CLARK Freeport, Pampanga -- A group of peasant-workers assailed anew the management of the Cojaungco-controlled Hacienda Luisita Inc. for intimidating and harassing farmers tilling their farms inside the sprawling sugar-cane plantation in Bgy. Balate, Tarlac City.

Violence almost broke out after HLI officials, backed by some 50 police personnel from Tarlac PNP provincial office, eight soldiers and 30 company guards, prevented the farmers from tilling their lands last Sunday.

Felix Nacpil, chairperson of the Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala), said the police, military and security guards were apparently deployed to secure a group of local folk in setting up their own camps inside the plantation.

Nacpil said Ambala farmers saw HLI secretary Buena Timbol arrive with the cops and military. “The Cojuangco-Aquinos are using the police and military to intimidate the farm workers and hamper our cultivation. They are threatening us, the legitimate owners of the land based on the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said.

Nacpil said Ambala farmers held on to their camps and prevented the establishment of a new camp by those supported by HLI by forming a human barricade.

“Since the 1950s the Cojuangco-Aquinos have used such tactics to threaten farm workers and keep them under their control,” he said.

“Now that the Supreme Court decided last Nov. 22 to distribute the lands to us, the harassment of the beneficiaries is being sustained,” he said.