[Kabar-Irian] Irian News - 3/13/03 (Part 1 of 2)

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- Freeport paid TNI US$5.6m in 'protection money': report 
- Govt to monitor Papua, Aceh budgets 
- Harsh Reality in West Papua
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The Jakarta Post.com
Latest News
3/13/2003 7:58:28 PM
Freeport paid TNI US$5.6m in 'protection money': report 

Jakarta (JP): The U.S. Freeport company paid the Indonesian military (TNI) 
about US$5.6 million last year to protect employees of its giant copper and 
gold mine in Papua province, according to a report released Thursday.

The TNI, which is combating a sporadic and low-level separatist revolt in 
Papua, has been accused of widespread abuses in the province, including the 
killing of pro-independence leader Theys Eluay.

Freeport-McMoran Copper et Gold Inc disclosed the figure in a confidential 
document sent to the New York City comptroller's office and to the US 
Securities and Exchange Commission, said the report by AFX Global Ethics 
Monitor, a new service from AFP.

Freeport also said that in 2001 it paid the military $4.7 million for the 
employment of about 2,300 "Indonesian government security personnel".

The money covered costs for housing, fuel, travel and vehicle repairs for the 
military, Freeport wrote in the document.

It also paid 400,000 dollars in 2002 for "associated infrastructure" in 
Indonesia, according to the document.

It said Freeport filed the document in response to a shareholder resolution 
filed by a group of New York's public pension funds earlier this year. This 
requests more information about Freeport's presence in Indonesia because of 
allegations of human rights abuses by the military. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
National News
March 14, 2003
Govt to monitor Papua, Aceh budgets 
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The central government is making another attempt to reduce the authority of 
autonomous Aceh and Papua by setting up an assistance team to supervise the use 
of the regional budget in those two provinces.

Citing the large amount of money that the two resource-rich provinces will get 
under the arrangements outlined in the special autonomy package, Minister of 
Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said on Thursday that the funds would be prone to 
abuse by both Acehnese and Papuan officials. 

"Since we allocated a huge amount of money to them, we have the right to 
supervise its use," Hari said after a limited Cabinet meeting on Thursday. 

Under the arrangements made in the special autonomy, the two provinces were 
given the authority to draw up plans on how to spend their respective budgets 
while taking into account the needs of locals. 

"The two provinces have submitted their budgets with programs to the central 
government and we want to see whether or not those programs will improve the 
welfare of locals," Hari said. 

During the 2002 fiscal year, Aceh received Rp 2.2 trillion from the general 
allocation fund, and another Rp 1.87 trillion from the profit sharing of oil 
and gas revenue. 

For the 2003 fiscal year, the province will get a total of Rp 2.3 trillion from 
the general allocation fund, while the profit sharing will revolve around last 
year's figure. 

Papua, on the other hand, received a total of Rp 1.3 trillion from the general 
allocation fund in 2002. That amount went up to Rp 1.5 trillion in 2003. 

In addition, the province got Rp 663 billion from profit sharing of the oil and 
gas revenue in 2002 and about the same amount in 2003. 

"The two provinces have a lot of money because of special autonomy. We would 
like to see that money improve people's welfare," Hari said. 

The assistance team, Hari said, would consist of interdepartmental officials so 
that regional offices could not refuse the supervision. 

He denied allegations that Jakarta was trying to intervene in the provinces' 
internal affairs, saying that the central government was just making sure that 
education, health and other public service sectors received a sufficient amount 
of the regional budget. 

President Megawati Soekarnoputri is known for her resentment of the 
implementation of regional autonomy in the country, which was officially 
imposed by former president Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000. 

Megawati, who took over the national leadership in July 2001 after members of 
the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) impeached then president Abdurrahman 
Wahid for incompetence, had tried to amend the Regional Autonomy law. 

She has blasted regional officials for what she said was their failure to 
improve people's welfare, one of the original purposes of the implementation of 
regional autonomy. 

On Monday, Megawati reminded regional governments of the need to improve public 
services, citing that the main purpose of the implementation of regional 
autonomy was to ensure people's welfare. 

"Regions must remember that stronger authority means a heavier obligation, not 
just more rights," Megawati said while opening a seminar for the revitalization 
of Sangihe and Talaud regencies. 

The Special Autonomy laws were issued for Papua and Aceh to appease the Papuans 
and Acehnese, who had long been disappointed with government policies in their 
provinces. 

According to the law, the central government has the right to run several 
issues, such as defense, currency, foreign affairs and other fiscal policies. 

