Violence at Indonesian Greenpeace protest

Greenpeace activists and security guards clashed outside the headquarters of Indonesia's biggest logging and palm oil company, the Sinar Mas Group, in Jakarta Thursday, environmentalists said.

Activists said they were punched and kicked by guards and police as they tried to protest against alleged illegal land-clearing in Indonesia's vast eastern Papua region and on Borneo island.

"The excessive violence today by Sinar Mas security is testament to the way this company does business," Greenpeace Southeast Asia Forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said in a statement.

"Sinar Mas may think they are above the law, but the right to peaceful protest is enshrined in the Indonesian constitution."

Greenpeace climbers unfurled a huge banner reading "Forest and Climate Criminal" on the building as part of the demonstration to demand a halt to the company's logging.

The protest came as Greenpeace released what it said was photographic evidence taken last year showing that Sinar Mas had cleared huge tracts of peatland and forests near the Papua town of Lereh and in Lake Sentarum National Park in Borneo's West Kalimantan province.

The group's investigations showed Sinar Mas had cleared carbon-rich peatland -- a key source of greenhouse gases when burnt or denuded -- to a depth greater than three metres, breaking Indonesian law, spokesman Martin Baker said.

"Indonesia is allowing companies like Sinar Mas to exploit natural resources without any comeback and that's stealing from Indonesia's future, clearly," Baker said.

Baker urged local and global companies, including Unilever and Procter & Gamble, to stop buying products from Sinar Mas until it adopted more responsible business practices.

"We're not against economic development, we're not against palm oil. We're targeting Sinar Mas because it's a big company and it could influence the market to change business practices for the better," he added.

Sinar Mas president Daud Darsono confirmed the clash between protesters and guards but said security was the responsibility of building management, not the company.

"If we're being accused of deforestation for palm oil, I'd say that's not true. We are a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, when we clear land we ensure that we follow by its principles," Darsono said.

Greenpeace has been lobbying the country's main logging companies and the government for an immediate moratorium on the expansion of oil palm plantations, which are blamed for the loss of vast areas of pristine forest.

Indonesia is widely seen as the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, a major contributor to climate change, by virtue of the pace of its deforestation. (AFP)