More than 500 families of mudflow victims have urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to censure the Bakrie family, who they said had suspended compensation payments for assets damaged by the mudflow.

The victims, currently living in makeshift shelters in the Porong market building, said that after initially rejecting Presidential Instruction No. 14/2007 on compensation, they had accepted it and made a purchase deal with PT Minarak Lapindo Jaya, a subsidiary of energy company PT Lapindo Brantas Inc., in September.

But so far there are no signs the compensation will be paid in the future, residents said.

"Minarak has several times broken its pledge on the payment schedule. Even the government-sanctioned BPLS (Sidoarjo Mudflow Handing Agency) managing the mudflow and the Sidoarjo regency administration have confirmed that Lapindo has suspended payment due to the global financial crisis," Pitanto, deputy chairman of the Renokenongo Mudflow Victims Group, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

He said that according the victims, the Bakrie family should be censured because they were the majority owners of Lapindo shares and Aburizal Bakrie was as the chief welfare minister in Yudhoyono's Cabinet.

The mudflow victims also threatened not to vote for Yudhoyono in next year's presidential election if he failed to censure the Bakries and ensure compensation was paid according to the presidential instruction.

"The threat is a reaction to the unfair treatment. The Bakrie family still can sleep securely at any hotels they want while we have lost our homes, our assets and our community and we have been left in poverty for more than two years," Pitanto said.

The victims are residents of Renokenongo, one of four villages devastated by the mudflow which swept over the subdistrict on May 29, 2006, and whose compensation is regulated by the presidential instruction.

The presidential instruction requires Lapindo to pay 20 percent of the compensation at least 14 days after the purchasing deal is signed, with the remaining 80 percent to be paid one year later.

According to the deal, the 20 percent compensation should have been paid early in November.

Minarak has offered to pay the advance payment in phases. Victims accepted this, but said they had not yet received any payment.

"We have filed a complaint with the regency legislative council and the regent but no response has been given and we do not know to whom we should file our complaints anymore," Pitanto said.

The government also has not paid any compensation to residents of many other villages affected by the mudflow, under a new presidential instruction that requires funds for compensation be taken from the state budget.

Paimah, a 43-year-old mudflow victim said she and her 14-year-old daughter Mutmainah had only one meal a day because their family had no permanent income and they had not received any compensation from Lapindo for the damage to their assets.

"I have to take any job to make money and to support my family and I have become indebted to several loan sharks to survive and to send my children to school in the hope I can pay back the loans from the compensation funds," she said.

Lapindo spokeswoman, Yuniwati Teryana, said her company would comply with the presidential instruction on the compensation payment and had offered a solution to the payment suspension.

Lapindo has already spent Rp 5.6 trillion paying the initial 20 percent compensation to mudflow victims. The company said the remaining 80 percent had not been paid because of the global financial crisis.

Suparto Wijoyo, a legal expert from Airlangga University, criticized the government and law enforcers for taking a political approach rather than a legal one in handling the impact of the disaster on local residents.

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