"Jakarta is aware of the presence of local councils and the BPKP, but sometimes 
it takes more than the two agencies to ensure the effectiveness of allocating 
the budget for locals," Hari said. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.etan.org/etanpdf/icwa/cg-22.pdf
Southeast Asia
Harsh Reality in West Papua
November 1, 2002
By Curt Gabrielson

Jakarta, Indonesia–My partner Pamela and I spent three weeks in West Papua 
during the month of October. We visited the north-coast capital, Jayapura, the 
central-highland town of Wamena, and the small town of Timika on the south 
coast near the enormous Freeport gold and copper mines. We visited many 
grassroots groups and talked to dozens of people. We found that West Papuans 
are living under the heavy heel of the same military forces that ravaged East 
Timor. They fear for their lives as they work under the shadow of oblique 
intimidation and unexplained deaths. They are desperate for peace and self-
determination. And they made it very clear that we as Americans are key to 
their hope for a better future.

The island of New Guinea is extraordinary. At a latitude of zero to ten degrees 
south, this world’s second-largest island contains vast mangrove swamps, 
jungles covering mountains and river flatland, fertile highland valleys and 
rocky mountains complete with glaciers.

The biodiversity of species existing in these environs is staggering: 200 
mammal, 725 bird, 5,000 butterfly and moth, and nearly 100,000 other insect 
species residing in a wide variety of ecosystems make the island an extremely 
important biological resource. Cultural and linguistic wealth and diversity on 
the island are also astonishing. It has been estimated that one-sixth of the 
earth’s languages occur on New Guinea, and civilization has been thriving there 
continuously for around 40,000 years. The wonders of this land have been well 
recorded in countless travel journals, anthropological documents, and photo 
collections. Suffice it to say that traveling there was non-stop stimulation 
for our minds and senses.

Superimposed on this set of geo-bio-cultural superlatives is a complex and 
increasingly dangerous political situation. The eastern half of the island is 
the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. The western half, previously known 
as Irian Jaya, and currently called Papua or West Papua, is a province of 
Indonesia. With a land the size of California, Papua’s population is slightly 
over two million, with just under half originating from other areas in 
Indonesia. Papuans are different from their mostly Javanese rulers in culture, 
language, religion and history. They generally do not feel an “Indonesian” 
identity; they have no interest in being Indonesian. The story of how they came 
to be ruled from Jakarta is one of colonial conquest and post-WWII power 
grabbing, in which the US played a large role.

For hundreds of years the Dutch occupied the coastal regions of Papua and 
administered these trade outposts separate from the Dutch East Indies (now 
Indonesia). Dutch missionaries made contact with many of the peoples of this 
Dutch New Guinea, trying to “civilize” and convert them.(1) Japanese soldiers 
gained control of the north coast of Papua during WWII, and after MacArthur’s 
forces rooted them out, the northern city of Jayapura (then called Hollandia) 
was used as an important Allied base for the rest of the war. After the war, 
Sukarno’s forces fought for independence on Java, and then tried to gain 
control of all previous Dutch holdings. Despite Jakarta’s rattling saber, 
throughout the 1950s the Dutch continued to administer Papua and prepare 
Papuans for their own independence.

This was not to be. The US feared regional instability and various sources 
within the US pressed President Kennedy to put Papua into Indonesian hands. 
Under US guidance, the Netherlands and Indonesia came to a settlement at the UN 
under the New York Agreement of 1962. This agreement put a temporary UN 
authority in Papua, then handed the half-island over to Indonesia by mid 1963. 
This was to be a tentative administration, contingent on an additional 
condition of the New York Agreement, which stated that the Papuan people must 
be given a chance to choose their own destiny — to be part of Indonesia or to 
found an independent state — in a popular “consultation.”

This consultation took place in 1969, but was hardly popular. By that time 
Indonesia had gained enough control over Papua to scrap the idea of a general 
vote in favor of a consultation of “people’s delegates.” At the “Act of Free 
Choice” (commonly referred to by Papuans as the “Act of No Choice”) 1,025 
handpicked Papuan Indonesia supporters voted unanimously for integration within 
Indonesia. Many were severely intimidated and/ or paid for their vote. Fifteen 
nations, official UN observers to the Act and many Papuan organizations decried 
the referendum as a sham, but with significant US pressure, the international 
community accepted the results. All attempts within the UN to revisit or 
nullify the 1969 act have failed.

Since 1969, the plunder of Papua’s rich resources has accelerated, with nearly 
all profits carried away from the island. Military and police repression has 
removed any obstacles to these commercial exploitations — often military- owned 
companies are leading the way. Some church groups estimate that since 1961, 
400,000 people have been killed or disappeared. Murder, torture, rape, summary 
detentions and destruction of villages continue to this day.

In addition, close to one million non-Papuans have been moved from other parts 
of Indonesia to Papua since 1969, some voluntarily, some under Indonesia’s 
enormous World Bank-supported transmigration program. Great sections of forest 
have been cleared for transmigrant villages.

