Freeport-McMoRan in Indonesia

This aerial photgraph shows how large the Grasberg excavations are, and how the mine's ''overburden'' -- the ground the Amungme once called home -- is just dumped over the side of the mountain to pollute and silt up downstream watersheds and the land which was the once rich home of the Komoro people.

From the Freeport's homepage...What effect are Freeport's operations having on the environment? Large scale mining activities clearly impact the environment. PT-FI and its Environmental Department try to see that that impact is as minimal as possible. Nearly all areas will be revegetated and reclaimed when mining activities cease.

Good luck on keeping this one... Or does Jim Bob think turning this big flat space into a golf course would be ok?

Recent News and Updates...

• Freeport and the Conscience of the University
• Fools Gold - The Story of Freeport in Indonesia A Talk & Slide Presentation by Danny Kennedy. Coordinator, Project Underground
  Monday, April 28, 7.30 PM - Nunemaker Hall - Loyola University
• River Ajkwa Polluted March 27, 1997
• A Freeport Shareholder Resolution has been submitted by the Seattle Mennonite Church The shareholders will vote on the resolution at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold's annual meeting on April 29, 1997 and the proponent anticipates that there will be much interest in and discussion on the proposal.
• Giving Something Back, And It's Moffett
• LINKS BETWEEN OPIC, FREEPORT, INDONESIA & CLINTON CAMPAIGN? According to sources close to OPIC, after the agency reinstated Freeport's insurance, Harkin bragged that she had convinced Moffett to contribute $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. According to Federal Election Commission documents, Freeport-McMoRan gave the DNC $40,000 on August 26. On September 6, the wives of Freeport's top executives, Chief Financial Officer Richard Adkerson, vice chairman Rene Latiolais, and chief investment officer Charles Goodyear, wrote checks to the DNC totalling $35,000. Four days later, Moffett's wife Louise wrote a check to the DNC for $2,500. That's $77,500 of the $100,000.
• Ten Worst Corporations of the Year

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  Background Info and other Resources

• West Papua Information Online This site is an excellent source for background information on the struggle of indigenous peoples to regain their rights...
• The Current Crisis in Indonesia from Z Mag. Interview with Benedict Anderson by William Seaman Professor Anderson of Cornell University is a specialist on Indonesia and Southeast Asia, he has written many articles and essays about the current Suharto regime in Indonesia. This article provides a good background leading to todays situation.
• Background info on Irian Jaya/West Papua
• Spinning Gold From Mother Jones
  By keeping journalists away from its Indonesian mine [which contains gold, silver, and copper valued at $50 billion] New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan has managed to put its spin on environmental and human rights abuses near the mine.
  Here's an intresting excerpt from this site...
  Hiring The Critics
  Bill Elder is just one in a long line of journalists and critics to be threatened with lawsuits by Freeport. Over the past year, the company has sent letters to at least three journalists [including this reporter], two activists, and three professors at the University of Texas at Austin, claiming it would seek ''legal recourse'' against any party who made ''false and damaging accusations.'' [The company did not cite specific examples.]
  Freeport has quieted other journalists by hiring them. In the late 1980s, Elder's former co-worker, WWL anchorman Garland Robinette, did a five-part series critical of Freeport's environmental practices. In 1990, Moffett offered him a job as Freeport's vice president of communications. Robinette accepted, taking three of WWL's best people with him. In 1993, Robinette's department was spun off to form Planit Communications, Freeport's public relations firm.
• A Picture speaks a thousand words
• Freeport McMoRan - Pissing on the Planet from Project Underground.
• Lot's more information...Other sources of information about the controversy surrounding the naming of the new molecular biology building at the University of Texas at Austin. Don't miss the little tidbit at the bottom of the page titled ''Another Coverup''
• Concise history of Freeport McMoran From a student At U-Texas, Austin.
• Freeport McMoRan - A Timeline from the Austin Chronicle.
• Hex Continues to Wreck Havoc on Jim-Bob and Freeport
• Beanal versus Freeport - A David and Golliath story.
• Bougainville - The Forgotten War in the South Pacific

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  Human Rights Abuses

• Report of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid Eyewitness accounts of West Papuan resistance to the Freeport-McMoRan mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia and Indonesian military repression.

