Refleksi :Lumpur Lapindo sudah lama. Selama ini SBY tidak berani dan mau berkutik, sekarang partainya mau gertak sambal. Gertak demikian tidak berbeda jauh dari tong kosong nyaring bunyinya.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/04/01/sby's-party-threatens-use-mudflow-case.html SBY's party threatens to use mudflow case Ridwan Max Sijabat , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Thu, 04/01/2010 9:37 AM | National The Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has suggested reopening the high-profile mudflow case in East Java, which implicates a mining company controlled by the business group of Golkar Party leader Aburizal Bakrie. House Speaker Marzuki Alie, a contender for the Democratic Party's top post, stressed here Wednesday that the spreading mud covering 100,000 cubic meters of land and displacing thousands of villagers, was a legal and political liability. The drilling activity of Lapindo Brantas Inc. in May 2006 was followed by a mudflow, which continues to spread. However the Supreme Court last year declared the company was not guilty of the disaster, which has impacted on people living in the industrial area of Sidoarjo. Although the government earlier announced that the mudflow was a natural disaster, also implying that the company should not be blamed, Yudhoyono on Monday reminded the management of its commitment to pay compensation to the victims. Disaster tour: Two women stand by the edge of the mudflow in Porong, Sidoarjo, in East Java, on Monday. While urging faster payment of compensation to thousands of displaced villagers, the President had stated that the area, if managed well, could be developed into a study site for geological and fishery issues. Some experts say the mudflow could continue for decades. Antara/Eric Ireng The statement came in the wake of reported weakening signs of his coalition, which includes the Golkar Party. "The Lapindo mudflow case has been dormant," said Marzuki. "But it may explode again into a national issue with political implications on the 2014 presidential election. It involves a major mining corporation belonging to a powerful tycoon and politician." At the time of the mud eruption, which experts said could continue for dozens of years, Aburizal was the coordinating public welfare minister. "Our party's agenda includes raising this issue in the immediate future," Marzuki said, because the mudflow near the country's second largest city, Surabaya, "has been handled less professionally," he said. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, he said, his party would ask the police and the Attorney General's Office to reopen the case, given the party's suspicions of judicial corruption in the handling of the case. The verdict was controversial amid differing views among experts, with some saying it was the 2006 earthquake of Yogyakarta and Central Java, not the drilling, that had triggered the mudflow. Others said the distance of the earthquake's epicenter was too far from the drilling site to state that the earthquake was mainly responsible for the mudflow, which disrupted traffic routes. Marzuki made the statement following Yudhoyono's visit to the disaster area, but he denied that his party's proposition was part of a political retaliation against Golkar. Along with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Golkar has been considered to have betrayed the government coalition at the House, a partnership that briefly claimed to comprise 75 percent of the House's 560 seats. Apart from the mudflow, Democratic Party members have another source of ammunition; many members have raised the case of alleged tax evasion of Bakrie's coal companies, also in the wake of the coalition fallout. In the uproar over the bailout of the troubled Bank Century, Golkar and the PKS were among the most critical of the government decision regarding the bailout, which cost the state Rp 6.76 trillion (US$716 million). Reliable sources at the Democratic Party who asked for anonymity warned Aburizal against contending the next presidential race, saying the alleged tax evasion and mudflow cases were two issues the party could politicize to block his presidential bid in 2014. The mudflow issue was more or less "dormant" since the Supreme Court's verdict, which upheld the lower courts' verdict. The class action, filed several months after four villages sunk in the large mud pond, led by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and the Environmental Forum, accused Lapindo of environmental damage and human rights violations. The verdicts cited human error but concluded nonetheless that Lapindo was not guilty, the verdict referring to inconclusive evidence given the widely differing views of scientists on the cause of the mudflow. Public opinion gradually shifted. The Sidoarjo regency and provincial administrations, political parties and mass organizations with a large base in the dense area, including the largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, which initially had pointed their finger at Lapindo, seemed to accept the scientific opinion aired by a number of experts that the mudflow was a natural disaster. This implied that the government, with taxpayers' money, must take responsibility for the mudflow's environmental and social impacts. Prominent lawyer Bambang Widjojanto says if the Democratic Party can secure new evidence it can lead the way in reopening the case. "The different opinion among experts on the mudflow's cause cannot be taken as the only reason to drop the case. "The police should consider the continually spreading mudflow and the increasing suffering of mudflow victims as strong evidence to take the case to court again," he said. While some displaced residents have received compensation, the management said it was still processing payment to more than 40 percent of victims. The displaced have said compensation is slow while the management of PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, the firm responsible for the payments, have said the issue of proving land ownership has been among the constraints. Political observer J. Kristiadi of the Center for Strategic International Studies says the Democratic Party will immediately try to block Aburizal from the presidential race, armed with the tax evasion allegations and mudflow case. "The Democratic Party will unlikely wait until 2014 to block his bid, Democratic Party politicians will likely begin doing it now," he said. However, he added, the political fallout would unlikely affect personal ties between Yudhoyono and Aburizal, at least in public. Yudhoyono would likely attend the wedding ceremony scheduled Thursday of Aburizal's son Ardie Bakrie and actress Nia Ramadhani, Kristiadi said, to show the public his statesmanship and impress upon the public that the political friction between their two political parties has not disrupted personal relations. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
