[Kabar-indonesia] 47 Papuans Questioned After Freeport Mine Blockade [+Bolivia Violence]

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: Bolivia mining violence quelled, minister replaced

The Jakarta Post
Saturday, October 7, 2006

47 Papuans Questioned Over Blockade at Freeport Mine 

Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Timika

Papua Police apprehended 47 traditional gold miners Friday for their alleged 
involvement in a blockade against work at the Freeport gold mine in Timika.

The miners obstructed the road leading to the mine. 

Papua Police spokesman Kartono Wangsadisastra said that more than 200 people 
protested Thursday against Freeport's clampdown on illegal mining and demanded 
the company find the miners alternative employment. 

"The management did not want to see them so they ran after security officers 
with machetes, knives and other traditional weapons. They also wanted to take 
ore so we drove them out and confiscated their weapons," he was quoted by 
Reuters as saying. 

During the protest, the miners damaged the iron railing around a warehouse, 
using three barrels from inside to block off the gate. 

Adj. Comr. H. Silalahi, the chief of Mimika Police's general crimes unit, 
said Friday that police had also confiscated three machetes, a banner, four 
hammers and a knife from the miners. 

The police, he said, were questioning the miners, who had also burned tires 
in protest. 

"But we haven't named any suspects. We're only questioning them," he told The 
Jakarta Post. 

Freeport has yet to issue a statement on the protest, which did not disrupt 
operations at the mine. 

In February, a group of protesters blocked off the road to the gold mine for 
four days to protest the American mining giant's activities in the province. 

The incident escalated when scores of people attacked the Sheraton Timika 
Hotel, leaving two police officers suffering arrow wounds. 

Freeport's mining operations have been a frequent source of controversy in 
the country, with issues ranging from its impact on the environment and the 
share of revenue going to native Papuans and the Papua government to the legality 
of payments to the Indonesian security forces who help guard the site. 

Some protesters have demanded the closure of the lucrative mine, believed to 
have the world's third-largest copper reserves and one of the biggest gold 
deposits. One such protest left five security officers dead in March near the 
province's main university after protesters retaliated with force when police 
tried to break up the rally. 

Freeport has been operating in Timika since 1972, under a working contract 
signed by the government in 1967 and extended in 1991. Under the latest 
agreement, the company has the right to extract minerals until 2041. 

The company's operations cover two million hectares of land in Papua, with a 
concession area that stretches from an altitude of over 4,200 meters above sea 
level down to the Arafura coast. 

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Bolivia mining violence quelled, minister replaced

By Eduardo Garcia

HUANUNI, Bolivia, Oct. 6 (Reuters) - A deadly dynamite battle between rival 
groups of Bolivian miners ended in a truce on Friday night and President Evo 
Morales fired his mining minister, who was criticized for not anticipating the 
violence.

The official death toll rose to 16, after state-employed miners and members 
of independent mining cooperatives fought with dynamite, sticks and stones on 
Thursday and part of Friday at the Huanuni mine, one of the world's largest tin 
mines.

More than 60 people were wounded in the fighting in the impoverished town of 
Huanuni in the Andes southeast of La Paz, before hundreds of police arrived 
and government and church officials stepped in to mediate.

"We have reached a truce, both sides, to return the whole town to calm, so 
that this doesn't happen again. I've promised the police there will not be any 
more dynamite explosions," Prudencio Pacheco, leader of the mining cooperative 
that fought for more control of the mine, told Reuters.

Pacheco's group and other independent miners stormed the mine on Thursday 
demanding larger concessions to exploit ore from the mine, in which both 
state-employed miners and independent cooperatives work. There were deaths on both 
sides.

The violence left the leftist Morales, who took office in January, caught 
between two groups whose political support helped lift him to power.

After opposition lawmakers called for the removal of Minister Walter 
Villaroel, a former president of the National Federation of Cooperative Miners, 
Morales replaced him with Guillermo Dalence, who was sworn in on Friday night.

"We've never done so much for the workers ... in eight months you can't 
resolve all the problems," said Morales, who also removed the head of state mining 
company Comibol.

CASKETS WITH MINING HELMETS

More than 200 mourners filled the cooperative federation's Huanuni 
headquarters at a wake around six caskets with mining helmets on top of them.

Women in traditional Bolivian bowler hats decorated the room with flowers and 
candles and mourners chewed leaves of coca, a mild stimulant many Andeans use 
to stave off hunger and altitude sickness.

Earlier on Friday, hundreds of independent miners in hard hats, many crouched 
in the rocky hillsides overlooking Huanuni, a town of some 40,000 people, 
tossed lit dynamite sticks.

Some packed dynamite into tires, which they rolled down to explode near 
state-employed miners guarding mine entrances.

State-employed workers complain that while they earn a monthly wage, workers 
from the independent cooperatives are paid according to the amount of ore they 
extract, frequently earning more than mine staff.

"They are sucking the mine dry," said Eliaterio Ancasi, 54, a worker at 
COMIBOL. "Within a month many of them have a car, while most of the state workers 
don't even have a wheelbarrow."

Some 1,200 state-employed miners and 4,000 independent miners work at 
Huanuni, which produces 10,000 tonnes of tin a year, slightly more than half 
Bolivia's total production.

Traders said tin prices could jump sharply as supplies are squeezed by the 
violence in Bolivia and in Indonesia, where riots broke out after police closed 
down four illegal smelters this week.

Pacheco said: "We still haven't reached an agreement on how to share the 
mine. The government must give us real solutions so this doesn't happen again."

Once a pillar of the economy in South America's poorest country, the mining 
industry shriveled during the 1980s as pits closed and workers were let go amid 
an economic crisis and sagging international prices for minerals.

As prices rebounded in the 1990s the laid-off miners started working the idle 
mines themselves and eventually formed powerful independent cooperatives now 
fighting for more control over Bolivia's rich minerals.

(Additional reporting by Carlos Quiroga in La Paz)

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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