The Never ending Lapindo Hot Mud Flow

On 28 May 2006, PT. Lapindo Brantas, owned by Golkar Party Chairman Aburizal Bakrie, failed to follow standard procedure for drilling natural gas in Sidoarjo, East Java, since then Hot Mud has been flowing continuously.

According to Wikipedia, at its peak the Hot Mud spewed 180,000 m3 a day, at mid August 2011 the quantity decreased to 10,000 m3 from 100,000 m3 a year earlier, all of which has inundated large area of farmland, houses, factories, warehouses, roads.

It is predicted that the Hot Mud in Sidoarjo will keep on flowing for the next 25 to 30 years.

There were different (and conflicting) scientific explanations as to the cause of the Hot Mud Flow, some said that it was caused by an earthquake in Jogyakarta a day earlier, but the Indonesian government has seemingly considered this tragedy as a natural disaster and therefore helped the payment of compensation for the damages suffered by the people hit by the Hot Mud Flow.

I hope that there will be a thorough scientific research conducted by legitimate and credible international scientific organizations that would reveal the truth about the Lapindo Hot Mud tragedy.

This truth is very important, especially for the Golkar Party that has planned to nominate Aburizal Barkrie as a candidate in the 2014 Presidential Election.

Politicians and Football

2010 has left us with many home works that must be carried out in 2011, i.e. the eradication of Corruption, Poverty and Injustice.

We have among others, the mysterious Bank Century bail-out, the shaky leadership of the Corruption Eradication Commission, and prosecution of Taxman Gayus Tambunan.

Besides, we also have the inter-religion relationship which is often shaky when it comes to rights of minorities.

On top of that, there are the maneuvers made by political parties to prepare for the general elections and presidential elections in 2014, whereby according to our Constitution President SBY must end his second office term.

Although there is still no official announcement, however major political parties have been giving signals to the public about who would be their Presidential candidates.

President SBY's Democrat Party has the First Lady Any Yudoyono. The Golkar Party has its Chairman Aburizal Bakrie. And the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party in Struggle has the daughter of former President Megawati, Puan Maharani.

Various efforts have been made by the politicians, the most notable were made by Bakrie who gave Three Billion Rupiah and land area of Twenty Five Hectares to our national team as bonus for their success in reaching the Final Rounds of the recent AFF-Suzuki Cup football tournament.

Further, the Chairman of the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) Nurdin Halid, a member of Golkar Party, has publicly announced that his decision to lower the ticket price for the tournament from Seventy Five Thousand Rupiah to Fifty Thousand Rupiah was made based on the request of Bakrie as his Party's boss.

In response to Golkar Party's above moves, and growing public demands for Nurdin Halid's resignation from PSSI, Arifin Panigoro, member of the Reform Democratic Party who supported President SBY, has initiated the creation of the independent Indonesian Premier League (LPI). 

Nurdin Halid and PSSI have declared that LPI is illegal and requested the Police to stop its activities.

I felt that the above situation is very ugly and not healthy for the development of football in Indonesia which is now showing some improvements. Therefore in order to make football develop well, I strongly believe that PSSI should be managed by people who are free from any political background.

Image :  Courtesy of Mises.

Efforts to Rehabilitate Soeharto's Name

On 21 May 1998, the Indonesian people forced the late President Soeharto to step down from 32-years of authoritarian rule.

Since then, efforts have been made to investigate Soeharto's involvement in the killing of hundreds of thousand of alleged Communists between 1966 and 1968.

Efforts have also been made to bring him and his family to trial for several allegations of corruptions, disappearance of political opponents, and other bad things that happened during his rule.

However, until Soeharto died at the age of 86 around two and a half years ago, none of those allegations were proven, thus all those efforts were fruitless.

A few days ago, Soeharto's children and supporters commemorate the One Thousand Days of his death, and they have proposed the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono to declare Soeharto as National Hero during the commemoration of the National Heroes Day on 10 November.

This proposal is supported by Suharto's children and followers, who claimed that Suharto has stabilized the country which enabled development, for which he was named the Father of Development.
Meanwhile, former victims of Soeharto's authoritarian rule and pro-democracy activists opposed the idea.

If Soeharto is named as National Hero, his name would surely be rehabilitated. This would benefit the Golkar Party as the heir to Soeharto's political legacy, especially that its chairman Aburizal Bakrie is a possible candidate in the 2014 presidential election.

