Walhi to sue govt over Bahorok flood

Walhi to sue govt over Bahorok flood

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra

The government is being sued for allegedly failing to stop the
rampant illegal logging that caused a recent flash flood in North
Sumatra, in which more than 150 people were killed and another
100 others are still missing.

Indonesian Forum on Environment (Walhi) executive director
Longgena Ginting said Wednesday that the lawsuit would be
submitted to a court in Jakarta or North Sumatra in the near
future.

"The lawsuit will be filed against the forestry minister, the
Gunung Leuser National Park office, the Langkat administration
and possibly the Leuser Management Unit," he told The Jakarta
Post in Medan, North Sumatra.

He said the legal action was expected to prove that the Nov. 2
flood, which devastated a popular resort town in Bahorok
subdistrict, Langkat, was caused by deforestation due to illegal
logging in the national park.

In this case, the government failed to carry out its task of
preventing the destruction of the Leuser ecosystem, he added.

Longgena argued that Presidential Instruction No. 5/2001
requires the government to take charge of protecting national
parks, but it failed to do so.

"The most responsible for the Bahorok flood is the forestry
minister on behalf of the government," he said after a meeting
with executives of Walhi's office in Medan.

The meeting also discussed a plan to mobilize support from
families of the flood victims for a class action suit against the
government.

Longgena said he and other Walhi executives would visit
Bahorok to seek letters of power from the victims to file the
class action.

The flood was partly blamed on a controversial road project
called Ladia Galaska, whose design covers a section of the
protected park.

Walhi said on Monday that it was also pursuing its lawsuit
against Aceh Governor Abdullah Puteh in relation to the
construction of Ladia Galaska, in order to stop the project.

It suggests that the project, which failed an environmental
impact assessment, could easily be replaced by a railway, which
would not cause as much environmental damage, because illegal
loggers could not readily use a train for their activities.

Walhi turned down an offer from the Aceh administration to
settle the matter out of court because the latter "is not
serious."

"Some 30 percent of the road construction has been completed
and it's getting closer to the protected forest," Walhi's lawyer
Bambang Antariksa said.

Like Walhi, other organizations also oppose the project as 160
kilometers of the planned 505-kilometer-long road cuts through
the national park.

On Oct. 3, Walhi filed lawsuits against the Aceh governor, the
Aceh settlement and regional infrastructure agency and the Aceh
council for the construction of the road network, which is to
link the west and east coasts of northern Sumatra.

North Sumatra forestry office head Prie Supriadi said on
Wednesday the government was ready to face Walhi's legal action.

Longgena said that between 1994 and Sept. 2003, Walhi had
lodged around 50 deforestation cases against government officials
across Indonesia, including a suit filed against the government
for failing to prevent a flash flood that killed at least 26
people in Mojokerto regency, East Java in 2002.