Rich Outpost a Flash Point in Indonesia

Were it not for the U.S.-owned mine that shares the snowcapped mountains with the wreckage of allied bombers from World War II and tribesmen who have clung to Stone Age traditions, chances are no one except a few anthropologists and a handful of missionaries would give much thought to Irian Jaya, Indonesia’s most remote province.

But the bountiful mine--a $50-billion chunk of copper and gold, one of the world’s richest deposits--has changed everything, fanning dreams of independence, pushing a primitive people toward the 21st century and stirring debate on subjects new to the Papuans: human rights, the environment, corporate responsibility.

In the process, Irian Jaya--also known as West Papua--has been cast into the limelight as the latest flash point in a nation’s hazardous journey toward democracy.

Three miles above this frontier town, in the shadow of the only glacier between the Andes and the Himalayas, work goes on round the clock, seven days a week. More than 200 tons of ore a day are gouged from the open-pit site. Hills are devoured and valleys filled by bulldozers as tall as a one-story building and giant Caterpillar trucks that cost $2 million each. Every pass reveals deposits so abundant that work is expected to continue at its present pace until 2041, and probably beyond.

For the cash-strapped Indonesian government, still reeling from the 1997-99 Asian financial meltdown, the Freeport mine is a financial life preserver--the country’s largest taxpayer and biggest private employer. Since 1992, P. T. Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, has paid $1.5 billion in taxes, royalties and dividends, in addition to spending $160 million on regional development.

In return, the national government in Jakarta, which owns all natural resources in Indonesia, has traditionally spent as little as possible to improve the lives of the 1.2 million indigenous Papuans.

The Papuans, who for the most part are churchgoing Christians on Sunday and animists who believe in evil spells and earth spirits on other days, have long hankered to split from Indonesia, as East Timor did last year, and establish an independent state, financed by the mine and underwater oil and gas reserves. A small, ill-equipped separatist group, the Free Papua Movement, or OPM, has been waging a low-level guerrilla war for 30 years and holds the allegiance of most Papuans.

‘The Land Is Ours’

“Basically, we own the mine because the land is ours,” said Izhak Onawame, a Protestant pastor who hoisted an independence flag in the yard of the Roman Catholic church here in November. “So what we want is a peaceful transfer of sovereignty. Indonesia keeps saying: ‘Later. Maybe later. They’re not ready.’ But that’s a big nonsense. We’ve been a nation since we declared our independence from the Dutch on Dec. 1, 1961.”

Onawame admits that he was shocked that Indonesian soldiers made no attempt to intervene when he raised the flag. Then, at 5:15 in the morning on the 23rd day that the flag had flown, they attacked, without warning. Three independence supporters on the church grounds were wounded, and the flag was hauled down.

Word of the assault spread fast, adding fuel to the separatist movement. In June, a congress of separatists meeting in Jayapura, Irian Jaya’s capital, “reaffirmed” that the province was already independent, based on the 1961 declaration.

“Many people have no idea what independence means,” said Father Bert Hagendoorn, a Catholic missionary at the church where the flag flew. “They think it means getting everything for free and not having to work. Whenever the issue heats up, kids start dropping out of school and men quit their jobs because they think easy times are just around the corner.”

250 Languages Exist in Province

The road to freedom is full of potholes. The Papuans of Irian Jaya--who share the island of New Guinea with Papua New Guinea, which has been independent since 1975--speak 250 languages, some of which are known by only a few hundred people.

Here in Timika, workers sometimes walk off their jobs and return to their villages for a few days to fight tribal wars with bows and arrows. In remote villages, women go naked except for grass skirts and men wear only traditional kotekas, gourds that cover the genitals. Young girls are kept at home, rather than being sent off to school, so parents can trade them for an attractive bride-price.

