified.
The Post, for example, could not verify whether footage displaying the beheading of a man near an asphalt road was taken in the area since the only road in the area is a muddy one.
But the company's wooden boarding houses and warehouse at the background of the mutilated heads and headless body shown in the video were all identical with those found by the Post at the crime scene.
SWA worker Supriyono, who is in charge of the operation of the company's crude palm oil factory next to the campsite, said the company had requested him to "redecorate" the camp to erase the bad memories about the incident.
"We already managed to move the truck that the local residents put two mutilated heads on top of, but are so far unable to move the power pole where they hung the headless body of our security guards," said Supriyono, who recently moved to the campsite with a few co-workers.