Hans David Tampubolon, The Jakarta Post 30 Mar 10;
A Golkar Party senior politician regards President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's idea of making Porong in Sidoarjo, East Java, the area devastated by a continuous mudflow, a tourist attraction as brilliant.
“We can finally show the world that a scary area can be utilized as a beautiful area for tourism,” Golkar's Priyo Budi Santoso told reporters at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Priyo said Lapindo, a company affiliated with Golkar chairman Aburizal Bakrie, would do its best to make the dream of making the area into a tourism site come true.
The mudflow started in May 2006, at a time when Lapindo Brantas was running an exploratory drilling program and was drilling in the area.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled there was no evidence Lapindo caused the mudflow, which has displaced 40,000 people from their homes.
In 2008, the government declared the mudflow a “natural disaster”.
Many scientists, however, believe the mudflow was no natural disaster and consider it a massive natural accident caused by human intervention.