“Sometimes I get impatient with my own people,” said Daniel Amajiseba, a Papuan anthropologist for Freeport who has a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Michigan. “Then I say, ‘Wait a minute. All this change is too rapid. It took Europe hundreds of years to move from the Stone Age to a cash economy. We’re doing it in a generation.’ ”

But clearly Irian Jaya’s aspirations represent a serious challenge to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who already is grappling with a separatist movement in Aceh, a province of northern Sumatra, and sectarian strife on Ambon, in the Moluccas, and other far-flung islands. They are also of concern to Freeport, which needs to promote stability and good relations with both the Jakarta government and the Papuan people to remain productive and profitable.

Wahid visited Irian Jaya on New Year’s Eve and said he would consider autonomy for the province though independence was out of the question. But the real key to the province’s immediate future may rest with the military, which controls brothels, alcohol sales and logging and often in Indonesia has fomented unrest in order to justify its continued presence in a region.

Elsham, a human rights group in Irian Jaya, says scores of activists have been killed by the military in recent years. There also are reports from the coastal town of Fakfak of the military recruiting anti-independence militias, as it did in East Timor, and of soldiers elsewhere stirring tensions between native Papuans and the 1 million or so Indonesians who have emigrated from other islands and wrested control of Irian Jaya’s commercial sector from the less sophisticated locals.

The coastal plain around Timika that reaches into the mountain peaks 50 miles north was virtually unpopulated when Freeport began mining in 1972. But as the operation grew, illiterate Papuans trekked out of the villages in hope of finding work. A ramshackle town of 30,000 residents took shape. A Sheraton Hotel went up. Freeport built an airport, a port and a 78-mile mountain road that the prime contractor, Bechtel, said was the most difficult engineering project it had ever undertaken.

For years, Freeport served as the region’s de facto government--Jakarta didn’t even put a fully functioning administration in place in Timika until March--and over time Papuans developed a love-hate relationship with the company. They were dependent on it for much of their well-being; they blamed it for all misfortune, whether it was the actions of a brutal military, widespread poverty or environmental degradation.

“We’re under intense pressure,” said Xahya Husin, a tropical environmentalist for Freeport who has found 61 species of plants and fruits that will grow naturally on land being reclaimed from nontoxic mine tailings. “But journalists come up from Jakarta . . . and still write that nothing will grow here. Maybe I don’t explain what we’re doing clearly enough. Or maybe they just have preconceived notions.”

Traffic Accident Sparked Riots

Freeport’s first real test of having to respond to local pressure came in 1996, when a routine traffic accident sparked anti-company riots. The protesters--some carrying walkie-talkies, apparently indicating that the disturbance was orchestrated by independence-minded groups--closed down the airport, blocked roads to the mine and rampaged through Timika’s outdoor market. Security forces shot and killed at least three protesters. Many Papuans accused Freeport of being in bed with the military.

Jarred, Freeport set up an affirmative action program that has increased the Papuans’ share of the 6,000-person work force to 20%--including 100 Papuans in supervisory roles. Most of the other workers are non-Papuan Indonesians. Freeport also pledged to put 1% of gross annual revenues for the next 10 years into a fund for community betterment. The fund now disburses about $16 million a year, and even critics of the company admit that the benefits have been many.

Four thousand students have been given scholarships, an anti-malaria program has dramatically cut infection rates, a multimillion-dollar lab was established to study the mine’s environmental impact, and a new, $4-million, 75-bed hospital is among the best in Irian Jaya.

But the very services that Freeport provides encourage more Papuans to trek out of the distant villages to take up residency in a valley where non-company jobs are few and conditions are already overcrowded. This creates a need for even more services and an increased dependency on the company. When the needs aren’t met, Papuans complain that Freeport isn’t doing enough to help them.

“How do you do meaningful social and economic development here?” asked David Lowry, Freeport’s vice president for human rights and community affairs. “I’d like to tell you we’ve conquered the field, but that’s not true. We’ve had accomplishments, but we’re still struggling, trying to improve the people’s well-being without creating an over-dependency on the company.”

Regardless of what balance the company strikes, Papuans are apt not to feel grateful, to either Freeport or Jakarta. Political organizations are springing up all over the mountainous province. Separatists are plotting their next moves and have chosen a name for a new currency: Papuan goldens. T-shirts with independence slogans are everywhere. And, as always in Indonesia, the military is waiting and watching.