Mudflow victims must be given priority: MPR

People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) deputy speaker Lukman Hakim Saefuddin says victims of the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, deserve decent compensation if the government wishes to turn the area into tourist site.

"The idea from the President [Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] to change the area into a tourism site is interesting. However, before that idea can be implemented all of the victims in the area must be properly compensated," Lukman said Wednesday.

The disaster started in May 2006, at the time Lapindo, a company affiliated with Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie, was running an exploratory drilling operation and drilling in the area.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled there was no evidence that Lapindo had failed to handle the mudflow victims.

In 2008, the government declared the mudflow a “natural disaster”.

Many scientists, however, consider it a massive natural accident caused by human intervention.