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)