Thousands flee after oil well blast

The blast inside the Pertamina-PetroChina oil refinery complex.

Seventeen people were injured and thousands of residents in the East Java city of Bojonegoro fled their homes following an explosion at an oil well which occurred shortly after midnight Saturday.

Of the 17 residents who were taken to the hospital after the blast inside the Pertamina-PetroChina oil refinery complex, fifteen have been released while two are still at Dr. R. Sosodoro Jatikusumo Hospital in Bojonegoro receiving treatment for respiratory problems and nausea.

PetroChina security supervisor Djoko Agus said the blast was an accident and such blasts were common in mining operations.

"This kind of thing is quite common, it's called a gas kick which happens when drilling reaches a depth of 6,300 feet. The workers sprayed it with solid mud but it failed to slow down the ammonia gas which then burst out of the well," Djoko said.

In order to prevent the gas from spreading further, the project's executor, PT Great Wall China, set it alight. The company's workers then blocked the gas from escaping the well by using high-pressure water hoses. "It worked, by 5:01 a.m., the fire had been put out and the gas explosion had been contained ," he said.

State oil and gas company PT Pertamina's president director, Ari H. Soemarno, said such explosions were a common occurrence in oil exploration and the exploration has been conducted according to the prescribed procedures.

He said the explosion did not happen due to a gas leak from a pipe, but as a result of strong pressure. Pockets of natural gas are often encountered when drilling for oil.

"The situation at the site has been brought under control. We've taken care of the area around the site and residents have been evacuated," he said Saturday in Surabaya.

He also asked for people to remain calm, saying that the gas was harmless and residents need not worry. If they fainted, it's because they panicked, he added.

The loud explosion occurred when most people were asleep, sending a foul smell into the air.

"I woke up and went outside, I saw people getting ready to evacuate so I took my family too," Soekardi, a resident of Ngampel village, the closest to the exploration site, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

The explosion and foul smell were also experienced by residents in Campurejo and Sambiroto villages, about a kilometer from the source of the blast.

More than 3,000 residents from the three villages fled the area and took shelter in offices and Bojonegoro City Square.

"I didn't have time to bring anything, just the clothes that I was wearing, and my two daughters," said Hernani, a Sambiroto resident.

Although the fire had been put out, many residents were still staying away, with only men returning home to check on their belongings.

Head of Ngampel subdistrict, Sujiman, said that local residents had been concerned that there may be an accident. He claimed worried residents in the three villages had staged a protest two days before the explosion took place.

"The residents staged a protest warning PetroChina that they would demand compensation in case of an industrial accident, like what happened in Lapindo. But then, it really happened," he said, comparing the incident to an industrial disaster at a site belonging to Lapindo Brantas Inc. in Sidoarjo, East Java, where hot mud gushed out of an gas well.

Elementary school students go on trial for rape

Published By The Jakarta Post - July 11, 2006

The Trenggalek District Court in East Java on Monday began the trial of four fifth-grade elementary students accused of raping a female classmate.

The underage suspects appeared alarmed by the many visitors who crowded outside the court. The suspects covered their faces with jackets or hats. The closed proceeding lasted 40 minutes and took place in a tense atmosphere.

Due to their age, the suspects are being identified only by their initials and ages as Dms, 12, Snd, 11, Ptt, 11 and Kkh, 11. They were transported to the court from the Trenggalek penitentiary in a police car.

As soon as they arrived, they were escorted to the detention room at the back of the building. Onlookers could see into the open detention room, however.

Many people in the crowd, including court officials and reporters, appeared eager to watch the proceedings.

Most of the visitors saw the suspects arrive.

"So there are the rapists ... but they're all still small," said one member of the crowd after seeing them in the detention room. One of the four suspects sometimes peeked through the jacket that covered his face.

At 10 a.m. the four were brought into the courtroom. Although the trial was declared closed to the public, visitors could still follow the proceedings through the glass door. The suspects were accompanied by three legal advisors from the Surabaya Children's Crisis Center, Edward Dewaruci, Hari Supriadi and Budi Cahyono. One member of each suspect's family was allowed to enter the courtroom.