Since residents of these new colonies have a much different culture than 
Papuans residing in neighboring villages, and the transmigrants’ land was 
carved directly from areas used by these Papuans, the violence and chaos that 
have resulted are no surprise.

Violence and chaos are very important for the Indonesian military and police. 
If all were peaceful, there would be no need for “security.” Thus, a well-honed 
strategy by Indonesian armed forces is to create instability on the sly and 
then call for more forces to “maintain peace.” These increased forces are then 
used to repress the local population and further military goals, both economic 
and political. Most of the Papuan self-determination movement has chosen a 
militantly nonviolent strategy to combat this trend. In 2000, leaders of the 
Papuan resistance called for a cease-fire they claim the resistance has honored 
until today. The same can not be claimed by the Indonesian military. Military 
officials have repeatedly promised to increase their repression and violent 
methods if there continues to be a push for self-determination.

Just as we arrived in Jayapura, a peace conference was being held, hosted by 
the local government, the regional Indonesian police division and ELSHAM, a 
prominent human-rights group in Papua. The goal was to discuss the 
establishment of a “Zone of Peace” in Papua. 

Several of the Papuans who organized and participated in the conference 
explained to us that the police and local government were happy to have a part 
in the conference so that they could build an image of working toward a 
solution. ELSHAM and other Papuan groups wanted the conference to make public 
the major issues of violence in Papua and to initiate an open dialogue.  
Conference participants included rights groups from Jakarta, university 
representatives, scholars from abroad, Indonesian Navy officials, members of 
local churches and mosques, and women’s development organizations. The 
Indonesian Army refused to join the conference — one explanation given to a 
local organization was that the army views peace zones as a pro-independence 
tool. 

The conference was the beginning of a longer dialogue. Participants widely 
agreed that peace is necessary and plans were made for additional events to 
promote the Zone of Peace.

We were impressed by the women’s groups attending the conference. Participants 
from these groups are very vocal, and by many accounts, “pure.” Both men and 
women explained to us that men have more connections to the Indonesian 
government systems and that many men cave in under pressure or payoffs, or are 
afraid to speak the truth. Women, they explained, are free of this kind of 
manipulation and will speak clearly about the current situation and what needs 
to be done. This is good news, because the status of women in many Papuan 
cultures is very low. Women’s groups we talked to were very clear about the 
fact that the political change Papuans are looking for in their government must 
be accompanied by social change at home. One women’s leader from Wamena even 
said that if men do not agree to change their treatment of women, she would not 
assist them in the fight for self-determination. This is significant in that 
women’s organizations in Papua are of high strategic value, just as they were 
in pre-independence East Timor, because the authorities dismiss them as trivial 
and overlook their vital contributions to the clandestine struggle.

“Struggle” may seem to us Westerners to be a vague, abstract description of the 
activities of those seeking freedom in far-away places. For me in Papua, it 
took on a new meaning of harsh reality. In Wamena we met a member of the Papuan 
Presidium, a board of Papuans from various regions and groups working for 
Papuan self-determination. (The Presidium was founded in July 1998 after 
Indonesian soldiers massacred 100 peaceful pro-independence demonstrators on 
Biak Island off the north coast of Papua.) David (2) was jailed for six months 
following a separate incident of violence in Wamena in 2000. When locals raised 
the Papuan flag, Indonesian soldiers came and chainsawed the flagpole down and 
shot several Papuans at the site. When outraged Papuans from all over the 
region poured into Wamena armed with bows and arrows, some military personnel 
hid in houses of the Indonesian civilians. Papuans burned many houses to flush 
them out and killed around two dozen Indonesians before rain came to calm the 
scene. David was accused of helping to organize the flag raising and fomenting 
violence. He is still not free to leave the town, and was thus unable to 
participate in the peace conference. 

Talking with activists from Papua made us acutely aware of the danger in their 
everyday lives. Many times they would look over their shoulders, speak in ultra-
low tones and want to meet in special, safe places. Daniel drove us aimlessly 
around Jayapura as he described the hardships he has encountered investigating 
the death of Presidium Leader Theys Eluay. One night last October, Theys died 
by strangulation in his car on an empty stretch of highway. Much cover-up and 
official propaganda confounded the investigation, but now several members of 
Kopassus, the Indonesian military’s special forces, are being tried for his 
murder. Daniel’s organization, Kontras, which is a national Indonesian 
organization dedicated to locating missing persons and supporting their 
families, has received phone threats, and his motorcycle was torn apart one 
night outside his home. 

Arthur, also from Jayapura was investigating the December 2000 “Abepura 
Incident” in which several students were killed by military forces, when he 
found his name was on the police’s wanted list for being an “enemy of the 
state.” (3) This charge carries with it a jail term of 25 years, but even more 
frightening, the first person on the list had already disappeared. Arthur was 
naturally quite worried. Thanks to uncanny good fortune, he had just been 
accepted in a program to study abroad, so he fled to Jakarta and hid in a 
friend’s house for a month while his visa was processed, then escaped to 
England for a year.(4) Back again, he continues to work doggedly for the human 
rights of Papuans.

