[Onthebarricades] INDONESIA: Villagers resist army land grab - 5 massacred
Andy
ldxar1 at tesco.net
Sat Jun 2 10:23:06 PDT 2007
http://www.worldnewsaustralia.com.au/region.php?id=137407®ion=2
Five killed in Java land riot
31.5.2007. 14:37:40
A violent protest over a plot of land has led to the shooting deaths of five people on Java at the hands of Indonesian marines.
The victims were trying to stop the marines from turning the 3,600-hectare plot of land into a location for military training, officials said.
Nine other villagers were wounded in the clash in Pasuruan in East Java, police said.
A marine spokesman said soldiers had not violated procedures.
He said the marines tried negotiating with the villagers but, when that failed, they fired warning shots. Then the villagers "turned more cruel" and stabbed a marine.
The condition of the injured marine was not immediately clear.
Marine Commander Fafzen Noerdin said there would be an investigation into the incident.
"We are investigating this. If the shootings did take place, there is no excuse for it. We will definitely uphold the law," Mr Noerdin said.
An eyewitness told El Shinta radio that the incident involved about 40 marines and 150 villagers.
The witness, identified by the single name Solihin, said the marines said 'whoever tries to stop us will be shot,' as they fired at the villagers.
The land dispute dated back to the 1960s, according to the deputy district chief.
Indonesian security forces are notoriously ill disciplined and are often accused of shooting or beating up unarmed protesters.
Land disputes are common in Indonesia due to weak property laws, forged documents and corruption.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-05/31/content_6182258.htm
Indonesia marines regret shooting of civilian
www.chinaview.cn 2007-05-31 20:59:09
Adjust font size:
JAKARTA, May 31 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian military expressed regret Thursday over Wednesday's shooting of civilians by marine in Pasuruan of East Java province, which killed five people and wounded scores others.
Indonesian marines shot the villagers who were protesting over land ownership.
At a press conference held at the military headquarters here, military commander Air Marshal Djoko Suyanto admitted that the shooting were excessive acts against civilian and expressed a full regret.
He said that the settlement through investigation and legal process would be the right solution to the dispute between the marine and residents.
"The armed forces regrets and expresses condolences on the accidents, in which, if I am not mistaken, five people were killed," he said.
The air marshal, however, defended that it was impossible that the marine officers shot directly at the crowd, saying that the bullets hit the residents were ricochet shots.
"Once again, I will stress that it was impossible that was deliberately conducted by officers to directly shoot the people. But the fact is there were death. I instructed an immediate settlement of the land dispute," he said.
The commander said the human right commission is welcomed to take part in the investigation.
Marine officers started shooting after villagers from Pasuruan in east Java gathered to rally against the development of land at the center of a bitter court dispute with the navy.
Editor: Song Shutao
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/indonesian-marines-fired-at-protesters-probe/2007/06/02/1180205578477.html
Indonesian marines fired at protesters: probe
a.. b.. Email
c.. Print
d.. Normal font
e.. Large font
Jakarta
June 3, 2007
AN INDEPENDENT investigation has found Indonesian marines fired directly at protesters in the incident this week that left four people dead, an official said on Friday.
The findings from a government watchdog contradict a statement from the navy that the marines only fired into the air and onto the ground to scare armed protesters who were threatening them.
One senior naval official suggested the bullets ricocheted off the rocky ground, killing the protesters.
The National Commission on Human Rights said preliminary findings from its team of investigators found marines took aim at the villagers rallying over land ownership outside Pasuruan on the main island of Java.
"Our preliminary findings reveal there were serious human rights violations in this incident," commission head Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara said.
"We found that navy officers not only fired into the air and into the ground but also directly shot at civilians," he told ElShinta radio. "Based on evidence at the shooting area and from witnesses, we concluded that the military chief's statement that marines fired into the air and into the ground was untrue."
The chief of the military has apologised for the incident on Wednesday in which four people, including a pregnant woman, were killed and a three-year-old boy was injured, among others.
They were protesting the development of land of about 3000 hectares recently reclaimed by the navy in East Java. The firing started after the crowd became angry and started throwing stones at the marines who were trying to disperse them, some witnesses said.
The commission will hand its final report to the attorney general's office for possible action.
A navy commander reiterated that the military was treating the incident seriously, and those responsible would be punished.
