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SAN FRANCISCO, Mar. 13 (IPS) - Riots involving several thousand indigenous people in Irian Jaya, the eastern-most island of Indonesia, have caused the US operators of the world's largest gold mine to temporarily shut down operations.
Freeport McMoRan confirmed Tuesday that the company was continuing a "precautionary shutdown" which began Sunday afternoon of ore extraction and processing at the mine site.
The copper and gold mine is situated high up in the rugged Grasberg mountains of western New Guinea. The western part of the island was named Irian Jaya by Indonesia which took control of the area in late 1960's. The eastern half of New Guinea is the country of Papua New Guinea.
"Due to continuing vandalism and sporadic violence in Timika (the nearest major town in the lowlands) Freeport has continued its shutdown," says Greg Probst, Freeport's spokesman at the company's New Orleans headquarters.
"(However) concentrate (ore) loading is continuing at the port of Amamepare despite the shutdown. Tempagapura, the company mining town (located just below the mine some 85 kilometres north of Timika), was quiet on Tuesday evening. We expect to resume normal operations shortly," he told IPS.
Freeport has been under fire in recent months for widespread damage to local sago forests allegedly caused by the 130,000 tonnes of "tailings" (mining waste) that are dumped into local rivers every day.
Indonesian army personnel guarding the mine have
also come under severe criticism for massacring 37 people last
year.
Last month courts in Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya,
found army officials guilty of ordering troops to shoot local villagers.
Activists in Irian Jaya who are in contact with the protestors read a statement to IPS over the phone. "We fight against Jim Bob Moffett, (the chief executive officer of Freeport), Freeport and the government. We fight because our rights are not recognised, our resources are extracted and destroyed while our lives are taken," said the statement.
The latest spate of trouble started brewing last Friday when William Kogoya, a Dani tribesman from the village of Waa, was knocked down by a Freeport vehicle near Tembagapura. Some reports claim that Kogoya was beaten and tossed into a creek where he was later found by a Freeport expatriate worker.
"Yes, a man named Kogoya was taken to the hospital after an accident and treated for his injuries and then released," says Probst. Rumours spread rapidly that Kogoya had died stirring unrest among the local people. Two of his relatives Guarimo and Binut were reportedly denied access to the hospital.
Events escalated on the weekend. "We heard that a woman and her son, from the village of Banti were pushed out of a shopping centre in the mine site on Sunday by Freeport security officials," a local human rights activist, who asked not to be named, told IPS by telephone from Irian Jaya.
"They were very scared and they tried to run. One of them fell and was bleeding in the head. They returned to Banti, which is about five minutes drive from Tembagapura to tell other villagers."
"A crowd of men, women children who were really mad marched to Tembagapura at about noon to confront the Freeport security," said the activist who estimated that there were some 3,000 protestors. Other reports suggest that there were about 200 protestors.
"They were armed with bows, arrows, sticks and stones and they attacked the security office. The violence continued on Monday morning when they attacked offices, schools and the shopping centre breaking windows, throwing out files and computers and damaging cars. Seven security guards were injured."
On Tuesday protestors took to the streets of Timika where they reportedly commandered Freeport buses and bulldozers. "One group proceeded to the airport and the Sheraton hotel (which is owned by Freeport) and the environmental laboratory," said the activist.
"They were met by army troops who prevented them from going any further. Some army troops also joined the protestors. Meanwhile another group proceeded to Kuala Kencana," he added.
Kuala Kencana (which means valley of gold) is a new Freeport company town currently being constructed some eight kilometres from the airport. A computer bulletin issued by Tapol, a Netherlands-based Indonesian dissident group, says that "thousands of people ran riot (in Kuala Kencana), attacking security offices and company buildings where they ransacked filing cupboards and smashed computers."
"They then moved on to the luxury departmental store where they again caused extensive damage. Nothing was able to stop the onslaught; our source says that the angry crowds were unstoppable," adds the report.
"I'm afraid that I cannot comment on the situation in Timika or Banti but I don't think there were any activities in Kuala Kencana," Probst told IPS.
Probst confirmed that some "windows" and "testing equipment" were damaged at the Timika laboratory but denied a Reuters reports that a petrol dump was set on fire. He also said that he had not heard of alleged damage to equipment in a Petrosea workshop (a Freeport construction sub-contractor).
"It's like civil war. The army sent in over 500 new troops from Jayapura. Two people Jacob Makuker from Biak and Otis Tabuni, a Dani man, were wounded yesterday in Timika," another activist told IPS.
"The protestors are waiting at the airport because we have heard that Jim Bob will arrive at ten tonight (Tuesday)," he added. Probst refused to comment on the whereabouts of Moffett.
This is the second time that protests in Irian Jaya have made inter-national headlines this year. On Jan. 8 guerillas from Organisasi Papua Merdeka (the Free Papua Movement) kidnapped a group of British, Dutch and Indonesian environmentalists in an attempt to win publicity for their cause. The hostages, who are being held in the dense forests that cover most of island, have yet to be released.
Fourth World Bulletin • Spring/Summer 1996
Copyright © 1996 by the Fourth World Center
Created by Aigis Communications, Ltd