Village head takes over his people's coal mining area
Thursday, January 11 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
People in the Sungai Cuka village, Kintap subdistrict in Tanah Laut district, South Kalimantan, are now living in an uncertain situation after their coal mining area was taken over forcefully by their village head, H. Duan.
According to H. Abdurrahman, who lives in Martapura, Duan, in cooperation with Darno from Sungai Cuka village cooperative, took over the mining area from the people under the pretext that the mining sites would be returned to coal miner PT Arutmin Indonesia.
Abdurrahman contended that it was impossible for Arutmin to take over the mining site as the company had signed five-year mining contracts with Sungai Cuka villagers, and the contracts are now still in affect.
He also regretted Duan's move in building a check post for vehicles entering and leaving the mining sites. Each vehicles carrying coals have to pay certain levies in order to be allowed to proceed.
"I myself had paid a total of more than Rp 100 million, but I don't know what the money is used for," he said.
Meanwhile, Arutmin's Banjarmasin representative Adi Teduko confirmed that mining area in Sungai Cuka belonged to Arutmin's mining concessions.
Teduko noted that Arutmin partnered with Sungai Cuka people in terms of reforestation, in the operation of heavy equipment and so forth, but not in mining coal.
Thus, if people in Sungai Cuka mined coal and sold the coal to Arutmin, that's beyond the contracts signed by both parties. (*)