It is important to realize that jail is not a safe place in Indonesia. Benny 
Wenda, a man accused of inciting an attack on a police station in Abepura in 
2000 has been held in jail in Papua for several months on unclear charges. His 
supporters claim that police have denied him food and water for up to four days 
straight, left him in a cell with no toilet and no bed for many days, and not 
dealt with his ongoing sicknesses. The day we left Papua, the police suddenly 
reported Benny missing. Papuans fear he has been taken by the armed forces, 
while authorities claim he has escaped. Human-rights lawyers working on his 
case published statements to put the responsibility for Wenda’s safety firmly 
with the police since this pattern is frighteningly familiar. Many leaders of 
the Papuan resistance and even human-rights workers have died or disappeared 
permanently while being held in prison.

As we visited with these activists in their homes or offices, we often saw 
pictures hanging on the wall of their friends and fellow resistance members who 
had been killed or disappeared. These were constant reminders that for these 
activists the struggle may well result in death.

Stories of these remarkable activists came to us every day. George, a nurse in 
Wamena, is working on building consensus among local tribal leaders about what 
they would like to see in Papua’s new “Special Autonomy” package. When 
Indonesian President Suharto was forced from power in 1998, his successors B.J. 
Habibie and Abdurrachman Wahid (Gus Dur) gave more attention to the 
difficulties in Papua. Jakarta proposed “Special Autonomy” and then gave the 
status to the province in 2000. The name was officially changed from Irian Jaya 
to Papua in accordance with local wishes. More locals were slated to be placed 
in local government and a scheme was set up to divert more revenue from 
companies operating in Papua to Papuan communities. Representatives from 
Jakarta met with groups like the Presidium and appeared to listen, at least 
more than in the past. President Wahid even gave permission for the Papuan flag 
to be flown (though often the local military did not honor this permission).

George is not satisfied with “Special Autonomy,” but he is trying to work 
within its laws to gain more freedom. While George’s current activities are 
entirely within the law of Indonesia, he has encountered extreme intimidation 
and threats on his life from Indonesian armed forces. His office is 
sometimes “swept” by police, and he showed us a document that he printed out 
and then erased from his computer because they check that too. The document 
said nothing about a free Papua or the independence struggle. Rather, it was 
documentation of long hard discussions among tribal leaders to determine a 
unified stance on various social and political ideas to be included under 
the “Special Autonomy.” This is what locals are supposed to be doing under the 
new system. Yet George knew that it was dangerous. He explained to us 
that “Special Autonomy” is a smoke screen for increased repression, and 
continued to look over his shoulder every time he heard an unusual noise 
outside.

A very articulate man we met as we were treking around the mountainous area 
near Wamena, Matteus, had a different analogy. After some initial small talk, 
he told us of his work in coordinating resistance. He said “Special Autonomy” 
is like candy for a whining kid: all sugar but no substance. But Papua is not a 
whining kid, he said,  and Papuans don’t want candy. They want the freedom to 
determine their own lives, to benefit from their own resources and to get out 
from under the repression that Indonesia has imposed on them.

We learned that in remote mountain villages near where Matteus lives, 
repression is not so ever-present as once was. While not many valuable 
resources exist to be extracted, Wamena gets 6,000 foreign tourists a year, 
mostly for trekking around the fantastic mountains. This is a significant 
resource that could well increase with the right advertising, but not in the 
face of frightening human-rights problems. This could explain the military’s 
relaxed hold in the past few years. Do Papuans in these areas still want 
independence? “One hundred percent of them,” said George. “Not ninety-nine; one 
hundred percent.” Those who say otherwise are either scared or being paid off.

Matteus pointed out to us one set of villages reputed to be “pro-autonomy.” We 
later learned that they were some of the “people’s delegates” paid to vote for 
Indonesia in 1969, and who continue to receive material benefits from their 
alliance. Matteus explained that even if the Indonesian government let the 
Papuan mountain people live in peace according to their traditions, it was too 
late. There is tight solidarity with tribes in regions that are still being 
repressed, and every Papuan knows that Indonesia is heisting resources for 
export the length and breadth of Papua. They will not be satisfied until they 
achieve self-determination. We were led to believe Matteus’ statements when we 
found information on international-solidarity efforts with Papua in a village a 
full day’s walk from Wamena.

Some Papuan leaders believe “Special Autonomy” can be used constructively to 
pave a path to self-determination. Many want to ensure a slow, gradual process 
of change, avoiding the military-led destruction suffered by East Timor. (5) 
But the current Indonesian president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the armed 
forces that hold perhaps more power than she does, are strongly opposed to any 
substantive discussions about true self-determination. 

