Dozens of villagers blockade Thiess mining road
Friday, October 27 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Dozens of people from the Sepapah village of the Sampanahan sub district in South Kalimantan blockaded on Thursday the road of coal mining firm PT Thiess Contractor Indonesia.
The local Banjarmasin Post reported that the road blockade was made as a protest to the company, which had not paid any compensation for their land taken over to become mining site.
The paper said that the road blockade had disrupted the company's transportation activity.
The villagers said that they would continue the blockade until the company agreed to pay compensation.
Meanwhile, Tjuk Sukotjo of Thiess said that the company had earlier paid compensation for the land to a group of villagers, and could not understand why another group claimed ownership to the same plot of land and demanded compensation.
But Tjuk said the company would try to negotiate with the protesting villagers.
Elsewhere, Tjuk said that PT Arutmin and Thiess had jointly provided some Rp 1.2 billion (US$1=Rp 9,000) in revolving fund to help the small-sized businesses of the people living nearby their mining sites.
Some Rp 400 million of the revolving funds would be disbursed in every four months, Tjuk said. (*)