Police begin quizzing Cimahi dump management officials

Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung

The Cimahi Police have started questioning officials in charge of the Leuwigajah dump in south Cimahi, where mountains of garbage collapsed on Monday killing 67 people.

A total of 89 others are still missing.

Heavy rain at the disaster scene made things even more difficult for rescue teams on Thursday, with the chief of the Cimahi district military command, Lt. Col. Achmad Syaefudin, saying that Monday was the deadline for the winding up of the rescue work.

Cimahi Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Irwanto said his officers had started questioning the officials after the West Java environment agency, with assistance from the Office of the State Minister for the Environment, kicked off a separate investigation into the cause of the disaster and the effects of pollution from the dump on those living in surrounding areas.

Previously, West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Edi Darnadi said the police would not be able to investigate the case until they had received a complaint from one or more of the victims.

"We're questioning the management of the dump, and officials from the sanitation offices in Cimahi municipality and Bandung regency, as well as the Bandung municipal sanitation firm, PD Kebersihan, as these three bodies were responsible for managing the dumping at the site," Irwanto told The Jakarta Post in Cimahi on Thursday.

Apart from the officials from the sanitation offices, the police had also questioned four Cilimus residents as witnesses in the case.

The head of the Cimahi police detectives, Adj. Comr. Slamet Uliandi, said the police, assisted by investigators from the provincial environment office and the environment ministry, not only wanted to find out whether there had been unlawful taking of life as defined by article 359 of the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in jail, but also whether there had been any violations of the Environment Protection Law (No. 23 of 1997).

Slamet said the involvement of environmental investigators was permitted under article 40 of the Environment Protection Law, which says that apart from the police, authorized officers from the environment office can act as investigators in such cases.

He said that local people had long been complaining about air pollution and ground contamination emanating from the dump.

"So, we'll investigate this, along with the causes of the disaster ... as well as finding out about the reported explosion of methane gas that is believed to have triggered the garbage slide," Slamet said.

The police would also scrutinize the dump's permits and environmental impact analysis (EIA), while the officers from the environment office would take pollution readings in the areas surrounding the dump.

The first witness, the head of the sanitation unit in Cimahi municipality, Sutisna Sumantri, said he did not know whether the dump had the necessary permits or an EIA, and continued to insist that the dump had only been in operation since 2004.

He said that he was not solely responsible for running the dump as it also received garbage from Bandung municipality and Bandung regency.

PD Kebersihan director Awan Gumelar, who was questioned by police on Thursday, also said he knew nothing about the dump's permits or EIA.

"I just continued to use the existing system. I don't know anything about permits or the EIA," said Awan.

When asked about surface dumping at the dump, which was in violation of the requirement to employ the sanitary landfill system, he once again pleaded ignorance. He also said he had no knowledge of what preventative measures had been taken, if any, to reduce pollution from the dump.

"That's only theory (the landfill system) and it's hard to put into practice. The garbage is dumped. The disaster happened, and that's it. We will take it as a lesson to run the dump much better in the future. I'm not worried about (the police) questioning. I'm much more worried about the garbage piling up on the city's streets," he said defiantly.

Slamet said the police would not make a statement on the outcome of the investigation to date, saying it could take up to two weeks before a final decision was made on further action in the case.