Indra Harsaputra, Sidoarjo – Hundreds of mudflow victims blockaded a reconstruction site at the Porong mudflow area Monday, demanding mining company Lapindo Brantas Inc. pay the remaining 80 percent compensation as regulated by a presidential instruction.
Saboteurs robbed tools from reconstruction workers, prevented others from operating cranes working the main mudflow banks and stopped trucks supplying construction materials from entering the site.
The action threatened the big banks containing the mudflow with mudslides and overflows because the mud almost reached the top of the banks.
The victims said all victims would be evicted from their rented homes next month and they had nowhere to go unless the remaining compensation was paid immediately.
"We have no alternative but to stage this blockade because Lapindo has been deceiving us for a long time," said 35-year-old Uswati, a mudflow victim in Jatirejo village.
She said the blockade follows on a similar demonstration staged by residents of four submerged villages last week which Lapindo ignored.
During the demonstration, hundreds of residents of Siring, Jatirejo, Renokenongo and Kedung Bendo villages planted poles marking the borders of their mud-submerged property.
"We won't live in rented houses or refugee camps any longer. We need houses to live a normal life and a plot of land to earn our living," said Uswati.
Presidential Instruction No. 14/2007, issued one year after the erupting mud began submerging the villages on May 29, 2006, orders Lapindo to pay the 80 percent compensation one month before the end of the two-year house leasing arrangement ends. Lapindo has paid 20 percent of the compensation to victims to allow them to rent houses.
Some 600 displaced families who have occupied the Porong market building for more than two years, have rejected the compensation scheme since the instruction carried no sanctions against Lapindo if the latter fails to pay compensation on schedule.
Meanwhile hundreds of families living just outside the mudflow site, whose homes and assets were also damaged by the mudflow in February, have yet to receive any compensation from either Lapindo or the government.
The government last month announced it would issue a new presidential instruction in its review of the current one in order to provide compensation from the state budget for the additional victims. So far, no funds have been disbursed to the government-sanctioned Sidoarjo Mudflow Handling Agency or Lapindo.
Lapindo spokesperson Yuniwati Teryana called on all victims to exercise patience in waiting for the compensation payment because everything has been proceeding as per the buy-sell deal spelled out in the first regulation.
"Lapindo will purchase all damaged assets from the victims to express our social responsibility as mandated by the government," she said.
"For those having undocumented assets, we will provide cash and resettle them according to the agreement between Lapindo and the victims' representatives."