NU urges govt to invetigate Mesuji killings in Lampung and South Sumatra

Jakarta, NU Online
Chairman of the Indonesia's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) H Slamet Effendy Yusuf urged the government to immediately investigate the case of mass killing that happened in Mesuji East Lampung and South Sumatra.

Police and the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights are expected to crack down on those who were involved in the cold-blooded killings of local farmers.

Slamet made the remarks for considering that there were human rights abuses in Mesuji in the two regions which have claimed many lives and left many others wounded. "This case could not be ignored without a thorough investigation," the former chairman of AnsorYouth Movement said.

Reportedly, police will immediately conduct an investigation into the alleged "massacre" of local residents in Mesuji.

Nnational police head of public information division Senior Commissioner Boy Rafli Amar said here on Thursday "we will study the video recording of the incident to see its background and the number of 30 deaths which was actually also collected from another incident in another place, not from one place."

He said he did not know where they had collected the data about the 30 deaths from adding perhaps it was accumulated from incidents in 2004.

"We will study it with a team of experts and consult them to see if any doctoring was done to the footage," he said.

He said a clash had occurred on April 21, 2011 and the video recording was made after the incident. Indeed police officers were on the location after the picture of a man lying on the ground was taken but it did not automatically mean the police were behind it.

He said a team from the National Police Headquarters had been sent to the location to conduct an evaluation. "The deputy national police chief and the chief of the national police crime investigation department have gone there with a team," he said.

A number of villagers who are family members of the victims of Lampung reported the alleged massacre to the House Commission III on Wednesday.

Bob Hasan, a lawyer who accompanied them, said the massacre occurred following the extension of the land holding right to PT SI which had been operating there since 2003.

He said the company established in 1997 was accused of grabbing the land of the villagers for oil palm and rubber plantations.

He said the company had asked the police to help drive away the people who occupied the land after they refused to leave the land. He said the company had also established a group of security guards of its own to deal with it.

The company`s security guards later pitted one group of community members against the other with the police helping them, he said.

He said intimidation from the police and the company still continued. At least 30 people had been killed and hundreds of others wounded between 2009 and 2011, he said.

With regard to the report President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had ordered the offices concerned to check it and find a solution with regard to the case.

"The President has ordered the coordinating minister for political and security affairs and the police chief to check the incident and what we have heard about the case in Mesuji," presidential spokesman Julian A Pasha said at the presidential office here on Thursday.

House Commission III members meanwhile would also visit Mesuji to find out more about the incidents.

"Tomorrow or perhaps the day after (Saturday), Commission III members from all political party factions will visit the regional police chief and resort police chiefs to ask for their explanations on the incidents in Mesuji," Commission member from Golkar party faction, Bambang Soesatyo, said.

He said a gross violation of human rights had happened and so "what we have to do is only to find the perpetrators."

Deputy chairman of the House Commission I, Tubagus Hasanuddin meanwhile said at the parliament building here on Thursday he did not believe that the massacre had happened in Mesuji, Lampung.

"Honestly I am not convinced that the incident had really happened," the politician from the opposition Indonesia Democratic Party - Struggle (PDIP) said. (nif)