Mengingat Bencana Lapindo (Sebuah Catatan 5 Tahun Tragedi Lumpur Lapindo)

This writing actually is my creative writing assignment, but I choose to write this topic because of honoring the victims of Lapindo hotmud eruptions who lost many things from this disaster 5 years ago...

The Sidoarjo Disaster: When a Corporation Shows Its Greediness

It has been almost five years after the hotmud eruption occurred to the land on Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java. March 31^st, 2006; the day of this country’s unsolved disaster firstly happened. After five years, we all can see the impacts of this disaster become worsen everyday; the victims are increase, the land is subsiding, the underground water tables and the water surface are contaminating, the Porong estuaries creates the sedimentation, the food’s vegetation and livestock are decrease, and the numbers of damage public infrastructures are increase, such as the toll road, people residential, government, educational, religious, and economic buildings (The Auditing of The Audit Board of Republic Indonesia : 2007). In contrary, although the impacts become worse, the main actor; Lapindo Brantas Inc. (LBI) and Government seem do not care about this case anymore. This proves that this case is the country’s failure to control the corporate greed.

 First, The Government and LBI fail to add the risk assessment in the contract for their project. In developing a project, the company and the Government have to make a risk assessment in order to prevent the unpredictable mishap. In contrary, there is no risk assessment in the contract. Moreover, the auditing result of   The Audit-Board of Republic of Indonesia says that the LBI is incompetent by pulling out the bore when the well was unstable and using inadequate equipments during the project (the borehole was not protected by steel casing, has no pressure connection and fracturing. That is why the hole propagates the mud to the surface). The Scientist from University of Durham, UK, Mr. Richard Davies found that the mishap is totally LBI’s fault because he found out that the LBI dug a wrong hole which has no gas and when they realized, they pulled out the bore. It caused a hotmud eruption appear to the land. Because of no risk assessment, now, we can see many victims do not get any compensation.

Second, The Government and LBI fail to protect the victims’ rights. The Audit board says; at first, the Central Government gave the initiative to handle the disaster to both the local governments (provincial and district) and the company. Because of the lack power, expertise, and resources; the local government could not do much (qtd. 8, 2007). In contrary, the company expects the Government helps them to pay the compensation to the victims, while the government limit the Aid because the government claim that the disaster is caused by the company.  As a result, the company is bankrupt and many victims do not get any compensation. Recently, the owner of LBI, Mr.Aburizal Bakrie said that the hotmud victims become millionaires after getting the compensation fees, Koran Tempo reported. Honestly, I am totally angry to hear his statement. How can he say such kind of that thing to public?

Third, The Government and LBI fail in handling the impacts of the disaster. Few months after the eruption occurred, the central Government set up a team named “National Team for Handling the Mud Flow”. The team was given eight months to solve three problems; 1) to stop the mud eruption, 2) to investigate the impacts of the mud eruption, 3) to minimize the social, economic, and environmental impact. In fact, the team fails and the achievement of the team is negligible because the mud eruption does not stop (qtd. 8, 2007). The Audit- Board says that this happened because of the lack of coordination between the company and the Governments. Another team was set up on March 31^st, 2007 or one year after the mud eruption started but the result is the same.

In Summary, we can conclude that this mishap is fully man-made disaster. The disaster is a cause of the country’s failure to control the corporate greed. The Government and the Company (LBI) fail to add the risk assessment in the contract for their project, to protect the victims’ rights, and to handle the impacts of the disaster. Although the cause of this disaster is the LBI, the Government especially the Central Government should have not let the company and the local Governments done this case alone. The Central Government has a responsibility to all the people in Indonesia wherever and whoever they are. As The 1945’ Indonesian Constitution, section 28 H paragraph 1, says “Every Citizen has a right to live in prosperous and peaceful, has a resident, gets a good environment and healthy life, and also obtains a medical care.”

Words Count: 744

Sources:

www.detik.com (February 27^th, 2011)

www.kaskus.us/ thread/6227937 (December 10^th, 2010 09:34 PM)

www.kaskus.us/showthread.php?t=6458412 (December 4^th, 2010 12:26 PM)

www.kaskus.us/showthread.php?t=6832083

Koran Tempo, January 8^th, 2011; Mengingat Bencana Lapindo

Auditing Report the Hotmud Eruption In Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia With Environmental Perspective by Prof. Dr. Anwar Nasution Chairman of The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia for the 11th Meeting of INTOSAI-WGEA Arusha, Tanzania 25-29 June, 2007 via www.indoleaks.org