John Rumbiak, one of the directors of ELSHAM, says the issue is “recognition, 
respect and justice,” and that Jakarta is just “not willing to have a 
dialogue.” In various places, we viewed leaked documents lending great 
credibility to this viewpoint. One Indonesian State Department document from 
2000 showed a diagram of Papuan society with “dangerous” groups highlighted. 
These groups included nearly the entire society: churches, mosques, non-
governmental organizations, civic leaders, students, women, human-rights 
workers, etc. A leaked police document we saw warned that human-rights 
organizations are a front for the independence movement, and must be stopped. 
The police showed the head of ELSHAM Wamena a list with his name on it, 
accusing him of being part of a Christian terrorist group of which he knew 
nothing.

On the surface “Special Autonomy” is presented as a compromise solution to the 
concerns of the Papuans, but underneath, “Special Autonomy” is a chance to 
identify any Papuan actively working for self-determination, and then to 
eliminate them. (6) So many prominent Papuans have disappeared or died under 
suspect circumstances in the past few years, that it is easy to come to this 
conclusion.

Recent Papuan history amounts to a staccato of decisions and mandates from 
Jakarta and the scurrying of Papuans to make the most strategic reaction to 
these new circumstances against an everpresent background of killing and 
intimidation by the Indonesian armed forces. It is a bizarre, treacherous game. 
While in Jayapura, we witnessed an enormous protest, composed mostly of 
students, at the provincial government building compound. We found that Jakarta 
has recently hatched a plan to divide West Papua into three separate districts. 
Many hundreds of students occupied the compound, denounced the division plan 
and refused to leave until leaders gave their word that they would reject the 
plan. The local provincial leaders gave a favorable response, and the news as I 
write is that they continued to side with the students. We saw police directing 
traffic around the protest and facilitating the students’ entrance to the 
compound, but how many Kopassus agents were present, and which student leaders 
have now been tagged for intimidation or elimination? Papuan activists we 
talked to remarked that this was very much the recent pattern, but were intent 
on continued action.

The situation in general is not encouraging. Both the head of police, Made 
Manku Pastika, and the head of the military in Papua, Mahidin Simbolon, were 
involved in East Timor’s recent, bitter history. Simbolon is known to have much 
experience in setting up local pro-Jakarta militias such as those that killed 
so many and caused so much damage in East Timor. Now he is at work in Papua.  
ELSHAM reports three different pro-Jakarta militias receiving police support 
and training in the Wamena area alone. These militias terrorize civic leaders 
and humanrights activists. ELSHAM reports rape, killing of livestock, 
destruction and theft of property, and intimidation by militias in several 
communities around Wamena. 

Chaos is the military’s friend. Near Timika, three teachers from Freeport’s 
international school were killed in a roadside ambush on August 31, 2002. One 
was Indonesian, and two were US citizens. A priest in Timika explained how 
there was no possible way that this was the work of OPM (Organisasi Papua 
Merdeka or Free Papua Movement), the guerilla freedom fighters that the 
military immediately blamed. (7) First of all, like other Papuans, the 
guerillas desperately want foreign support. Second, the attack took place only 
a short distance from a military post — unthinkable strategy for the OPM. 
Third, the Papuan man killed by Indonesian armed forces on the day of the 
attack and accused of the crime has a medical condition which enlarged his 
testicles to the size of softballs so that he could hardly walk across the 
room. The official autopsy report also showed that he was killed before the 
attack took place. Fourth, the bullets killing the teachers were from a US-
supplied M-16 rifle, which the OPM can only dream of obtaining, but which is 
standard issue for the Indonesian military. The case has yet to come to trial, 
but even the local police are now fingering the military.

The previous week, while we were in Jayapura, we met a very scared eyewitness 
to the attack, who had been hiding out for nearly two months. He was with 
Kopassus during the hit and saw an Indonesian military officer fire a rifle 
several times into the car carrying the teachers. He has now defected from the 
special forces, and is quite rightly fearing for his life. With such brash 
brutality commonplace, it is easy to understand why Papuans are not interested 
in discussing reconciliation, but rather driving hard for independence. (This 
incident was naturally quite a sore spot in US-Indonesian relations, and made 
more difficult the efforts of various US government and military officials 
trying to resume aid to the Indonesian military. The bomb in Bali, which 
occurred while we were in Papua, may send the pendulum swinging back toward 
more support for US aid, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, but the 
nature of the Inodnesian military is difficult to ignore.)

