Again, high profile figures turn down Bakrie Award

Arghea Desafti Hapsari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 07/29/2010 9:34 AM

Noted poet Sitor Situmorang and social scientist Daoed Joesoef, also former education and culture minister, have joined a group of intellectuals who refused to receive the Achmad Bakrie Award.

Sitor was named a winner for the award this year for his exceptional works in literature and Daoed for his contribution to social thinking.

This has added to the list of high-profile figures who turned down the award. Earlier in June, poet, journalist and cultural critic Goenawan Mohamad returned the same award he was presented in 2004.

In 2007, Catholic intellectual Rev. Franz Magnis-Suseno declined to receive the award because of Bakrie’s connection to a mudflow disaster in Sidoarjo, East Java.

Scientists have blamed the mudflow on PT Lapindo Brantas, a company owned by the Bakrie Group, controlled by Aburizal Bakrie’s family.

Nong Darol Mahmada, program manager of the Freedom Institute, the organizer of the Achmad Bakrie Award, said Daoed had declined receiving the award immediately.

“After our judges concluded the winners in late June, we traveled to his house in Kemang to share the news… It was then [that he declined],” she told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Sitor, she added, sent the organizer an email stating his refusal in mid July. The senior poet now resides in the Netherlands.

Nong, however, refused to detail the reasons expressed by either Daoed or Sitor for declining

the award, which comes with a trophy and Rp 250 million in prize money, up from last year’s Rp 150 million.

In late June, Goenawan said he could not help but associate the award with the recent controversies surrounding businessman Aburizal Bakrie, son of Achmad Bakrie.

Nong said Daoed and Sitor’s refusals would not affect the eight-year-old award.

“We will continue with what we are doing… for years to come, because this kind of award is very rare in Indonesia,” she said, adding that the organizer sought to add new award categories each year and increase the prize money.

She also said the other four winners had confirmed they were to receive the award in a ceremony to be held on Aug. 5 at the Balai Sarbini convention hall in Jakarta.

This year’s award will be presented to S. Yati Soenarto, who will be awarded for her outstanding research in health and Sjamsoe’oed Sadjad for his breakthroughs in technology.

Daniel Murdiyarso, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will also be awarded for his achievements in science, while Ratno Nuryadi will receive a special prize for developing an atomic force microscope.