Villagers Fed Up With Big Corp Arrogance – Sound Familiar? 21.9.13 Around 30 villagers in Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province occupied a local government office last week, fed up with the government’s lack of action to resolve a long-running land dispute with palm oil company PT Rezeki Alam Semesta Raya (RASR). They were demanding return of nearly 3 000 hectares of customary land which they said the company had been taken from them without their consent. RASR began operating in Kuala Kapuas district in 2004, and residents of the four villages in the Mantangai subdistrict have been demanding the return of their customary lands ever since. The company’s license was revoked in 2010 by the Kuala Kapuas district head and a letter by the Central Kalimantan governor on July 28 this year ordered them to halt all operations in the district, but, they continue to clear forests and harvest palm oil. At a recent mediation, the villagers, disappointed that no company repetitive deigned to attend, said that, “We’ve tried many times to hold mediation meetings, and they only came one time to a meeting in the province last September. If after three days we still don’t have an answer, we will take another floor. We will evict the company from our customary land,” said community action co-ordinator, Porok C Tuwe. news.mongabay/2013/0918-dparker-kuala-kapuas.html
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 00:52:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015