Activists Beg Mining Co. Stockholders: Stop Human, Enviro Abuses

by Danielle Knight

Activists spoke at the annual shareholders meeting of the Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold mining company in New Orleans on May 5 and accused the company of complicity in the murder of hundreds of the local Native peoples and the destruction of hundreds of hectares of rainforest.

"Two decades of arrogance towards the local community, a lack of due care in environmental management, and a closeness to the dictatorship of Indonesia which, while once a business advantage, can now only serve to weaken the company's standing," said Danny Kennedy, director of California-based Project Underground, an environmental and human rights group.

At a separate meeting, other environmental groups -- including the Washington-based Mineral Policy Center and the Student Environmental Action Coalition at Stanford University -- urged shareholders to press the company to improve its environmental management practices.

Representatives of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights also spoke with Freeport investors on human rights conditions in Indonesia and the company's alleged complicity and participation in the human rights abuses.

The mine in question is the Grasberg Mine in Irian Jaya, the name given to the western half of New Guinea, formerly a Dutch colony, which was taken over by Indonesia in 1963. With copper, gold, and silver deposits reportedly worth more than $60 billion, Grasberg is one of the world's largest mines and remains the country's single largest source of tax revenue.

Indonesian President Suharto, a long-time friend of Freeport CEO James Moffet, agreed in 1967 to give the company sole mineral exploration rights to West Papua, along with generous tax and royalty exemptions.

Each day the 25-year-old mine dumps about three billion tons of waste rock in local alpine valleys, and more than 250,000 tons of potentially toxic mining waste into local rivers, according to "Risky Business," Project Underground's new report on the Freeport mine. Mine "tailings" (waste) contain dissolved arsenic, lead, mercury and other potentially lethal metals.

Besides creating a 450 meter deep crater and decapitating one of the highest peaks between the Himalayas and the Andes, the mining operation will also destroy approximately 130 square kilometers of lowland rainforest, say activists.

The Amungme tribe living near the mine says the waste has contaminated the fish they eat and the water they drink. The local environmental bureau, after conducting tests in April 1997, declared the water unfit for consumption.

"Freeport has taken our land and our grandparents' land," says Tom Beanal, an Amungme leader. "They ruined the mountains and we can't drink our water anymore,"

While the company claims that it monitors the river's water quality and says that it has allowed hundreds of journalists onto the site, environmental groups say Freeport has refused to permit any independent monitoring. In February 1997, Project Underground's Kennedy was deported for attempting to ship samples of river water to the United States for analysis on the grounds that he did not have a permit.

The longer the company fails to "implement standard environmental management procedures the greater the liability it creates for itself and the downstream communities," says the report.

Because of intense security and military operations surrounding the mine conducted by the Indonesian government and Freeport itself, the site has also been the site of human rights abuses ranging from arbitrary detention to killing, says the report.

A 1995 study published by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid describes a "six-month reign of terror" around PT-Freeport's operations in which 37 were killed by Indonesian military personnel operating in the mine area.

This report describes how PT Freeport's security were "engaged in acts of intimidation, extracted forced confessions, shot three civilians, disappeared five Dani villagers and tortured 13 people."

Hundreds of Amungme people out of a population of about 8000 have died in a pattern of political violence that has developed around the mining since the project began, according to Project Underground.

"There is no clear line between the military operation and Freeport's security guards," says Emmy Hafil, head of the Indonesian-based environmental group WALHI.

The Amungme tribe have been trying to sue Freeport for compensation. Despite a federal court's decision to throw out their class action lawsuit, a state appeals court in Louisiana decided two months ago that the six billion dollar suit is allowed to go to trial in New Orleans, where the company is based.

The decision overturned a previous ruling, made a year ago by the New Orleans district court that the lawsuit could not proceed because it was out of the city's jurisdiction. The judge said he reversed the decision because he felt the case is legitimate, given that the defendant was based in New Orleans.

In 1995, U.S. environmentalists and human rights groups successfully lobbied the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) -- a U.S. government agency that encourages corporations to set up shop overseas -- to suspend Freeport's $100 million worth of political risk insurance for five months.

But in 1996, Freeport canceled its insurance provided by the World Bank's investment insurance agency, MIGA, and the U.S. government to avoid an independent investigation into its activities in Indonesia. In the midst of one of the most violent periods in Indonesian history, the company stated it "no longer perceives a need" for political risk insurance.