Rights body handles high voltage woe

Rights body handles high voltage woe

JAKARTA (JP): The human rights body has promised to bring to
its April meeting with Coordinating Minister for Political
Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman the complaint of some
North Sulawesi villagers on the installment of high voltage
transmission cables over their homes.

Commission member Roekmini Koesoemo Astoety, who once
expressed amazement that the body has to handle complaints
ranging from killing and torture to transmission cables, said it
will also discuss the matter with Governor E.E. Mangindaan.

"Development is for the people, and if people can't accept
some aspects of the development, everybody concerned should find
out why," she said.

More than 120 Kaneyan villagers in Minahasa regency earlier
this month lodged a complaint to the Commission over the
installment by the state-owned electricity company PLN of the
transmission over their houses.

Yesterday, a number of non-governmental organizations met with
Roekmini to urge that the Commission handle the complaint soon.
The groups included the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI)
and the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID).

Representatives of the villagers, Robby Pongkorung and Erens
Manembu, said in their letter to the Commission that PLN promised
last year to remove the transmission cables, but failed to do so.
Officials have not responded to the complaints, either.

Robby, however, said the Ministry of Health has written to
them testifying to the negative impact of electricity fields on
human health.

The Kaneyan villagers also complained about the involvement of
local police and military officers in the case.

There have been a number of similar cases brought to the
Commission over the past several years, including those in the
East Java town of Gresik, in Bandung, West Java, and in Cileduk
district, Tangerang.

In the last case, residents of a housing complex protested the
electricity company's plan to erect 500 kilovolt cables over
their houses in 1991. The plan was eventually scrapped.

In Gresik, some 92 residents filed a lawsuit in 1994 against
the government and PLN for erecting high voltage electricity
cables over their homes, causing severe distress and health
hazards. Among the health complaints often cited by residents
were headaches, insomnia and other illnesses. (31)