The trial was presided over by Lilik Nuraeni, who tried to avoid presenting a frightening appearance, in accordance with the rules for children's trials. None of the judges wore robes; nor did prosecutor Wiryaningtyas, who read the charges. The four were accused of violating Article 82 paragraph 290 of the Criminal Code on sexual harassment of under age children.

The four students reportedly raped a female classmate in March. The victim has since been moved to a relative's house.

"The four said they understood the accusations in this trial," one of the judges, Didi Ismiatun, said afterwards. He added that the evidence would include three pairs of underwear.

Didi said the trial was adjourned until Thursday, when lawyers will respond to the charges.

The head of the suspects' legal team, Dewaruci, said the trial deviated from existing procedures and did not provide sufficient protection for the children. The alleged deviations included detaining the underage children in an adult detention room and in a room visible to onlookers. Furthermore, he said, the indictment was unclear.

"All the deviations will be included in our response to the indictment," Dewaruci said.

Rape case tests limits of juvenile court system

Published The Jakarta Post, July 08, 2006

Tri broke into tears as she recalled how her youngest daughter was raped by four boys at her school in Trenggalek, East Java.

The housewife remains unable to come to terms with the suffering of her 11-year-old daughter, "Kuntum".

"My poor daughter, she had to suffer a nightmare that every woman fears at such a young age, being a rape victim," she told The Jakarta Post.

The student at an elementary school in Trenggalek was allegedly raped by the four boys on several different occasions. The suspects, one aged 12 the others 11, have been held at Trenggalek prison since June 28 while awaiting trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

Tri says her daughter was raped several times -- in an empty classroom, the library and a bathroom.

The nightmare began in the middle of May, when a math class was canceled and Kuntum was allegedly forced by the four boys into the boy's bathroom. Tri said at first Kuntum took it as a joke, but when she tried to leave the boys forced her back into the bathroom.

She says the assailants stripped her daughter naked, touched her and then took turns raping her. Tri said they punched her daughter when she attempted to call out for help.

"At first, I didn't believe it, but that's what happened. After that, Kuntum reported the incident to one of the teachers but was ignored," Tri said.

Several days after the first assault, the boys attacked her again, this time in an empty classroom and then in the school library.

"Kuntum did not want to tell me about it, afraid that I would be angry," she said.

The attack became public when someone reported the matter to a local journalist, who wrote a story about the alleged rape.

Kuntum's parents immediately went to the police. "A medical exam showed bruising on my daughter's vagina and found signs that it had been penetrated by a foreign object," she said.

Police investigating the case named the four boys as suspects. They have been charged with violating several articles of the Criminal Code.

One of judges scheduled to hear Monday's trial, Didi Ismiatun, said the court would consider whether the four boys should be punished for their alleged actions. "The maximum penalty is 15 years in jail and up to a Rp 30 million (US$3,260) fine," he said.

According to Nonot Soeryono, a coordinator with the Surabaya Children's Crisis Center (SCCC), which is part of the non-governmental organization Plan Surabaya Indonesia, rape cases involving minors were difficult to handle because justice had to be done, without forgetting that the victims and suspects were children.

On the victim's side, he said, authorities had to do a full investigation to determine whether rape had occurred.

"Technically speaking, it has to be determined whether there has been a rape, based on medical and legal views," Nonot told the Post.

And when dealing with the suspects, authorities must make sure they are not treated as adult criminals.

He said legally, children had a limited ability to differentiate between right and wrong, making their actions different from those of an adult. He emphasized that putting the four suspects in this case in an adult prison was against the law.

According to information gathered by the Post, the four suspects are being held in a single cell, separated from the adult inmates. The regency does not have separate facilities for child criminals and criminal suspects.

Plan Surabaya Indonesia, through the SCCC, has provided the boys with legal assistance. It also has sent a letter to the National Commission for the Protection of Children and the Trenggalek Prosecutor's Office, asking that the four boys be released from the prison and returned to the custody of their parents.

"Don't repeat the mistakes of Raju's case in Medan. We're trying to uphold the law, not torture children with acts of violence," Nonot said.

He was referring to the March trial of 8-year-old Muhammad Azwar, also known as Raju, in an adult court in Langkat regency, North Sumatra.

Raju's trial was heavily criticized by children's rights groups, which said it was inhumane and unnecessary. The court found Raju guilty of assaulting Armansyah, 14, and returned him to his parents' custody. Prosecutors detained Raju in an adult prison before his trial.

