This is in response to the Post’s editorial on Tuesday, Oct. 11, titled “Blood gold”, about the strikes and recent violence at PT Freeport’s Timika mining site in Papua.
Freeport-McMoRan in the US is a US$34 billion market cap company, with over $6 billion of its revenues derived from mining activities in Indonesia. Papua has provided considerable revenue for this company over the past five decades.
The striking workers are only seeking a minor increase if one considers the overall gold price, which is $1,600 per once. Nonetheless, Freeport is hard at work reinforcing the neocolonial model of mining as a going concern, spending vast sums of money on enforcers and military protection, instead of developing relations with its employees on a truly significant level.
The “more complex problems concerning welfare and the equal distribution of wealth and opportunities for local people” as stated in the article is about corporate social responsibility (CSR) and empowerment: responsibility in localizing the mine and the people around it, not in buying more military firepower to enforce an outdated means of coercion; and empowerment that can only be realized through skills development with attendant career mobility for employees.
The simple fact is that the world has changed. People have access to information, lifestyles and ideas that were hidden to them under previous regimes. They don’t want to be pushed around anymore. This issue is not unique to PT Freeport. There are many opportunistic mining projects across Indonesia, inclduing East Kalimantan, Nusa Tenggara, and North Sumatra. They will also get their comeuppance.
The neocolonial model, however, cannot exist without the support of politicians and leaders who allow it to continue. A recent article in the Post’s Business section about the same situation read: “Local politically wired businessmen are trying to get some of the pie”.
It is noted that Freeport has paid the Indonesian government almost $13 billion over the past 20 years. Why is that money not being put back into Papuan development initiatives?
Until the leaders get serious about dismantling this neocolonial model of resource extraction, Papua will not be able to develop. This will continue whether a foreign or Jakarta-based mining company takes over.
Its resources will be used to enrich people far away, not local Papuans. Despite the platitudes and rhetoric, the violence and misery will continue.
Will Hickey
Daejeon, Korea