Our biggest question while travelling around Papua was this: What is the next 
step? For the majority of Papuans who believe Papua can follow East Timor to 
independence, how would the transition work, and how can Papua avoid the 
terrible death and destruction wrecked on East Timor in 1999? The answer came 
back with crystal clarity. Time and time again we received the identical 
response: Papua needs international support, a third-party mediator. Only an 
outside force can trump the Indonesian military. Papuans are doing all they 
can, organizing themselves well, pushing the limits in every possible way, but 
until a third party enters the conflict, bringing authority and force, the 
Papuan people are at the mercy of Jakarta and her military.

Students, civic leaders and common people all gave us this response. Possibly 
because of this, many were glad to see us. It reminded us of our trip to East 
Timor in 1997, when we were likewise viewed as a source of hope for a future 
without oppression. Having witnessed the horrors of 1999 in East Timor, we know 
that international intervention alone is not the solution to the conflict. 
Intervention must be carried out in such a way as to tie the hands of the 
Indonesian armed forces early. The brutality and impunity of the Indonesian 
armed forces is the key element to be reckoned with in designing a peaceful 
path for the future of Papua.

Three entities were commonly named when Papuans spoke to us about who they 
thought could help: the US, the UN, and The Netherlands.

We in the US need to correctly understand this conflict as soon as possible. 
East Timor was a tragedy for several reasons, but a primary one was that the US 
was on the wrong side until the last minute. It had been obvious for many years 
that the overwhelming majority of East Timor’s population wanted Indonesia out, 
and for very legitimate reasons. Only in 1991, after the Indonesian military 
had killed more than 270 East Timorese and a foreigner in the Santa Cruz 
Massacre, did the US stop the flow of weapons and training to the Indonesian 
military. And only in 1999, after the Indonesian military and their militias 
had destroyed the infrastructure of East Timor, killed over a thousand people 
and forcibly deported more than 200,000, did the US government begin genuine 
support the people of East Timor. Will Papuans be forced to endure this sort of 
horror and inhumanity before they receive full US support?

US citizens, as represented by both houses of congress, played a large role in 
East Timor’s eventual independence by demanding that the US end support for 
human-rights abuses against East Timor’s people.8 US leaders would do well now 
to stop ignoring the people of Papua and begin serious dialogue with both 
Jakarta and the UN to resolve the mounting tragedy. At the very least, the US 
should end all support for the Indonesian military until significant reforms 
are evident in Papua and throughout Indonesia.

Currently, though US influence is enormous in Jakarta, and US corporations are 
making billions by exploiting Papuan resources (see box) the US is doing very 
little for freedom and democracy in Papua. Two representatives from the US 
Embassy visited Papua a few weeks before we did. They were said to have gone to 
great lengths to elaborate and promote the benefits of autonomy under 
Indonesia. A Papuan woman telling us the story of their visit shook her head 
and smiled sadly.

The Freeport Mines in West Papua
The largest gold deposit on earth, and one of the world’s largest copper 
deposits, both lie about 70 miles inland from West Papua’s south coast, at an 
elevation of 12,000 feet in the mountains. These deposits are being mined by PT 
Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of the US company Freeport McMoRan. This 
company, which the Council on Economic Priorities awarded its “Worst Polluter 
in America” prize in 1995 and has a reputation both in the US and abroad for 
circumventing environmental regulations, came to Papua at the rise of Suharto 
after the 1965 coup in Indonesia. Working in close cooperation with the corrupt 
Suharto government, Freeport soon controlled an enormous swath of land from the 
mountain deposits to the seaport near Timika. 

In his 1981 book, “The Conquest of Copper Mountain,” Freeport’s then-President 
Forbes Wilson described the original Papua mining operation in a soldier-of-
fortune, hell-for-leather style. (Although supported by radios and airdrops, 
Wilson barely survived the two-week expedition of 1960 to confirm the existence 
of the deposit.) The book fails to mention that local Papuans routinely hunt 
and travel in the area of the mine, that they were not consulted on use of 
their land, and that local Papuans have no connection with Javanese with whom 
Wilson coordinated his expedition and subsequent extraction of the copper of 
Copper Mountain. His aptly titled book instead dwells on the details of setting 
up the world’s longest ore-slurry pipeline, bringing in the world’s largest 
trucks and cutting open the forest to construct the world’s most expensive road.

A 1996 book entitled “Grasberg” describes in similar detail Freeport’s 1988 
discovery and opening of an even larger deposit of copper and gold a few 
kilometers from Copper Mountain. Grasberg Mine’s worth is estimated at $80 
billion. Another Freeport CEO, George Mealey, wrote this book a bit more 
diplomatically, like a smooth PR brochure. Great pains are taken to explain the 
benefits of the mine, both to the nation of Indonesia and to the local Papuan 
community. One chapter reassures the reader that the local environment is 
basically unchanged and that the good fortune of a remote location allows the 
mine to be tapped with little impact on the local community. Freeport’s 
Internet website tells a similar tale, complete with charts and graphs.

