Freeport, the owner of the world’s largest gold mine, has long been a target of mass opposition by the people of West Papua, who are waging a struggle for national independence and for control of the region’s rich mineral resources. West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea, was wrested by Indonesia from the Dutch government—the former colonial power—in the early 1960s. The eastern half of the island is the nation of Papua New Guinea.

Renewed protests began in late February after West Papuans rejected attempts by mine officials to bar several hundred local families from continuing to pan for gold in the waste left over from the mine.

On February 22 hundreds of people set up barricades on the road to the mine, defying the 400 police and soldiers stationed at the mine complex and forcing its shutdown for several days.

Hundreds of people in the West Papuan capital of Jayapura organized a protest March 16 at Cendrawasih University, defending themselves with stones against cops equipped with teargas and guns. Among the security forces, several cops of the hated Mobile Brigade and an Air Force officer were killed. Human rights activist Aloy Renwarin said police gunfire had killed two Papuans.

There are 50,000 Indonesian soldiers and police in the province of 800,000 people.

That same evening, cops launched a series of raids on student dormitories, forcing thousands to flee. “Our dormitory was spared but we were afraid to return,” Martha Diekmi, who lives in a dormitory for members of the Amungme Kamoro tribe, told the Jakarta Post. On March 18 cops stationed on the road to the Jayapura airport fired into the air and “pulled people from cars and beat them,” AP reported.

The police held and interrogated 67 people in their sweep following the deaths. The national police chief said 14 people had been named suspects and locked up, including a leader of the West Papua Referendum Front.

One week after the student-led protest, a mudslide at the mine site smashed into a dining area, killing at least three workers and hospitalizing 27 others. “There is no impact to Freeport production,” said a mine company official.

“PT Freeport must not be closed down,” said Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono after the earlier protests. The mine is the biggest contributor to the government’s tax income, he said. Furthermore, the closure would “create doubts among foreign companies to invest in Indonesia.”

ExxonMobil is one company that has invested in the impoverished country of 240 million people. The U.S. oil giant announced in mid-March that it had signed a deal with the government-run oil company Pertamina to exploit an oil field near Cepu, in the east of Java. Press reports indicate ExxonMobil will have a 45 percent interest in the field, much higher than the previous norm.  
 
 
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