  With tears in his eyes, the tribal chief said sadly, 'I always ask God everyday in my prayers and thoughts, why did He have to create those beautiful rocky and snowy mountains in the Amungme tribal people's area? Or for those beautiful rocky and snowy mountains which have rich mineral resources attracting Freeport, ABRI and the Government and many outsiders to come here and exploit the resources for their sake leaving us sufferers, and therefore we the Amungme people have to be continuously suppressed, captured and killed? If it is you'd better destroy us and wipe us out so that you can take all we have, our lands, our mountains and every piece of our resources. It's true I am always angry at God and why He had to place those things here. But gentlemen I'm coming here now because my time has already arrived. I'm old now. Moses Kilangin and many of the other elders who helped Forbes Wilson on his survey for Freeport in the past have already died and some are very old now. And you should be aware yourselves that we have received nothing from Freeport. All we've got today are costs, the problems that we deal with now.'

• Amungme Leader Tom Beanal Speaks at Loyola To the Amungme people in particular and to the people of Irian Jaya as a whole, nature and man are one. Everything that has a use has a value greater than that ascribed to it by man. This is shown in our traditions.
• Jim Bob Meets Mama Yosepha
• TOM BEANAL ON BEHALF OF HIMSELF AND ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED, PLAINTIFF VERSUS FREEPORT-McMoRan, INC. AND FREEPORT-McMoRan COPPER AND GOLD, INC., DEFENDANTS , a resident of Timika, Irian Jaya within the Republic of Indonesia and a leader of the Amungme Tribal Council Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Suku Amungme.
• Plaintiffs in Freeport Suit Are Harassed Three reports released last year found that numerous cases of murder and torture of local indigenous people have occurred in and around the mine since 1994. The latest reports allege that Tom Beanal, the Amungme tribal leader who is the named plaintiff in the lawsuit against Freeport, has been repeatedly interrogated and threatened by local police and Indonesian military officials.
• Report on Human Rights Practices U.S. Department of State Indonesia Report on Human Rights Practices for 1996. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, January 30, 1997. This is a very large gofer file...
• A Golden Nightmare 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.
• Amungme tribe rejects freeport's trust fund plan from the Indonesia Times. ''The people want to determine themselves where the money goes because they don't trust the government any more. There are about 20,000 Komoro and Amungme tribe members in the area and with that money each person can only get some US$ .48 cents a week,'' a tribal spokesman said. In the statement, the tribes also said that there were ''military efforts coercing people into signing the agreement.''
• Tribal war being stoked by Freeport? As stated by ABRI and reported in the mass media, this tribal conflict or war was triggered by the raping of three Dani women by three Amungme men all of whom are employed by Freeport Security. The rapes occurred at Freeport's Security Post IV on 25 January. This led to a tribal war in which seven Dani men and one Amungme were killed.
• Rights Abuses Rife in Mining Areas The basic rights the state and the companies violated include unwarranted arrests, the loss of rights to a decent life, freedom from fear and freedom from torture and violence by public officials, the institute reported. Other violations that the NGO found include the loss of people's source of income, children's right to protection, and adequate health standards.
• FREEPORT MINE EXPANSION OPPOSED BY INDIGENOUS GROUPS from Drillbits & Tailings. Freeport's plans to increase the amounts of ore processed by the mill from the Grasberg pit to 200,000 tons per day, as well as to actually establish a new mine with the help of RTZ-CRA, have also come under fire. More mill tailings will result in greater disposal problems, affecting the Amungme and Komoro indigenous groups. A spokesperson for the local legislative council has already stated that the processing plant of the mine had piled up waste in the upper Otomona River, a tributary of the Ajikwa, endangering an additional 3,000 hectares of forests.
• Giving Something Back - the Truth. Protesters Reply to Moffett's Challenge Statement by the Delta Greens Delivered Outside the Freeport-McMoRan International Headquarters Building in New Orleans, Monday, November 13, 1995.