Unfortunately, during our short stay in the area, we found no Papuan who could 
confirm these claims. One major impact of the mine is its “tailings.” Tailings 
are rocks and sand left over from the process of extracting ore. The mine 
regurgitates these (and other wastes) into a local river, which deposits 
enormous quantities of them along its bed and takes some all the way to the 
ocean. The tailings are visible when arriving and departing Timika’s airport: a 
wide river floodplain that is uniformly brown amid a rich green jungle 
background. By way of further explanation, Freeport notes that the river was 
carefully chosen for use as a tailings deposit. Indonesian authorities agreed 
with the selection and there are all sorts of exciting plans to clean up when 
the mine goes out of operation.

The several thousand locals living in the area of the river were not in on the 
decision. Both Mealey’s book and the Freeport website declare the tailings 
safe: though containing naturally high levels of copper, there is “little 
difference” between the tailings and “the natural sediment of the river”. But 
Janet, a Papuan woman involved in the community activities of the Catholic 
Church, showed us troubling photos of diseased plants in the area where the 
mine’s tailings are deposited. Locals blamed Freeport’s tailings.

As a scientist, I was skeptical at the sight of the photos — plants can get 
sick for any number of reasons — so I was pleased to find that, in 1999, a 
formal, independent study had been done by five local groups on various 
mollusks and shellfish collected in the tailings area. Locals both eat and sell 
large quantities of these creatures, so any problems with them will have a 
severe impact on the local community. 

The study found that many locals have had to stop eating and using some of the 
shell fish and mollusks because they often cause sickness, their color has 
drastically changed or their populations have diminished. The study concluded 
that these changes were a result of Freeport’s mining operation, and urged 
compensation and attention to this change in the local environment. 

When the study was presented to Freeport, the company agreed to pay $200,000 to 
replace revenues and food income previously realized from collecting these 
creatures, and also to: 1) return the river to its original health; 2) develop 
better housing for locals; 3) support local schools; and 4) continue monitoring 
toxins in the river. Nearly two years have passed since then, but only part of 
the money has been delivered and few of the promises have been kept.

Significantly, the first section of the agreement between Freeport, local 
community leaders and the local government states very clearly that the unsafe 
environment around the river was a direct result of the mine. A Freeport vice 
president signed this agreement, thus giving the lie to contrary information on 
Freeport’s website. Everything is not ok, and Freeport has admitted it.

I asked a lawyer at LBH (Lembaga Bantuan Hukum), a legal-aid organization in 
Timika that took part in the environmental study, about the details of the 
processes Freeport uses that release the hazardous wastes into the river. He 
smiled and said, “A thief doesn’t explain his methods.” He went on to say that 
the details of Freeport’s own environmental tests are extremely secretive, and 
since the independent study in 1999 it has been difficult to gain access to the 
company’s private property areas in order to continue monitoring the danger. 
This correlates with Janet’s complaint of not being able to do proper testing 
on the diseased plants.

Plenty of other information indicates that things are not ok. The Goldman 
Environmental Award went to Mama Yosefa’s women’s organization a few years 
back, in part due to its work to stop Freeport’s pollution. An environmental 
group in Indonesia won a 2001 court case accusing Freeport of polluting Wanagon 
Lake, releasing false information and negligence in allowing the lake to break 
its dam, flood a village and kill four local workers. [See 
http://dte.gn.apc.org/51Frp.htm]. In 1996 several Papuan tribes brought an 
environmental suit against Freeport in its home state of Louisiana.

In addition to this environmental case, LBH has dealt with many labor cases 
involving Freeport and its contracting companies. It seems even Indonesia’s 
weak labor laws are often not upheld. In 2000, a Rome-based human rights group 
leveled charges against Freeport for violations of human rights, including 
labor rights, at a university forum in England. In terms of equal opportunity 
employment, a local priest we talked to said yes, many Papuans had jobs with 
Freeport but it is also clear that Freeport provides these jobs only because it 
is required to.

Freeport pays around ten percent of its profits to the Indonesian government in 
taxes. In addition, Freeport places around one percent of profits in a 
development fund for the local Papuan community. We talked to several 
organizations and individuals about this fund, which totals approximately $20 
million per year. There seemed to be unending dilemmas: what form it comes in, 
when it comes, how is it distributed, who decides, etc. One group was 
organizing a protest because it felt the fund money was not all being 
distributed to the community.

Most folks we talked to focused on the issue of channeling and using the money, 
rather than on its remarkably small quantity. It is almost embarrassing to 
verbalize: “The One Percent Community Development Fund.” The math is not 
difficult — one percent going directly to the community means 99 percent going 
elsewhere.

