Farouk Arnaz – Lampung Police have heightened security around facilities owned by plantation firm Barat Selatan Makmur Investindo in Mesuji district, Lampung, after an alleged attack by villagers on Saturday, the latest in a series of land dispute-related violence in the region.

Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution, a spokesman for the National Police, said on Monday that hundreds of police officers from Lampung, the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) and nearby district Tulang Bawang had been dispatched to secure the plantation area. He said offices, employees' dormitories, a warehouse and a security post were set on fire in the Saturday attack.

"The Lampung Police have managed to identify the agent provocateurs and perpetrators in the case, based on video records," Saud said at National Police headquarters in Jakarta.

He said the attackers were from the nearby villages of Sritanjung, Keagungan and Nipah Kuning, and that they had also been involved in a November attack.

"The district administration, the land agency and the Indonesian House of Representatives are still actually trying to mediate the problem, but it isn't final yet and the people are getting impatient," Saud said.

The conflict between BSMI and residents of the three surrounding villages began 17 years ago, but remains ongoing to date as the company allegedly has not paid compensation for using the land as demanded by the locals, who have continued to claim it as their own.