Indonesia Update
Published by MAC on 2006-03-28
Indonesia Update
28th March 2006
March 2006 has been a month of protest, arrests, shootings, and death around American owned gold and copper mines in Indonesia. Freeport McMoRan and Newmont Nusa Tenggara are some of the world's richest mines, Freeport McMoRan's Chief Executive Officer Jim Bob Moffett himself raked in millions from the Papua goldmine this year. But the Papua and Sumbawa communities living around this exploitation of gold and copper reserves suffer some of the highest rates of poverty and disease in Indonesia.
Four people from Ropang Village in Sumbawa, the site of Newmont exploration, have been confirmed shot by police. Sumbawanews.com is reporting the arrests of twelve people in connection with the burning of the Newmont Nusa Tenggara exploration camp in the Dodo Rinti protected forest.