For details, please read the following articles 
-   Indonesia Debates Possibility of Honor for Suharto (The New York Times)
-   Family Leads 10,000 Visitors in Suharto Day of Honor (The Jakarta Globe)
-   Soeharto (Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia)

Photo : Courtesy of The Jakarta Post

Golkar and Peterporn

In the last few days, there are two hot topics that have been the focus of the Indonesian media.

The first one is the demand made by the member of the ruling coalition the Golkar Party that each of the 560 members of the House of Representative (DPR) to be given an "Aspiration Fund" amounting to 15 Billion Rupiah each year.
This demand has been strongly protested by the public including other political parties of the ruling coalition.

The second one is the porn-video showing sex-intercourse between Ariel, the vocalist of a well known  Pop band Peterpan, and two well known actresses presenter, model: Luna Maya, and Cut Tari. According to rumors Ariel has made video of his sex-adventures with 32 other women, that people on Twitter have given him the nickname Peterporn. Ariel and Luna denied having played in the sex video, however a telematic expert said that both of them played in the video..

I am not sure whether the above two hot topics just accidentally popped up together at almost the same time.
But one thing for sure is that the Peterporn video has diverted public's attention from Golkar Party's demand for Aspiration Fund.

Bank Century for Lapindo Deal

Sri Mulyani's decision to resign from her job as Minister of Finance have made certain people very happy.

For Sri Mulyani, it means that she'll be able to take a prestigious position as Managing Director of the World Bank, and get away from politicians at the Parliament (DPR) who have been blaming her for the mysterious  6,7 Trillion Rupiah Bank Century Bailout.

For President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono (SBY) and his Democrat Party, it means that it will calm down the protests in DPR against the Bank Century case, therefore regaining supports from political parties that formed the coalition government.

For SBY's political ally i.e. the Golkar Party, it means that no one will bother the businesses of its Chairman i.e. Aburizal Bakrie, especially PT Lapindo that has been responsible for the disastrous never ending flow of Hot Mud at Sidoardjo, East Java.
Golkar was very happy that they supported the creation of a Joint Secretariat for the Coalition and Bakrie became its Chief Executive Officer only two days after Sri Mulyani's resignation.

Considering that the Coalition Government also includes two political parties i.e. PKS and PPP, that supported DPR's Inquiry on the Bank Century case, I hope that the above political deal would not stop the investigation of the Bank Century case by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and the fact finding efforts on the Lapindo Mud Flow.

Related articles :
- The Jakarta Post : World Bank appoints Sri Mulyani managing director
- Kompas : Life in Indonesia after Sri Mulyani moves to WB
- The Jakarta Globe : Reshuffle Hands Bakrie Leading Coalition Post

Jusuf Kalla & Bloggers

When Barack Obama won the U.S presidential election last November, the news media reported that one of the main factor for success was the ability of his campaign team to master the use of internet social network, including the blog.

This success has inspired some candidates for the Indonesian parliamentary elections that will be held on 9 April, and presidential election on 8 July 2009, to establish rapport with bloggers. One of them is Jusuf Kalla (JK) incumbent Vice President, Chairman of the Golkar Party and candidate for the presidential race. According to senior Indonesian blogger Ndoro Kakung, JK has met with bloggers on Thursday 19 March, at Pisa Café, Jalan Mahakam, South Jakarta. The meeting runs from 20.15 to 21.20 pm and attended by around 130 persons consisting of bloggers, journalists and JK’s staffs. JK, who wear short sleeve batik shirt, explained that the reason he wants to meet bloggers because he thinks that bloggers are part of the present information freedom who have created the free information. And in the dialog that follows, JK answered questions, but only mentioned the name Golkar once.
Further, Ndoro Kakung wrote that JK has invited senior blogger and founder of political blog Politikana i.e. Enda Nasution to attend JK’s campaign.
In order to maintain his image, Enda Nasution explained in his Tweeter as follows :
“ To make it clear. I am not campaigning for JK nor a kader partai. Just invited on the campaign trail. I’ll welcome invitation from others ”.

The above news shows that bloggers have now been acknowledged by very important person in our country as a respectable community that provide free information to our society. And as such, bloggers should always be fair, neutral and positive.