PT. FREEPORT INDONESIA

PT. Freeport Indonesia is a mining company which is majority owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. .. The company is the largest taxpayer to Indonesia and is the largest gold producing company in the world through the Grasberg mine. Freeport Indonesia has conducted exploration in two places in Papua, respectively Erstberg mine (from 1967) and the Grasberg mine (since 1988), in the Copper Temple, Mimika District, Papua Province.

Freeport developed into a company with 2.3 billion U.S. dollars revenue. According to Freeport, its presence provides direct and indirect benefits to Indonesia amounting to 33 billion dollars from the year 1992-2004. This figure is almost equal to 2 percent of Indonesia's GDP. With the price of gold reached the highest value in the last 25 years, which is 540 dollars per ounce, Freeport is expected to fill government coffers by 1 billion dollars.

Mining International, a trade magazine, called Freeport's gold mine as the largest in the world.

Freeport Indonesia is often rumored to have committed abuses against the local population. In addition, in 2003 Freeport Indonesia claimed that they had paid the military to expel the local inhabitants of their territory. According to the New York Times in December 2005, the amount that was paid between 1998 and 2004, reaching nearly 20 million U.S. dollars.

Shareholder

• Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.. (USA) - 81.28%

• Government of Indonesia - 9.36%

• PT. Indocopper Investama - 9.36%

The mine produced materials

• -Copper

• -Gold

• -Silver

• -Molybdenum

• -Rhenium

All this results in a material that mine was not clear because the mine was on the ship right out of Indonesia for the purified while the molybdenum and rhenium is a byproduct of processing copper ore.

History

Formerly in the community there are mythologies about the real man, who comes from a mother, who became after his death turned into a land that stretches along the Amungsal (Land Amugme), this area is considered sacred by local people, so that customarily are not allowed to enter.

Since 1971, Freeport Indonesia, entered into this sacred area, and open the mine Erstberg. Since 1971 that tribal Amugme moved out of their territory to the foothills region.

Erstberg mine is exhausted open-pit her in 1989, followed by mining at the Grasberg mine with production licenses issued Mentamben Ginandjar Kartasasmita in 1996. In this permit, are listed in the EIA production allowed is 300 thousand / ton / day

Controversy

According to employees and former employees of Freeport, for many years James R Moffett, a Louisiana-born geologist, who also is head of this company, diligently cultivate friendly relations with President Soeharto and his cronies. This is done to secure the business of Freeport. Freeport to pay their fees on vacation, even college tuition of their children, including making agreements that provide benefits for both parties.

The letters and other documents provided to the New York Times by government officials indicate, Ministry of Environment has repeatedly warned the company since 1997, Freeport violating legislation on the environment. According to Freeport's own calculations, they can generate mining waste / waste material at approximately 6 billion tons (more than twice the materials excavated earth to create the Panama Canal). Most of the waste was dumped in the mountains around the mining site, or to a system of rivers that flow down into the wet lowlands, close to Lorentz National Park, a tropical rain forest that has been granted special status by the UN.

A multi-million dollar study conducted in 2002 Parametrix, the American consulting firm, paid for by Freeport and Rio Tinto, its business partners, who never announced record results, the upstream river and wet lowlands are flooded with mine waste that now is not suitable for living the life aquatic. The report was submitted to the New York Times by the Ministry of Environment Republic of Indonesia. New York Times repeatedly requested permission from the Freeport and the Indonesian government to visit the mine and surrounding areas because it requires special permission for journalists. All requests were denied. Freeport only respond in writing. A letter signed by Stanley S Arkin, the company's legal counsel stated, Grasberg is a copper mine, with gold as a byproduct, and that many journalists have visited the mine before the Indonesian government tightened the rules in the 1990s.

Intercepting e-mail

According to an official and two former company officials involved in developing a covert program, Freeport intercepted during this e-mail address environmental activists who fight against this company to spy on what they do. Freeport refused to comment on this. Freeport hand in hand with military intelligence officers, began intercepting e-mail correspondence and telephone conversations environmental activist opponents. This was said by a Freeport employee who was involved in these activities and duty-read e-mail e-mail.

According to former employees and employees of Freeport, the company also makes its own system for stealing news via e-mail. The trick is to set up a fake environmental groups, asking those interested to register online by using a secret code (password) specified. Many of those who sign it using the same password they use for their e-mail. In this way, Freeport easily steal the news. According to someone who was working for this company, Freeport's lawyers initially concerned with this theft. However, they later decided, the company was not legally prohibited from reading e-mails to parties abroad.

Freeport and military relations

For years, Freeport has its own unit of the security, while the Indonesian military to fight the resistance of the weak and low separatist movements. Then it started to security needs are interrelated.

There is no investigation that found a link Freeport directly with human rights violations, but a growing number of Papuans that connects Freeport with acts of violence committed by the TNI, and in some cases the violence was carried out by using the Freeport facility. An Australian anthropologist, Chris Ballard, who once worked for Freeport, and Abigail Abrash, a human rights activist from the United States, estimates that as many as 160 people have been killed by the military between the years 1975-1997 in the mine and surrounding area.