According to a 1997 law on juvenile courts, any trial involving a juvenile should involve the child, his or her parents or legal guardians, a defense lawyer and witnesses.

Speaking from Jakarta on Thursday, the National Commission for the Protection of Children urged the Trenggalek Prosecutor's Office and the court to release the four boys and provide them with counseling.

"Children under the age of 12 cannot be treated like adults, even if they may have committed a crime. The prosecutor's office has acted against the law," said commission secretary-general Arist Merdeka Sirait.

Based on the 1997 law, he said the four boys must be detained in a place where there are no adult prisoners, like a Muslim boarding school.

Seto Mulyadi, the commission's head and also a psychologist, said the children were victims of the lack of controls over the distribution of pornographic materials, as well as the pressure put on them by the school as high-achieving students.

"According to Freud's theory, the sex drive comes at their age and it can be uncontrollable if they are under pressure and if their surroundings show them ways to express it," he said.

Seto said the boys' case was similar to Raju's. "It looks like Indonesia's juvenile court system has yet to learn from that case."

The director of child welfare at the Social Affairs Ministry, Makmur Sunusi, said earlier the country had not yet developed a proper juvenile court system.

Raju's trial, he said, also showed the juvenile criminal system was failing to protect children's rights, adding there was a need to revise the law on juvenile courts.

Stress might push mudflow victims to limit

A psychiatrist has warned stress could accelerate any minor psychological problems experienced by people displaced from their homes for over a month by hot mudflow in Porong, Sidoarjo in East Java, making them like ticking time bombs.

Psychiatrist Nalini Agung said that although physically unnoticeable, the psychological burden on the 6,000 residents of the four villages affected by the mudflow could create new and unexpected problems, making not only physical but psychological approaches to the situation crucial.

"Since the victims are faced with uncertainties, they are feeling distressed. This could gradually trigger post-traumatic stress disorder and cause new problems," Nalini told The Jakarta Post.

Efforts are being made to stop the rush of hot mud, which has been coming from a gas drilling site owned by PT Lapindo Brantas Inc. since May 29, but on Tuesday, the problem remained.

Over a month after the problem started, the expert from Dr. Soetomo hospital in Surabaya said many residents were experiencing a growing depression. Some are jobless, while others have lost their homes or cherished possessions.

"Although the process is different, not sudden like the loss experienced by quake survivors in Yogyakarta and Central Java, these uncertainties can trigger a time bomb," said the psychiatrist who treated "face-off" surgery patient from Surabaya, Lisa.

She said it was generally two to three months before the stress disorder really took its toll on people.

"New problems most likely show up entering the third month, and have a tendency of spreading among the evacuees," she said.

She advised that those responsible for dealing with the hot mudflow provide effective solutions, such as by immediately relocating victims, replacing their rice fields and finding them work.

"Compensation or assistance in the form of cash is not a solution. It should be in the form of things and assets equivalent to their losses," she said.

Lapindo has promised to compensate residents for their suffering, as well as compensate workers who could not work because their companies were affected by the mudflow.

Tri Santoso, the head of the Prosperous Justice Party disaster mitigation post at Pasar Baru Porong market, where displaced people are sheltering, shares similar fears. After they had been staying at the market for almost 20 days, he said, people's moods were black.

"They're complaining about their situation, what's going to happen to their jobs and what they'll do when it's all over," he told the Post.

He said volunteers from the party were providing medical treatment and entertainment for the displaced people as well as teaching them useful skills. "We want to create room for dialog to help them find a solution to their problems as well as hold educational activities for children," Tri said.

Volunteers from other groups, such as universities, political parties and non-governmental organizations, are doing similar work at the shelters.

Meanwhile, after almost a month of gathering documents and interrogating dozens of witnesses, East Java Police issued a statement Tuesday holding six people responsible for the catastrophic sludge in Sidoarjo.

"We have named six suspects in the case," said East Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Herman Suryadi Sumawireja.

He declined to name the suspects, only saying two are employees of the owner of gas drilling site PT Lapindo Brantas, identified only as WH and ES, and the four others are officials from PT Medici Citra Nusantara, Lapindo's subcontractor.

However, he said, the number of suspects might increase in the coming days.