Today is the two-year anniversary since the mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, began, and it's appropriate to reflect on why problems remain unresolved and the government seems toothless to pursue this case.

Two years have passed since hot mud first exploded from a gas drilling well owned by oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas. While much has been done to address the resulting problems, life remains difficult for the victims, and is even becoming harder for some.

The government has established two teams to tackle the multi-faceted disaster – to stop the mudflow, care for the victims and rebuild damaged infrastructure.

The first team, we would say, had failed in most areas. The second team, established in line with a 2007 presidential regulation, has not done much either, and the problems continue to grow.

The hot mud is still gushing uncontrollably and is submerging more villages, as thousands of victims continue to suffer and people commuting between Surabaya and the eastern part of East Java endure the traffic bottleneck in Sidoarjo.

Of all these problems, alleviating the suffering of the victims, of the people, should be the primary objective of the operation. And yet the government seems to have turned a deaf ear to their plight, especially that of the most recent victims.

The problem stems from the presidential order itself, which obliges Lapindo, the company most hated by people in the area, to compensate victims from only four villages submerged by the mud.

But since the presidential order was issued, the spreading mud has submerged several more villages – currently, a total of fifteen villages have been affected and tens of thousands of people have been displaced.

Lapindo – through its subsidiary Minarak Lapindo Jaya – understandably refuses to compensate new victims living outside the four villages mentioned in the presidential order, and the government itself has been slow to respond.

So we can now see why these new victims have been demonstrating almost every day, demanding that they also be compensated for their property losses.

Even victims from the four villages are now restless, having only received 20 percent of the money owed to them, while the remaining 80 percent hangs in the air.

Compensation is only a small part of the efforts to alleviate the plight of the victims. It only covers their lost property, not their lost livelihoods, which are worth a great deal more.

As the government and Lapindo struggle to compensate all of the victims, they seem to have forgotten to address the source of the problem: stopping the mudflow. We question why no significant efforts have been made to stop the mudflow. The most responsible parties seem to believe the mudflow is unstoppable, and have therefore given up.

We therefore welcome a civil movement by concerned citizens, led by Nahdlatul Ulama senior leader Solahuddin Wahid, the younger brother of former president Abdurrahman Wahid. The group includes former Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif and mud volcano experts from several state universities. They believe the mudflow is stoppable.

Efforts like this are commendable, but unfortunately, seem to lack support from the public and political entities in this country.

Not only are efforts to stop the mudflow waning, attempts to hold Lapindo legally responsible for the disaster are also faltering.

The East Java police have named several suspects, but their criminal investigation into this calamity has ground to a halt. Dissatisfied, some civil society groups have brought legal action against Lapindo and the government, but they have all lost their cases.

So far, Lapindo – a company controlled by the family of chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie – has remained legally clean. The company is now even campaigning that the mudflow in Sidoarjo is the result of an earthquake in Yogyakarta, and not its drilling activity – and the government appears to support that.

We feel the government is being toothless against Lapindo. But people are not stupid, everyone knows about the relationship between Lapindo, Bakrie and the president. The fact that the president has kept Aburizal Bakrie in his Cabinet, despite the Lapindo saga, speaks volumes.

But let them play their game, the people will eventually choose. Next year, people will decide whether they support the current president, his supporters and their political parties – or not.