In March 1996, rage against the company when the riots broke out in the form of anti-corporate sentiment from several different groups to join.

Free-port tapped into the news in his e-mail. According to two people who read e-mails, e-mail it at the time, there are certain military units, local communities and environmental groups who work together. An exchange of information using e-mail between a public figure with the leaders of environmental organizations are full of military intelligence tactics. In another e-mail, a lead environmental organization asks its members resign because demonstrations have turned violent.

From the interviews conducted, officials and former Freeport officials said they were surprised to see a number of people with a military haircut, wearing combat boots and holding a walkie-talkie radios among the rioters. The men were seen directing the riots, and at one time, directing the masses towards Freeport laboratory, which they obrak apart.

Security

Freeport documents show, from 1998 to 2004 Freeport gave nearly 20 million dollars to the generals, colonels, majors and captains of the military and police, and military units. Each commanders received tens of thousands of dollars, even in one case until it reaches $ 150,000, as stated in the document.

The documents were given to the New York Times by someone who is close to Freeport, and according to former employees and employees of Freeport itself, the documents were authentic original alias. In his written response to the New York Times, Freeport said the company had taken steps that need to be in accordance with the laws of the United States and Indonesia to provide a safe working environment for more than 18,000 employees and contractor employees companies. Freeport also said it had no alternative but to depend entirely on military and police of Indonesia and the decisions taken in relation to the relationship with the Indonesian government and its security institutions, are ordinary business activities.

In short order, Freeport spent 35 million dollars to build military infrastructure - barracks, headquarters, dining halls, roads - and the company also gave the commanders 70 Land Rover type cars and Land Cruiser, which is replaced every few years. All gain something, even navy and air force. According to former employees and employees of Freeport, when the company has recruited a former CIA field agent, and upon his recommendation, the company then approached a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and asked him to join. Then the two former U.S. military officers were recruited, and a special department, called the Emergency Operations Planning (Emergency Planning Operation) was established to handle a new relationship with the military Freeport Indonesia.

Emergency Operations Planning Department recently started to make monthly payments to the TNI commander, while the office of Security Risk Management (Security Risk Management office) arrange payments to the police. This information was obtained from company documents and information of employees and former Freeport employees. According to company documents, company paid at least $ 20 million (about USD 184 billion) on military and police in Papua from 1998 until May 2004. Then there is also an additional 10 million dollars (about USD 92 billion) which is also paid to military and police at that time a total of around Rp 276 billion.

New York Times received the financial documents of Freeport for seven years from a person close to the company. Additional documents for three years provided by Global Witness, an NGO that issued a report in July, entitled Paying for Protection (Protection of Payments) [1] about Freeport's relations with the Indonesian military. Diamird 0'Sullivan, who works for Global Witness in London, criticized the payments made by Freeport's.

According to the company, all expenditures must be done through the budget process. Records received by the New York Times showed payments to military officers as individuals who are registered under topics such as the cost of food, service and an additional monthly administration. The commander who receives funds are not required to sign a receipt.

Reverend Lowry, who retired from Freeport in March 2004 but remained a consultant until June, said, actually there is no sufficient reason for Freeport to provide funds directly to the military officers were.

Company records show, the largest recipient was the commander of troops in the Freeport area, Lt. Col. F. Togap Gultom. During six months of 2001, he was given only a little less than 100,000 dollars to the cost of food, and more than 150,000 dollars in the next year. In 2002, Freeport also gave money to at least 10 other commanders reached more than 350,000 dollars to the cost of a meal.

According to former employees and employees of Freeport, the payments made to the officers, to the wives and their children, on an individual basis. The rank of generals flew in first class or business class, and the officers who were lower in economy class, said Brigadier General Ramizan Tarin who receive a ticket worth $ 14,000 dollars in 2002 for himself and his family members.

Tarigan generals who occupy senior positions in the police said, the police officers allowed to accept airplane tickets because their pay is very low but it is a violation of police regulations to receive cash payments. In April 2002, the company paid a senior military officer in Papua, Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon, more than 64,000 dollars to finance a book called the Freeport as a "fund for military project plan 2002".

Eight months later, in December, General Simbolon received more than 67,000 dollars for humanitarian civic action projects. Payments were first reported to Global Witness. General Simbolon, who is now the Inspector General of the Indonesian Army, declined requests to be interviewed.

In 2003, after the scandals of Enron and the enactment of Act Sarbanes-Oxley, which required financial accounting practices are more stringent on companies, Freeport began making payments to the military units rather than to individual officers. Similarly, according to records available, and as told by former employees and employees of this company.

According to records, the company paid police units in Papua slightly below the 1 million dollars in 2003, registered under such topics as "additional monthly payment," "administrative fees" and "administrative support." Freeport told the New York Times, in determining the type of support can be given, is a company policy to take into account the possibility of violations of human rights. "According to records received by the New York Times, the paramilitary police, the Mobile Brigade (Brimob), which often quoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the United States for his cruelty, received more than 200,000 dollars in 2003.