TEMPO Interactive, Medan:About two thousand of state-owned agricultural firm PT Perkebunan Nusantara II (Plantation) workers affiliated with Merdeka Labor Union(SPM-PTPN II) staged a protest rally in front of the North Sumatera governor's office, Medan, Wednesday, June 13, 2012. They urged the North Sumatera Provincial Government to resolve the ongoing conflict between the workers and the working farmers on the state-owned plantation site. The plantation workers asked the executing officer of North Sumatera Governor's Office, Pujo Nugroho, to take concrete action so that the process of stock-taking of the 5,800 hectare land being carried out by a government-formed team would not create a fresh conflict. The local government was mapping out the PTPN II-owned land whose business use right expired. SPM-PTPN II Chairman Josem Ginting said the workers did not question the 5,800 hectare PTPN II land which is being mapped out. If the government viewed the land of being ouside the PTPN II's business use right, they wanted it to be decreed through a decision. However, the land which remains part of the plantation's business use right shall continue to be the property of the plantation. "Because the PTPN II land which still has the business use right belongs to the state," said Josem Ginting. Josem said that if the executing officer of the North Sumatera Governor's Office did not resolve the conflict immediately, the plantation workers and their families considered the government as leaving the problem unresolved. He cited the conflict disadvantaging the workers on the PTPN II-owned plantation land at Sei Semayang, Deli Serdang. Now this land was left idle due to limited sugarcane supplies. SAHAT SIMATUPANG