Mudflow LUSI between Malang and Surabaya

Once upon a time there was a village in Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java. It is not the most beautiful village in Porong, not even beautiful. It was just ok. People went to work or have field to cultivate. They have house, children went to school, it is just like a normal life in our place.

The end of year 2005 came. The people there celebrated it as well although not in the same way as ours. But one thing for sure. All people in the world have the same wish for the New Year. A prosperity.

Six months of 2006 passed and one day they heard the news. There was a fountain discovered in their village. But it was an unusual fountain. A company named Lapindo Brantas had done a drilling to find the source of oil. This is not a young company and it was not their first time to drill. They must have had a list of procedure for drilling. To everyone’s surprise they did not find a single drop of oil but plenty of mud which is still coming up until the moment I am writing this.

One of the owners of this company is the Indonesian Coordinating minister for People’s welfare, Aburizal Bakrie. According to Forbes magazine he was the country’s richest man with a net worth of US$ 5.4 billion as of 2007!

Years passed by. Like the mud, the suffer of the people increase but the attention and effort from the company to help the people decrease and the solution of the mudflow becomes something impossible. It does not happen to just one but more villages. Adults who call themselves people’s representatives show their childish behavior. They just blame each other and avoid their responsibilities. The solution never comes.

The disaster is known as Lusi, Lumpur Sidoarjo or Sidoarjo mud.

It is said the mudflow lies too far from the capital so the powerful people do not know how it is to be forced to leave your home and live in the shelter with so many people. Maybe they cannot imagine how the mud looks like. To help them realize, the victims of the mudflow collected money for transportation to Jakarta and brought the mud to the boss of the company. In Jakarta they only could put the mud in front of his office and this important person never appeared. The victims had to go back to their muddy village with no success.

They were taken out of their safe house and village and lost their jobs, activities, privacy and even rights for security. Their children cannot attend the school anymore and they have to demonstrate their anger to get compensation. After a lot of demonstrations and waiting for so long, they got 20% of the total amount of money they have been promised.

To get more money the people does other things, begging money, selling drinking water, snacks, even they charge people who want to see the mud lake from the top of the dyke. To my surprise a lot of people likes this new entertainment. Although it means that they have to inhale unhealthy gas. Also with a small payment they offer to lead you through another way to avoid the traffic jam there which takes at the end the same time as if you ride the normal way.

Some days ago the people blocked a road between Surabaya and Malang. They demanded the rest of the money. Yes, two years later they still have not received the total amount. So you can imagine how they “celebrate’ the other two New Year’s Eves. It was very different from the one of 2006. From then they have to spend their time out of their house.

This time they get another 20%. When would they get it if they did not block the road? Why didn’t the company pay them properly as promised? Do the victims have to demonstrate first to get the money?

The mudflow is indeed so far away from the powerful people in Jakarta. Those who get affected are the people of East Java. Previously it took maximal two hours from Malang to Surabaya. Now you are lucky if you can do it in two and a half hours. It happened several times that people from Surabaya couldn’t go to Malang and vice versa due to the demonstrations those village people made.

Of course it is understandable that they are angry. But at the other hand it also gives a negative effect to public interest because Malang and other cities around get a lot of supply through Surabaya. Not only the mud flow is dangerous but also the temporary “solution” the government makes. To hold the mud they built dyke around it. It seems that they just piled the ground, so the dyke becomes every time higher. People are wondering how strong and how long it can hold the mud especially during the rainy season. Along the dyke is the way people use from Surabaya to Malang and vice versa. There often occurs traffic jam. If a dyke which holds the water breaks, the people could swim to survive. But how could you swim in the mud?

In the newspaper of Jakarta Post, December 9th, I read “No longer the richest: Aburizal Bakrie”. Due to US-originated financial meltdown the share price of his most valuable company has shrunk more than 800%. The collapse of Bakrie’s business should not decrease the right of the mudflow victims. They still have the responsibility to the victims. The victims did not ask the company to do the drilling in their village. The money cannot bring their old life. I am sure they prefer to keep their old life as before the disaster rather than taking the money.

It is said, since the company has showed deaf ears to the voice of the victims, now they get the chance to suffer from a loss. But still they do not have to seek refuge place, they do not have to beg along the dusty street and inhale stinky and dirty gas and they still can celebrate the New Year’s Eve in a luxurious way even spent US$200.000 for their daughter’s wedding!

Everything what we have now is entrusted goods. We should handle it with responsibility. If we cannot, they will be taken away. At the end of our life there is an important question. Have we done our responsibilities well?