Visualizing yourself in the place of Papuans under Freeport is difficult but 
instructive: Mega Minerals moves into your residential subdivision. It got 
(bought) permission from your local government, and gets protection from the 
local police. It soon brings in hundreds of foreign workers, paying them dozens 
of times the local average salary. M2 encroaches on several families’ lots in 
the process of setting up its operation, and slowly begins extracting billions 
of dollars of wealth from its operation, while polluting the local neighborhood 
water and soil. A few locals get work with M2, but only at grunt level. M2 puts 
up fences and barriers restricting what were once open spaces. The police 
routinely abuse the human rights of those on or near M2’s property. Now, day 
after day, your family watches M2 hauling away untold riches while you suffer 
from its pollution. After years of steady protest, you finally gain a 
concession: one percent of M2’s profits.

You wouldn’t like it. But you wouldn’t have any recourse. This wraps up the 
situation of the Papuan people living with Freeport. 

Other resources:
• Indonesian human-rights organization Tapol’s web page: 
www.tapol.gn.apc.org/st020717.htm
• OPM’s page: www.westpapua.net/index.htm
• Mines and Communities page: www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/freeport1.htm
• Julia D. Fox, paper on Freeport: www.efn.org/~maniacs/jimbob.html
• Book by Denise Leith: The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia
• Amnesty International’s Indonesia page (carefully researched information on 
recent human-rights abuses in Papua): 
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/indonesia
• Piece by John Saltford on the UN Act of Self Determination for Papua: 
http://www.fpcn-global.org/united-nations/wp-68-69.html.)
• John Martinkus, “Quarterly Essay” on West Papua; Issue 7, 2002

(1) While many Papuan people are proud to continue their traditional cultures 
as they have for millennia, we talked to several locals who expressed gratitude 
to the Dutch and American missionaries who gradually urged them away from their 
old state of constant war. In the same breath, these Papuans lamented that 
their long-time Dutch and America friends had abandoned them in their current 
hardships.
(2) The names of all activists in this piece have been changed.
(3) The resistance movement has its moles within the police and military 
structure. Lists similar to this, as well as other sensitive documents, are 
widely circulated among the resistance community.
(4) While Arthur’s trip abroad was just good fortune, there exist several 
examples from Papua, Aceh and Timor where a local activist was assisted by 
members of the international solidarity movement and spirited out of their 
dangerous situations, at least for a while.
(5) See my newsletter CG-1 from January 2001 for information on the events of 
1999 in East Timor.
(6) Mao used this technique in the late 50’s during the “Hundred Flowers 
Movement.” Intellectuals were encouraged to criticize the state in order to 
let “a hundred flowers bloom” for China. After a time, the government then 
rounded up all those flowers that had chosen to bloom and either jailed or 
killed them. A similar situation occurred in Indonesia after the “Reformasi” 
movement following the fall of Suharto. Several movement leaders who vocally 
criticized the state when civil liberties were on an upswing are now in jail or 
have disappeared.
(7) OPM is composed of a few hundred guerrilla fighters with very few weapons 
and little outside support. They do enjoy wide support from Papuans, though 
they have not led any significant initiatives since the call for peace in 2000.
(8) See my newsletter CG-20 for more on US solidarity with the East Timorese.

ICWA
The Crane-Rogers Foundation
Four West Wheelock Street
Hanover, New Hampshire 03755 U.S.A.

Since 1925 the Institute of Current World Affairs (the Crane-Rogers Foundation) 
has provided long-term fellowships to enable outstanding young professionals to 
live outside the United States and write about international areas and issues. 
An exempt operating foundation endowed by the late Charles R. Crane, the 
Institute is also supported by contributions from like-minded individuals and 
foundations.

Institute of Current World Affairs
Institute Fellows are chosen on the basis of character, previous experience and 
promise. They are young professionals funded to spend a minimum of two years 
carrying out selfdesigned programs of study and writing outside the United 
States. The Fellows are required to report their findings and experiences from 
the field once a month. They can write on any subject, as formally or 
informally as they wish. The result is a unique form of reporting, analysis and 
periodic assessment of international events and issues.

Author: Gabrielson, Curt
Title: ICWA Letters - South Asia
ISSN: 1083-4257
Imprint: Institute of Current World
Affairs, Hanover, NH
Material Type: Serial
Language: English
Frequency: Monthly
Other Regions: East Asia; The Americas; Europe/Russia; Mideast/North Africa; 
Sub-Saharan Africa 

Curt Gabrielson (December 2000 - 2002) • EAST TIMOR
With a Missouri farm background and an MIT degree in physics, Curt is spending 
two years in East Timor, watching the new nation create an education system of 
its own out of the ashes of the Indonesian system. Since finishing MIT in 1993, 
Curt has focused on delivering inexpensive and culturally relevant hands-on 
science education to minority and low income students. Based at the Teacher 
Institute of the Exploratorium in San Francisco, he has worked with youth and 
teachers in Beijing, Tibet, and the Mexican agricultural town of Watsonville, 
California.
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