"The investigation has already started," Colonel Toto Budi Susanto told ElShinta radio. "The 13 navy members have been questioned and will be brought to a military court."
But the director of local rights group KONTRAS, Usman Hamid, said the marines should be charged and tried in the civil court system to ensure accountability.
He warned that the military had long failed to properly punish its soldiers for human rights violations.
"A military court mechanism won't bring justice as the violators can only be sacked from the military as a maximum penalty," Mr Hamid said.
Residents are often embroiled in property disputes with the Indonesian military, which owns vast tracts of sometimes dormant land, although disputes rarely lead to such deadly violence.
The navy originally owned the land outside Pasuruan but neglected it for many years, allowing residents to build on and farm the area, the East Java provincial government's website said.
The navy reclaimed ownership several years ago, forcing some residents off the site, prompting them to take the matter to court. The residents say they have lodged an appeal.
AFP
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20070602.A05&irec=4
Marines named suspects shooting
ID Nugroho and Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya, Jakarta
Thirteen marines have been named suspects in Wednesday's deadly shooting in Pasuruan regency, East Java, the Navy said Friday.
The head of the military police at the Navy's Eastern Fleet, Col. Totok Budi Santoso, said the 13 marines were suspects in the shooting deaths of four residents of Alas Tlogo in Grati subdistrict, not five as originally announced by the regency administration.
"After questioning them, we have named them as suspects," Totok told journalists.
He said all 13 were in military police detention.
"We will continue questioning the marines, as well as the victims and residents who witnessed the incident," he said.
The shooting was triggered by a protest over a disputed plot of land claimed by both the villagers and the Navy.
The dispute has been taken to the courts, with the Pasuruan District Court ruling in the Navy's favor. Residents have appealed the ruling and a decision is still pending.
Wednesday's shooting was immediately condemned by human rights groups and a number of lawmakers.
The Surabaya Legal Aid Institute, which is assisting residents in the land dispute, has demanded the Navy be transparent in investigating the shooting.
Athoillah of the institute said the results of its own preliminary investigation into the shooting had uncovered some discrepancies in the Navy's version of events.
He disputed the Navy's claim the residents were responsible for the incident by attacking the marines with rocks.
Athoillah also said there was some forensic evidence to indicate the marines fired directly into the crowd of protesting villagers.
The military says it has launched its own investigation into the shooting.
Indonesian Military head Air Chief Marshal Djoko Suyanto has also said the commander of the unit whose members were involved in the shooting has been replaced.
Lawmakers Djoko Susilo and Effendy Choirie of the defense and foreign affairs commission at the House of Representatives demanded a thorough investigation and for any marines found guilty in the incident to be brought to justice.
"The Navy is a command-based force, so you can say the shooting was ordered by the chief of the Eastern Fleet Command, and therefore the Navy chief should be held responsible for the incident," Djoko told The Jakarta Post here on Thursday.
Effendy urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to set up a presidential fact-finding team to investigate the incident and bring those responsible to military court.
"Victims and their families and all the people living on the disputed land are seeking justice from the Navy, which has illegally appropriated their land and shot the people," he said.
Effendy, former chairman of the House working commission that dealt with land disputes involving residents and the military, said the disputed land was part of some 10,000 hectares of land appropriated by the Navy through intimidation in the 1960s.
"Local farmers were forced to abandon the land supposedly for an airport project, barracks and training center, but in fact the land was used for a sugar plantation managed by PT Grati Bhakti Plantation and PT Radjawali.
"They (the residents) finally demanded the Navy return the land after learning they had been deceived, but the land was handed over to a private company for rent," Effendy said.
People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Hidayat Nurwahid said it was sadly ironic that weapons and bullets purchased using taxpayer money had been "returned" to the people in this bloody shooting.
Kusnanto Anggoro, a military analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said the shooting was not surprising since the military has yet to change its mindset from time of the authoritarian Soeharto regime.
He and Effendy said that like other state institutions, the military had no authority to own land and that all disputed land should be returned to the people.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20070602.@02&irec=1
Pasuruan residents pick up the pieces after shooting
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post, Pasuruan
Unfinished grated cassava sits outside a small mosque in a green aluminum bowl. A military police line blocks off entrance to the area.
