Green activists protest at Dutch embassy
JAKARTA (JP): Some 70 environmental activists staged a peaceful demonstration outside the Dutch embassy here yesterday demanding that the Netherlands take responsibility for containers filled with toxic waste that originated in Rotterdam.
The group complained that a four-person team sent by The Hague to inspect the containers is restricted to only four containers while there are now believed to be dozens piling up at Tanjung Priok port.
The demonstrators, wielding banners and posters condemning the imported waste, said they fear that the team had been as mere lip service to quell Indonesia's criticism and that there was no intention of taking any of the containers back to the Netherlands.
"So far they said they were sent here to examine only four containers owned by Dutch firms and that they have no authority to examine the others," spokesman of the demonstrators Azas Tigor said.
"We hope that the team is not here on a public relations exercise for its government," Azas added.
The demonstrators are representatives from Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) in Jakarta, the Association of Waste Recyclers, the Zero Population Growth Movement, the Analysis Foundation, the Jakarta Social Institute and the Association of Jakarta Solidarity Students.
The group said they believed that at least 17 containers lying unclaimed in Tanjung Priok came from Dutch companies.
The government has been stuck with 260 containers of illegal hazardous waste at Tanjung Priok and the ports in Medan and Surabaya, and is at a loss as to what to do because the countries where the containers originated have shown little inclination to take them back. An earlier proposal to burn the containers was shelved after strong opposition from environmental groups.
Many of these containers arrived after Indonesia imposed an import ban against virtually all forms of hazardous and toxic waste.
The only nation
By sending the team here last week, the Netherlands became thus far the only nation to respond to Indonesia's request to consider taking the containers back.
But the team's members said last week that their mission was simply to inspect four containers that clearly came from Dutch companies and added that many of those that came from Rotterdam were transshipments from other ports.
I.E.M.G. Roos, Counselor for Culture and Press at the Dutch embassy, who received the demonstrators yesterday, said The Hague was taking the issue seriously.
Roos said the Dutch team, which is still in the country, found that more than four containers of hazardous and toxic waste came from the Netherlands.
The embassy is sending someone to follow up on this and will file its report with the Dutch government, he said.
The demonstrators said they also found that some 70 of the unclaimed containers originated from the Netherlands, but the papers did not specify whether they came from Dutch companies or were simply transshipments through Rotterdam from other countries.
Tigor, who chairs the Jakarta Social Institute, said the protesters plan to hold similar demonstrations at other embassies whose governments should take responsibility for the containers.
"We have established that at least five containers came from Germany, 21 from Singapore and one from Japan." he said. (prs)