Anita Rachman – On June 14, Hari Suwandi embarked on a 25-day journey on foot from his home in Sidoarjo, East Java, to raise awareness of the plight of people from his village, Kedung Bendo, which was buried by a 2006 mudflow.
Hari arrived in Jakarta at 9 a.m. on Sunday and held a press conference at the office of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras) in Menteng, Central Jakarta.
"We want compensation for our losses, payment of which is left unresolved to this day," Hari said. The disaster has led to more than 10,000 families being displaced from their homes.
Although the government never made an official determination of the cause of the disaster, a 2007 presidential decree held Minarak Lapindo Jaya, the holding company of gas drilling firm Lapindo Brantas, liable for compensating the residents for the loss of their livelihoods and property.
Lapindo is linked to the family of Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, who owns the Bakrie Group business empire.
"The [unpaid] figure is around Rp 970 billion [$102 million] which Lapindo has to pay the victims. But it was never paid [in full]. They paid in installments but it is never on time," Hari said. According to Hari, Lapindo paid victims four times in 2010 and three times in 2011. "This year there was only one [money] transfer, in June," he said.
During his stay in Jakarta, Hari said he was planning a protest at the State Palace, the House of Representatives and Wisma Bakrie building, Lapindo's headquarters. "That is why I want to go to the state palace. The government must be firm to say when [Lapindo] must repay our assets," he said.
The father of three said he walked the huge distance to raise support from people he met as he traveled. "I sold [copies of] a documentary video on the Lapindo mudflow for Rp 50,000. Along the way I have garnered support; many people became aware [of Sidorajo people's plight]," he said.
Hari said each day, he traveled 40 kilometers on foot before stopping for some rest. Some days, he walked from dawn till dusk and on others he preferred to walk in the dead of night.
As the affected area grew, from the initial six villages to 16 across three subdistricts in Sidoarjo, so did Lapindo's bill for compensation and the clean up, which now stands at Rp 2.5 trillion for compensation and Rp 1.3 trillion to stem the spread of the mud. The government itself has allocated Rp 6.2 trillion for the compensation process.
But a group calling itself the Savior Team for Lapindo State Budget filed the legal challenge against the provision based on the argument that taxpayer money should not be used to cover for a disaster caused by a private company.
The Constitutional Court began reviewing the provision in the 2012 state budget last month. Lapindo has maintained that the mud volcano was a natural disaster triggered by an earthquake in Yogyakarta – 300 kilometers away – two days earlier.