The mosque is a silent witness to the killing of Dewi Khodijah, 25, who died outside her nearby home after being shot in the head by marines.
Dewi, who was four months pregnant, leaves behind a 3-year-old son, Lukman, and a husband, Wahid, 32.
Her father, Juma'atun, 48, has left everything as it was at the time of her death, including the grated cassava and the bowl, in Wednesday's shooting in Telogo hamlet in Alas Tlogo village, Grati subdistrict, Pasuruan regency, East Java.
The shooting by marines, triggered by a protest over disputed land, left four residents dead, not five as originally claimed by the Pasuruan regency administration.
Juma'atun said his eldest daughter was making cassava crackers for the family when she was killed.
"She rarely made cassava crackers, but that day she wanted to make it for the whole family," said neighbor Sanimah, a childhood friend of Dewi's.
She recalled seeing several soldiers sitting near Dewi, who later told Sanimah the soldiers were advising her not to join protesters.
Dewi followed the advice, staying at home and cooking. But still a bullet found her.
Juma'atun said he was not angry with the marine who shot his daughter.
"I just want to see the man who shot my daughter. I just want to ask him why he did it. How can they shoot people who gave them coffee and food anytime they dropped by?
"I'm not upset because my daughter will stay dead. I won't ask for compensation either because my daughter will remain dead. I just want to ask him why."
He said he would not move away from the place he has called home for more than 30 years.
But he hopes the Navy will return the disputed land to residents, to help improve their welfare.
Ownership of land has been taken to the courts. The Pasuruan District Court ruled in favor of the Navy, but residents have appealed and a decision is pending.
A meeting between dozens of residents and the commander of the Navy's Eastern Fleet, Rear Admiral Moekhlas Sidiq, on Thursday night did not produce any significant results. The two sides did agree to meet again Monday.
Five residents who spoke during Thursday's meeting asked that the land be returned to residents.
The meeting was attended by East Java Governor Imam Utomo, Brawijaya Military Commander Maj. Gen. Syamsul Mappareppa and East Java Police deputy chief Brig. Gen. Sugiono.
"The land was never purchased. The land was taken by force by the Navy. My father is still alive. He's 85. He was forced to give up the land. There were no witness to the purchase," resident Solihin said.
Another resident, Bunasin, also questioned the land deal, saying villagers still had their land ownership documents.
Alas Tlogo village head Imam Subnadi also said residents had their land ownership documents and the Navy never legally purchased the land.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070602170356&irec=1
House to summon military chief over shooting incident
SURABAYA (Antara): The House of Representatives will summon Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Marshal Djoko Suyanto and Navy (TNI-AL) Chief Admiral Slamet Soebijanto for clarifications on the shooting incident of locals during a clash between the Navy members and farmers in Pasuruan, East Java on May 30, 2007.
"We have visited the location of the shooting incident and our colleagues have returned to Jakarta because we are planning to invite the TNI commander and Navy chief over the incident," Effendy Choirie, a member of the Commission I of the the House said on Saturday.
Choirie, who is also a member of the National Awakening Party Faction (PKB) at the House said that legislators would also take the opportunity of the hearing with the TNI and TNI-AL chiefs to settle land disputes between the TNI and local residents existing in the country.
"In East Java alone, there are 25 cases of land dispute between the TNI and the local people. In Jakarta it reaches hundreds of thousands of hectares. Therefore, all this must be settled because the root of the problem originates from this," the legislator said.
He said that the House will also invite the executives of the National Land Agency and ask them to investigate land dispute cases. The House will also invite representatives of residents claiming the disputed lands throughout the country.
The House, he said, will recommend that marine personnel involved in the shooting of residents that left four farmers dead in Pasuruan be taken to the human rights court, as their action constituted a gross human rights violation where children and an expectant mother became victims. (***)
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s1939104.htm
Funerals held for villagers killed by Indonesian marines
Hundreds of villagers have attended the funerals of four people who were killed when Indonesian marines fired on protesters.
The bodies were carried through the streets of a hamlet outside Pasuruan on the main island of Java before being buried at the local cemetery.
The military apologised for the shootings on Wednesday.
The shootings happened when the marines clashed with villagers rallying against the development of land owned by the navy.
Witnesses in the village say the marines opened fire without provocation, but the military says they had been threatened by the crowd which started to pelt them with stones.
