By Pratap Chatterjee
SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 16 1996 (IPS)

Riots have broken out among protesting indigenous people in a mining town in Irian Jaya, the easternmost island of Indonesia, injuring more than a dozen people and forcing the U.S. operators of the world’s largest gold mine to temporarily halt operations.

Human rights activists said the army sent in more than 500 soldiers from the Irian Jaya capital of Jayapura to quell the unrest which began last Friday. Two people were reported to have been killed but there was no independent confirmation of this.

Tribesmen armed with stones and arrows attacked the mining company’s facilities, causing extensive damage, they said.

The New Orleans-based company, Freeport McMoRan, confirmed this week the “precautionary shutdown” of operations. It said ore extraction and processing have been stopped but ore loading was continuing at a nearby port.

“Due to continuing vandalism and sporadic violence in Timika, (a major town in the lowlands) Freeport has continued its shutdown,” Greg Probst, the company spokesman, told IPS.

Activists in Irian Jaya in contact with the protesters read a statement to IPS over the phone. It said: “We are fighting against Freeport and the government…because our rights are not recognised, our resources are extracted and destroyed while our lives are taken.”

The copper and gold mine is situated in the rugged Grasberg mountains of western New Guinea, an island in the South Pacific. The western part of the island was named Irian Jaya by Indonesia when it took control of the area in the late 1960’s.

Freeport has been under fire in recent months for widespread damage to local sago forests allegedly caused by the tens of thousands of tonnes of mining waste dumped into the rivers every day.

Indonesian army troopers guarding the mine have also come under severe criticism for the killing of 37 people last year. Courts in Jayapura last month found army officials guilty of ordering troops to shoot local villagers.

The latest spate of trouble started brewing last week when a Dani tribesman, William Kogoya, was knocked down by a Freeport vehicle near the company mining town of Tembagapura. Rumours spread rapidly that Kogoya had died after being beaten and tossed into a creek, stirring unrest among the local people.

“Yes, a man named Kogoya was taken to the hospital after an accident and treated for his injuries and then released,” Freeport’s Probst says of the incident.

The tension escalated when a woman and her son were reported to have been pushed out of a shopping centre in the minesite on Sunday by company security forces, a local human rights activist said by telephone from Irian Jaya.

After being told of the incident, dozens of angry men, women and children marched to Tembagapura to confront the Freeport security forces.

“They were armed with bows, arrows, sticks and stones and they attacked the security office,” the activist, who asked not to be named, told IPS. “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.”

On Tuesday, protesters took to the streets of Timika where they were reported to have commandeered Freeport buses and bulldozers, the activist said.

A group proceeded to the company’s environmental laboratory and allegedly destroyed testing equipment. It likewise headed for the airport and the company-owned hotel where clashes with the army were reported. Another group proceeded to Kuala Kencana, a new Freeport company town currently being constructed some eight kms from the airport.

The activist said at least 15 people, including seven security guards, were wounded in scattered incidents of violence. Another activist said about 500 army troopers were sent to reinforce soldiers in the area.

Freeport chief executive officer Jim Bob Moffett was reported to have arrived in Timika and was consulting with local church officials on how to defuse the situation.

A computer bulletin issued by Tapol, a Netherlands-based Indonesian dissident group, said thousands of people were involved in the riots. “Nothing was able to stop the onslaught…the angry crowds were unstoppable,” it said.

Freeport’s Probst said windows and testing equipment were damaged at the Timika laboratory, but declined further comment.

This is the second major incident in the area this year. On January 8, guerrillas from Organisasi Papua Merdeka (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 the island, have yet to be released.

Last year, an international aid donor warned that tension in Irian Jaya might turn into a serious conflict that could force Freeport to close down unless Jakarta pays heed to grievances of the indigenous people.

Jakarta has been supportive of Freeport, one of Indonesia’s biggest corporate taxpayers, contributing 47 percent to Irian Jaya’s gross domestic product.

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