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  International Headlines...

  

• Irish Parliament resolution on West Papua
• How Washington deals with the Other AsiaThe Los Angeles Times The Los Angeles Times - ''The torture was conducted in Freeport containers, the Army Commander's Mess, the police station and the Freeport security post,'' Catholic Bishop Herman Munninghoff wrote.The report said those who died, and others who were released, were tortured during interrogation. It said the victims were kicked in the belly, chest and head by people wearing army boots - beaten with rifle butts - forced to kneel with iron bars behind their knees, and shackled by the thumbs, wrists or legs.
• Primitive People Editorial from the Texas Observer. Freeport shares with the Indonesian government a strong preference for the sort of ''journalism'' that only tells its side of the story. Freeport stonewalls reporters who fail to parrot the company line, and when it can't buy newspeople outright, it spends thousands of dollars on misleading advertisements portraying its mining operations as motivated by public spirit and altruism.
• Voices of the Rainforest from the Texas Observer. Freeport's Indonesian neighbors speak out.
• West Papua Niugini/Irian Jaya Homepage 'One People- One Soul'
  ''Kasihi tjinta dari Sobat Papua Barat- Satu bangsa satu djiwa.''
• TAPOL - The Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
• Here is a series of three articles which ran in the Austin Chronicle. These articles detail some of the current fights with Freeport McMoRan in regards to the Freedom of Information request to OPIC. The First articles details a link between Freeport McMoRan and the Lippo Group. The second details Freeport denying information on it's properties and the third article, Freeport Joins Lawsuit to prevent any disclosure.
• Freeport issue not dead letter in the UNO Driftwood from Darryl Malek-Wiley.

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  Environmental Issues...

  
  The ultimate pit line shows how large the
  Freeport Mine Might Become!!!

• COPPER MINNING IN WEST PAPUA from TED, Trade and Environment Database.
• NGO Statement at Biodiversity Convention Conference of Parties The huge mine is a major environmental problem, massively altering the landscape, irreparably damaging the rich biodiversity of the area, and harming the health and sustenance of local indigenous communities. In addition, the governments own human rights commission has found that government security forces policing the mining area for Freeport have committed serious human rights violations.
• Mining Takes Its Toll on West Papua The environmental problems caused by the mine are also deplorable. Approximately 60,000 tonnes per day of untreated tailings are devastating the Ajikwa River and rainforest. In some places the mud is yellow from chemicals and fine silts. Sediments are slowly choking the river and it runs muddy and deathlike. No fish remain in it. The Komaro people, who once followed the migrating fish up and down the river, can no longer fish here.
• Freeport's Tailings Reports
• Freeport Tries Intervention Austin Chronicle, January 10, 1997. This short article is buried about halfway down this report. OPIC has refused to release hundreds of pages of documents containing information about water quality below the Freeport mine, claiming that those documents contain privileged business information that could hurt Freeport's competitive advantage in the mining business.'
• Freeport's Homepage answers charges
• Freeport MacMoRan Home

''The world is a dangerous place to live in not because of those who do evil but because of those who watch and let it happen.''
-- A.Einstein

What You Can Do...

Mr James Moffett
CEO
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.
1615 Poydras Street
New Orleans, LA 70112
USA
FAX 504-582-4028

• Robert S. Boyer Texas site... Information about the controversy surrounding the naming of the new molecular biology building at the University of Texas at Austin [UT] for Jim Bob Moffett, chairman of Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold.
• Project Underground Exposing corporate human rights & environmental abuses. Supporting communities affected by the mining & oil industries.
• The Texas Observer IF YOU BELIEVE, as we do, in the absolute necessity of a progressive, independent journalism for Texas, we ask you to help us sustain the Observer's present, and plan for its future.
• Mother Jones

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