Protest against fire-bombing of Indonesian village linked to plantation company

Watch Indonesia! e.V./ Rettet den Regenwald e. V. :

Dear friends,

We are writing over the Christmas season because we have just received reports of an extreme and unprecedented act of violence against villagers in Riau Province in Sumatra. On 18th December, the village of Suluk Bongkal was attacked by hundreds of armed police and paramilitaries with fire-arms and teargas and fire-bombed from a helicopter. Eye-witness reports suggest that napalm may have been used, although it has been impossible to verify this. Hundreds of houses have been burned down, two toddlers were killed, hundreds have fled, others were detained, and refugees later had stones dropped on them from a helicopter. This serious human rights abuse is linked to the plantation company Sinar Mas and in particular to a pulp and paper plantation run by their subsidiary, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP).
Please go to

http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/index.php

and sign a protest letter to the Indonesian authority and ask them to guarantee the rights of the population and to ensure that those responsible for the violence are punished. Many thanks.
Best regards,

Almuth Ernsting
Biofuelwatch

Marianne Klute
Watch Indonesia! e.V.
Arbeitsgruppe für Demokratie, Menschenrechte
und Umweltschutz in Indonesien und Osttimor
Planufer 92 d Tel./Fax +49-30-698 179 38
Berlin

Reinhard Behrend
Rettet den Regenwald e. V.
Friedhofsweg 28
22337 Hamburg
040 4103804
www.regenwald.org