Police clash with student protesters in Surakarta, Central Java, during a demonstration against a growing number of land disputes throughout Indonesia. (JG Photo/File)
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The National Police on Tuesday defended officers who had received money from plantation companies in Sumatra, saying the payments had not affected their neutrality.
A government fact-finding released its findings on Monday in the alleged murder of farmers in Lampung’s Mesuji district. It concluded that the police had been paid for “security” by the plantation firms laying claim to the farmers’ land.
National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Sutarman said that while the payments were “not in line with police policy,” they were “understandable.”
“It all depends on the form [of the payments],” he said on Tuesday. He added that the police had trouble monitoring the practice of officers receiving payments from companies for security.
“Providing officers with extra money goes against our policy,” he said. “But we will leave it to people to make their own judgment.”
“What we are certainly not allowed to do is solicit money [from companies],” he said, though he added it was different if the companies offered money.
Denny Indrayana, the deputy justice minister and head of the presidentially appointed fact-finding team, said a host of documents and other information unearthed by the team showed that the police in Mesuji had accepted money from two plantation companies, Silva Inhutani and Sumber Wangi Alam.
“I don’t know the exact amount paid, but the point is we’ve found [evidence of] payments to low-ranking personnel and Brimob [Mobile Brigade] personnel on the ground,” he said on Monday.
“We call on the National Police to crack down on the practice of taking money from third parties in order to improve the police’s security services, professionalism and neutrality in carrying out their job.”
Police earlier defended similar payments made by mining giant Freeport Indonesia for officers in Mimika, Papua.
They argued that officers guarding Freeport’s Grasberg mine were ill-equipped to cope with the mountainous terrain and harsh environment.
The fact-finding team’s findings stopped short of blaming the police for the farmers’ deaths.
A preliminary report issued earlier this month, more than two weeks after the farmers brought their case to the House of Representatives with grisly video footage purporting to show the killings, steered clear of apportioning blame by not stating whether human rights violations had occurred.
Denny said that while a decapitation seen in the footage looked authentic, it appeared to have been spliced into the video from other sources.
Sutarman said the police would question Saurip Kadi, the retired Army general who has been at the forefront of the Mesuji villagers’ campaign, about the video.
