OBITUARY: Widjajono loves mountain till the end
Sunday, April 22 2012 - 05:25 PM WIB
Widjajono Partowidagdo is known to be an avid mountain hiker. He died on Saturday while hiking the famous Mount Tambora on Sumbawa island.
He was buried on Sunday at the San Diego Hills cemetery in Karawang, Banten in a ceremony presided over by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Jero Wacik.
Jero looked clearly sad over the tragic death of his deputy.
?We are burying a national fighter. He was a man who kept low profile but never stopped thinking, talking and doing for the progress of the nation,? teary-eyed Jero said during the burial ceremony, attended by hundreds of people, including the ministry?s officials and oil and gas executives.
Mountain hiking has become a lifelong passion for Widjajono. He climbed the first mountain, that is Mount Gede in West Java, at high school. Ever since, he never resisted any desire to hike other mountains. In an interview with the press, he said he had climbed more than 40 high mountains around the world, including Everest in Nepal, Fuji in Japan, El Bruce in Egypt, Kalimanjaro in Tanzania, Jaya Wijaya in Papua.
Tambora, which is well known around the world for its calamitous eruption in 1815, is the last mountain climbed by Widjajono. According to the reports, he in a 23-strong group arrived at the foot of Tambora on Friday. In the wee hours of Saturday, they started climbing the mountain. At 7.30 a.m. at the height of 2,250 meters, he asked to take a rest several times. Two hours later, he collapsed.
The team carried him back to the foot of the mountain after rescue operation by helicopter failed due to bad weather. He was pronounced dead due to fatigue and lack of oxygen by the local doctor at 3 p.m.
Widjajono was installed as Vice Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources on October 19, 2011, the same day Jero assumed his new position as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources. Analysts then believed that Widjajono had been especially picked up by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to cover up the "weakness? of Jero.
Jero, who was Minister of Culture and Tourism before taking over the leadership of the ministry from Darwin Z. Saleh, had no educational background in mining or petroleum. Meanwhile, Widjajono obtained a doctoral degree on petroleum from the University of Southern California and was a respected professor on petroleum study at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology, where Jero studied mechanical engineering. Widjajono is also member of the respected National Energy Council.
Many people held out an expectation that he would bring solutions to the plentiful problems faced by the oil and gas industry but time was too short for him to do much.
Still, Widjajono, during his short tenure in the ministry, will be remembered as among the key figures that pushed the government to launch energy efficiency program, including the increase in oil fuel prices. The government however recently cancelled the plan to increase the fuel price due widespread protests from the public.
In many occasions, he said Indonesians should stop pretending that Indonesia is rich with oil. The country?s oil reserve has much declined thus the public should use oil more efficiently and efforts of developing alternative energy should be ramped up.