The military has promised a full investigation into the shootings.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20070531.@01&irec=0
Marines kill five in land dispute
Wahyoe Boediwardhana and ID Nugroho, The Jakarta Post, Pasuruan, Surabaya
A protest over a disputed plot of land in Pasuruan regency, East Java, turned deadly Wednesday after marines shot and killed five people.
The Navy defended the shooting, saying soldiers followed standard procedures for dealing with a violent protest.
Human rights groups have condemned the incident, calling for a thorough investigation by the police and the National Commission on Human Rights.
"My soldiers did not want to become victims like in Papua. They just wanted to scare the protesters and make them stop," the marine commander at the Navy's Eastern Fleet in Surabaya, Maj. Gen. Safzen Nurdin, told a press conference.
He was referring to an anti-Freeport protest in Papua that ended with protesters killing several security officials.
Safzen said his soldiers fired warning shots before being "forced" to open fire on protesters.
"On behalf of the Navy, we express our deepest apologies over the incident," he said, promising to investigate the shooting.
The incident occurred in Telogo hamlet, Alas Telogo village, in Grati subdistrict, Lekok district.
It was triggered by a protest involving some 300 villagers angry over the construction of a Navy office on about 3,600 hectares of disputed land.
The dispute between residents and the Navy dates back several years, when residents from the subdistrict's 14 villages formally rejected plans by the Navy to turn the land into a location for military training.
Villagers took the case to court but lost. The case is currently in the appeal process.
Wednesday's protest began peacefully but turned violent when protesters began pelting stones at construction workers.
Navy personnel intervened, attempting to disperse the residents.
As residents continued throwing stones, according to the Navy, marines fired warning shots in an attempt to disperse the protesters.
When that failed, they opened fire on the crowd.
Five residents died at the scene. Among the dead was a woman who was four months pregnant, identified as Dewi Khodijah, and a 27-year-old woman, Mistin, and her 3-year-old son, Khoirul.
At least seven others were injured in the shooting. The dead and the injured were taken to Syaiful Anwar Hospital in nearby Malang city.
Following the shooting residents blocked Pasuruan highway, which connects Surabaya-Banyuwangi-Bali, with trees and burning tires.
The blockade caused massive traffic jams before the road was cleared at around 8 p.m.
A witness, Ruba'i, said residents were angry after workers from the Navy's cooperative unit began building an office on the disputed land, which villagers had planted with vegetable gardens.
"The residents at first didn't dare protest, but then the situation heated up and (Navy personnel) opened fire, causing people to start picking up stones and throwing them. But then they (the marines) attacked the residents and chased them into their homes," he told journalists.
He said Dewi Khodijah was standing behind her house when she was shot in the head, and that Mistin, carrying her son Khoirul, was attempting to flee the clash when she was shot in the chest.
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence condemned the shooting.
It urged the case be tried in criminal court, saying a military court might cover up the shooting and protect the marines.
"The military should respect the ongoing legal process of the land dispute and wait until a final verdict comes out. This incident is evidence of the military's old paradigm, which views the people as enemies," commission director Usman Hamid said.
-- Tony Hotland contributed to this story from Jakarta.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070529232020&irec=0
Protest over marines' shooting turns violent
YOGYAKARTA (Antara): Tens of people staged a rally outside the office of Yogyakarta naval base on Friday to protest against the shooting of four civilians in a clash with marines in Pasuruan district, East Java, on Wednesday.
The protest turned violent as the demonstrators forced themselves into the naval base compounds.
A number of police and naval personnel were deployed to prevent the demonstrators from occupying the office.
The demonstrators who claimed to be members of the People's Anti Violence Solidarity (Sorak) pressed for a thorough investigation into the incident and settlement of all land disputes related to the public interests in various parts of the country.
The incident occurred when some 300 villagers staged a rally to protest against the construction of a Navy office on about 3,600 hectares of disputed land in Telogo hamlet, Pasuruan.(***)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20070602/6f0d6ee4/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: space.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 54 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20070602/6f0d6ee4/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: xiao.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 8399 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20070602/6f0d6ee4/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: da.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 8522 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/onthebarricades/attachments/20070602/6f0d6ee4/attachment-0001.jpg>
More information about the Onthebarricades
mailing list