Scraping Bottom:
Freeport McMoRan in Irian Jaya

Freeport-McMoRan is in the business of extraction: mining, processing, and marketing copper, gold, silver, phosphate fertilizers, phosphate rock, sulfur, oil and other natural resources. This US-based TNC operates the world's largest gold mine and the third largest copper mine and is the largest producer of phosphate fertilizers. The critical light swings to Freeport as another example of the need for corporate accountability. Once again we have a case of linked campaigns between NGOs and indigenous communities against what they charge is another transnational corporation's irresponsible and destructive behavior, backed by military force and brutality, towards both the environment and the local people who happen to be near the company's operations. Agenda 21's call for sustainable and integrated management of land resources appears to have made little impression on this transnational company.

Gold Digging

At the Grasberg Mine In Irian Jaya (formerly West Papua New Guinea, taken over by Indonesia in 1963), Freeport's gold and copper extraction earns revenues of $1.5 billion a year and each day generates more than 120,000 tons of mine tailings (waste materials created when minerals are separated from mined ore). As part of their "land management" activities, the company shaved off more than 120 meters of Puncuk Jaya Mountain - the highest peak between the Andes and the Himalayas. The mine tailings are automatically dumped directly into the Aghawagon River, part of the Ajkwa watershed. This dumping clogs the riverways and floods more than 30 square kilometers of the rainforest. In addition, waste rock dumped in a nearby valley has generated acid mine drainage (AMD) in surface streams. The indigenous peoples of the area, the Amung and Komoro, complain that this dumping has contaminated the fish and plant life and is causing illness among the people. Freeport claims the tailings dumped into the river represent no health hazard. However, in November 1996 the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) withdrew a $100 million political risk insurance policy, based on environmental problems linked with "acid mine drainage,...toxic metals...and the mismanagement of solid and hazardous wastes at the site." Freeport's claim to having no negative environmental impact on the area is based on an "independent audit" conducted by Dames and Moore (who have been contracted by Freeport in the past). Many environmental NGOs and others view their report as "bogus science," not only for its questionable objectivity but because of internal inconsistencies.

An Avalanche of Abuse

In addition to the environmental degradation, Freeport's operations in the former West Papua are associated with an ongoing series of human rights abuses. According to Tom Beanal, a leader of the Amungme tribe and head of the NGO Lemasa, tensions have existed between Freeport and the indigenous tribes of the area for 30 years. In 1977, three years after General Suharto signed over an agreement for Freeport to operate freely in the ancestral lands of the Amungme and Komoro, the people revolted. In response, the Indonesian military conducted a ruthless operation ("Operasi Tumpas" or "Annihilation,") bombing and strafing villages and reportedly killing thousands. Freeport is alleged to have contributed $1 million to help defray the costs of the operation. In April 1995, the Australian Council for Overseas Aid reported 37 local villagers killed or "disappeared" between June 1994 and February 1995, implicating Freeport security guards in some of the murders. Bishop Munninghoff of the Catholic Church of Jayapura and the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights also confirm these killings and torture.l In November 1995, a dozen NGOs produced a letter to Freeport charging the company with the "moral responsibility for the recent tragic events since the military is protecting Freeport operations." In March 1996, riots broke out when a Freeport vehicle struck a villager; the event left four people killed and several injured. Freeport responded to this incident with an aggressive public relations campaign and offers to contribute money to the community. Because most of this money would go to the military and company-controlled programs, rather than to the people, the Amungme community rejected the offer. The Komoro, on the other hand, accepted the deal - in return for giving up the right to bring any environmental/land claims against the company in the future. On April 29, 1996, Beanal and 2,000 Amungme filed a $6 billion lawsuit in the United States against Freeport for environmental damages and human rights abuses suffered by the Amungme and other indigenous peoples. The lawsuit (Beanal v. Freeport-McMoRan Inc.) accuses Freeport of "eco-terrorism," that the company's security guards committed acts of torture and arbitrary arrests, while the military guarding the mines conducted a number of massacres (confirmed by Indonesian government human rights organizations). Beanal explains that Freeport is "a powerful and wealthy" company that can afford to "do the right thing" - such as correcting the environmental damage and including local people in future decision-making, planning, and design changes. In particular, Beanal suggests that Freeport include two local, indigenous people on the company's board of trustees. Echoing the hope expressed about business and industry in Agenda 21, Beanal says that the company could be an example to other corporations by setting high standards for doing business in developing countries.

Spear in the Heart

In contrast to Beanal's hopeful vision of "high standards" for the company, Freeport CEO Jim Bob Moffett described their mining operations as "thrusting a spear of economic development into the heartland of Irian Jaya." This image ironically betrays the aggressive attitude in which the company does business in Irian Jaya, inflicting what many experience a deadly wound to their environment and community. In Agenda 21, indigenous people and their communities are recognized and valued for the historical and holistic relationship they tend to have with their land. Governments are urged to help these communities protect themselves from "activities that are environmentally unsound or that the indigenous people concerned consider to be socially and culturally inappropriate." Freeport is apparently willing to continue the militarization of their business and the countryside, despite what this means to the indigenous peoples of the area. As the company implements its plans to increase the amount of ore processed from the Grasberg mine to 200,000 tons per day and to establish a new mine, the Indonesian military is in turn increasing its presence in the area, placing more troops in the main mining town of Timika and making plans to set up a naval base and air base on the nearby coast. To improve decision-making for sustainable development, Agenda 21 stresses the importance of "ensuring access by the public to relevant information, facilitating the reception of public views and allowing for effective participation." Freeport's plans to establish a second mine will impinge on "the only preserved wetlands in Irian Jaya and the second tropical glacier in the world" (the Lorentz Reserve) and the traditional lands of indigenous Moni and other peoples. In 1994 the Moni wrote to the company to express their concerns about company activities in the area. According to Yesaya Wandagau, Director of the Moni organization LEOMOA, Freeport offered a deal to compensate for the negative impacts of the new mine For Wandagau, the deal represents "legal justification to ravage and explore the mountains." Other controversy surrounds Freeport's expansion plans. WAHLI, an Indonesian environmental NGO, sued the Department of Mining and Energy for illegally adopting an Environmental Impact Assessment on the expansion plans without the consent of all members of the EIA Commission. With Freeport, according to Friends of the Earth's Michelle Chan-Fishel, "environmentalists have encountered a great deal of difficulty in obtaining independent, detailed information" about the company's operations in Irian Jaya. For more than three years the organization has been seeking environmental information, yet "NGOs are also prohibited from independently monitoring the rivers and ecosystems surrounding Freeport's mining area." Most likely, Freeport will not be showcased among the Best Practices at the CSD's fifth session. However, it is another example of the need for the United Nations, governments, and civil society to explore the various means they do or should possess to ensure corporate accountability.