. Earth Science News .
Employees suspected in Papua mine killings

Shooting incidents are not uncommon in the area and last week another a convoy of Freeport vehicles came under attack, leaving a police officer and a local Freeport employee with gunshot wounds.
by Staff Writers
Jakarta (UPI) Jul 29, 2009
Indonesian police identified two employees of the Freeport Mine as suspects in the killing of three people, including an Australian technician earlier this month.

Police also said they found ammunition and food stored along the road to the mine and suspect the cache might be for another attack in the remote jungle area.

The two suspects are among seven people police are investigating for involvement in the fatal shootout at the Grasberg mining complex, the world's largest gold mine, the Jakarta Globe newspaper reported.

It isn't clear from media reports if police have officially charged the seven. Earlier reports said that 15 people had been detained in connection with the July 11 tragedy that also injured 13 people near the town of Timika on the western side of the island of Papua. Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half.

Australian national Drew Nicholas Grant, 29, a project manager at Freeport, was killed when the vehicle he was driving was ambushed. The next day an Indonesian security guard was killed in another attack and a police Mobile Brigade officer who went missing during a third attack was found dead in a ravine near the ambush site.

Security forces and mining officials allowed thousands of Freeport employees forced to stay at the site since the attack to go home on Sunday.

"We have not taken a day off for three weeks and are grateful that we are back safe and sound," one worker told the Globe.

The latest incident took place last Friday, when a convoy of Freeport vehicles came under attack, leaving a police officer and a local Freeport employee with gunshot wounds.

Police haven't identified any organization in connection with the killings and have officially called them a "group of armed criminals," a report in The Jakarta Post noted.

Shooting incidents are not uncommon in the area and last week another a convoy of Freeport vehicles came under attack, leaving a police officer and a local Freeport employee with gunshot wounds.

Some people suspect the attackers were members of the Free Papua Movement although it has issued denials to the media. Locals suspect that members of the military and police are fighting over multimillion-dollar protection contracts for mine employees.

This month's fatal attacks were the worst at the mine, run by the U.S. business Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, since the 2002 killing of three schoolteachers, including two Americans.

The mine has been a focus of peaceful activism by many locals who feel they aren't getting a fair share of the exploitation of the country's natural resources.

The open pit forms a 1 mile-wide crater and is also the world's third largest producer of copper. It is basically a low-cost labor set up with nearly 20,000 employees. Production figures for 2006 were 672,000 tons of copper, around 2 million ounces of gold and 6.1 million ounces of silver.

In the past decade more violence has occurred in Papua, about the size of Spain and a part of the Indonesian archipelago federation after a slim majority voted in favor of joining in 1969.

Foreign journalists require special permits to work on the island. However, in March the British Broadcasting Corp. showed a clandestine and independently produced documentary about local conditions in the rugged, jungle island.

Many Papuans say they feel their culture and identity are slowly being eroded, the BBC reported. Papuans don't look like other Indonesians. They are Melanesian and closer to aboriginals as found in Australia than Asians.

But migrants from other Indonesian islands make up about half the local population. Some of the newcomers consider the traditional Papuan way of life backward and uncivilized.

Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
Global Trade News



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Taiwan leader calls for China trade pact but no rush to meet Hu
Taipei (AFP) July 29, 2009
Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou on Wednesday called for a trade pact with China but said he was not likely to meet his Chinese counterpart soon despite warming ties between the former bitter rivals. In an interview with the Taipei-based United Evening News, Ma said the two sides had been building mutual trust since he came to power last year. "However, the icy ties are just beginning to ... read more







The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2009 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement