A Golden Nightmare

By Janine Roberts ©96

 

The angry throng of hundreds of Amungne, Dana and other tribes besieged the airport at the mining settlement of Timika by the Grasberg mountains - in a land controlled by the Indonesian army 4000k west of Jakarta. Here Freeport and RTZ are levelling a snow clad mountain rich in gold, silver and copper. The local inhabitants demanded to see Jim Bob Moffett, the Chairman of Freeport, who was flying in from New Orleans.

The tribespeople said that if he would not see him, if there were no negotiations, they would close the mine down no matter it being the world's biggest gold mine and third biggest copper. Their protest was at first frustrated. The company found a way to smuggle Moffett in without using the airport. When they learnt he was at the Sheraton Hotel they surged towards it but found it protected by a heavily armed wall of Indonesian military. Moffett eventually agreed to receive a delegation.

On these negotiations could hang the future fate of this land inhabited by over 200 tribes of very ancient cultures, alien not only to the West but also to the majority of Indonesians. These people are akin to the Papua-New Guineans of the adjacent state with dark skin and frizzy hair, not at all like the Indonesians of Java. The remoteness of their land from other societies has meant that their cultural inheritance has remained intact. So too has their land. They live in the second largest rainforest after the Amazon, a forest in part protected from easy access by the highest mountain range between the Himalayas and the Andes. It is because one of these snow-clad 14,000 foot peaks has been found to be made up of the world's biggest single gold deposits as well as of much copper and gold that Freeport and RTZ have come into their land.

Forty tribal elders under a heavily armed military escort were allowed into the hotel to meet with Moffett. They brought with them the local Catholic priest. Moffett on his part was surrounded by Army Generals including Brig. General Prabowa, brother- in -law of President Suharto of Indonesia, head of the feared Kompass special troops. Also in attendance was the Chief of the provincial legislative body.

It was not like any other corporate meeting. Moffett, from the deep South bible belt of New Orleans, opened it with a quotation from the bible. He said his left cheek had been slapped, so he was now proffering his right cheek. He said the situation at the mine was like to that of a boil. It had now burst. Blood had come out. He tearfully said he would treat the injury and he was ready to work with the people and completely change the structure of the mine.

Then one of the tribal elders, Mama Yosepha, who had been imprisoned by the army in a Freeport container last year, spoke out. She said in her Amungme language "My son Moffett, in the past I put you inside my noken (a native woven bag used by women to carry babies and piglets), I took you with me wherever I went, but I did not realise that you suck my blood until it is all drained and I remain only bones without flesh. Now, I pick you out of my noken and will throw you far away.' She threw her bag from her and as her words were translated the audience were shocked and tense.

Jim Bob Moffett, again in tears, replied: ' Mama, is there not any way we can have peace. Mama Yosepha remained silent. Then the Executive Director of the Amungme Tribal Council, Andreas Anggaibak, spoke out and said he spoke in the name of the whole 'koteka' community (the koteka is a thin long gourd widely used to cover the penis in Irian Jaya) "The Freeport operation should be shut down." Anggaibak then left the meeting. He says that Brig. General Prabowo followed him out and asked: 'What do you mean by closing Freeport? Do you want to go to war? "Anggaibak answered: ' No sir, we do not want war. We want to negotiate with Freeport.' After a further conversation they returned to the meeting.

Jim Moffett then said to Mama Yosepha: ' Mama, can I be put back inside your nokia?' She replied: 'When I have thrown something, I will not pick it back up again - unless you promise to fulfil our written demands.'

They then presented Moffett with ten demands including the dismantling of the Freeport Security Service, improvement of living conditions, the employment of local people, compensation for certain past environmental damage and for Freeport in future to negotiate all use of tribal land directly with their Tribal Council. It was then agreed that Moffett would answer these demands in 30 days time. In the meantime the mine, shut for the previous 3 days, would resume operations.

Freeport has long been aware of this and has made some efforts to compensate by building medical facilities and houses for the local inhabitants. But it has remained dependent on a military garrison supplied to the mine by the Indonesian government for protection against the OPM independence movement. For the Indonesians it is a golden prize - and is to be protected at all costs.

However in recent months since world wide publicity was given to killings and torture inflicted on the local inhabitants by its military garrison, Freeport has tried to distance itself from the armed forces, painting the vehicles it lends the military a distinctive colour so they will not be seen as Freeport vehicles.

The result of this seems to be that the military have left Freeport to fend for itself in dealing with the tribes. The military showed unaccustomed restraint when the rioting inhabitants wrecked Freeport buildings, airport facilities and vehicles. President Suharto placed the responsibility of improving relations firmly onto Freeport/RTZ's shoulders when he recently said at the opening of a new housing complex at the mine, saying "the absence of the people's support will obstruct the mining operations.'

In 1977 when the tribes attacked the mine blowing up its slurry pipeline through which the ore was sent to the port, the military responded by strafing from the air many villages killing up to 2000 inhabitants. A leader of this attack was Kelly Kwalik who is currently holding 11 hostages including 4 British citizens. He said of Freeport 'The mountains are our women. Freeport by taking our mountain is taking a bride - without paying a bride-price.' Among these people a woman must be paid for with pigs and other prized goods.

The major environmental problem faced by the mine is fundamental to its design. As they demolish this mountain for its riches, they have 130,000 tonnes of waste rock to dispose of every day. The investment of £1.1 billion from RTZ is to be used in part to expand the mine so that in future it will dump 184,000 tonnes a day. They have chosen to remove this waste by dumping it into the fast flowing Aiwa river system that plunges from the 14,000 feet peaks down to the coastal plains some 70 miles below where it spreads out into an extensive delta system of meandering rivers and lakes rich in all forms of life. But the waste is now producing heavy silting in this system, flooding more and more of this forest, killing it. So far over 15 square miles of the forest has died from drowning. Freeport has cut the dead trees to make this less obvious but swathes of dead vegetation are evident to all visitors flying in.

Since some 240 square miles of lowland rainforest will be totally destroyed if no steps were taken to protect it, Freeport has commenced a program of building, Mississippi-style levees along the sides of the Aiwa river system to stop it flooding the plains in the hope this will limit the damage to 50 square miles. So far this has not proved completely successful. This is a land of torrential rains and as fast as the levees are built, the river undermines the banks.

This damage is inevitable if the mine continues to dump all its waste into the river system as current plans are to dump practically the whole mountain they are mining into it in powdered form. Freeport has calculated that to remove this volume of rock any other way would require a fleet of over 4,100 heavy trucks. The company maintains that the waste rock dumped is chemically safe. But the only independent environmental scientists so far to inspect the project, from the US government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation, expressed serious concern last year over toxic heavy metals released from the mine waste.

A lake next to the mine at the top of the mountain has been so severely damaged by copper sulphide leached from the mine works that it is now rocks largely dead and a bright turquoise hue.. It is now being filled in by Freeport. According to a 1994 Freeport study, one of the rivers affected by the project, the Minajerwi, contains levels of copper that exceed US standards for aquatic life.

The indigenous people are in no doubt about this damage...

 

©95;Janine Roberts

 

Tuesday, March 19, 1996

__________________________________

When thousands of troops poured in .

 

___________How a tribal Elder takes on an American Corporation, Freeport_______

 

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