Latter day gold rush brings prosperity to Irianese town<\/p>\n
By John Owen-Davies<\/p>\n
TIMIKA, Irian Jaya (Reuter): Indonesians are flocking to this
\nmosquito-blown coastal town in remote Irian Jaya to seek jobs and
\nfortunes in what resembles a latter day Gold Rush.<\/p>\n
Five years ago, Timika was an insignificant dot adjoining
\nswamps on maps of the remote province, which forms with Papua New
\nGuinea the world's largest island after Greenland.<\/p>\n
Today, it is a thriving mining-type town with over 50,000
\npeople scattered over an area of formerly untamed jungle, and
\nwith the possibility of many more joining them in coming years.<\/p>\n
The magnet to this all is one of the world's most profitable
\ncopper and gold mines, run in nearby mountains by PT Freeport
\nIndonesia, an affiliate of U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper and
\nGold.<\/p>\n
Apart from some armed police, there were no overt signs of a
\nsecurity presence in Timika, unlike on the road to Freeport's
\nGrasberg mine, 70 km (44 miles) away, after several incidents
\ninvolving separatist guerrillas since June last year.<\/p>\n
Freeport has denied charges by the Australian Council for
\nOverseas Aid and other groups of cooperating with the army.<\/p>\n
But at least one off-duty soldier was seen on a Freeport
\nhelicopter at Tembagapura, near the Grasberg. Sources in that
\ntown said they believed eight soldiers were deployed there.<\/p>\n
\"Timika was a sleepy little coastal town on the south coast
\nbut it has literally exploded in the past five years. It is now
\nthe fastest growing area in Irian,\" said American John Cutts.<\/p>\n
\"So many people are migrating in the hope of getting jobs but
\nmany are still unemployed,\" added Cutts, a former Christian
\nmissionary who has spent most of his 44 years in Irian.<\/p>\n
Bars, brothels and shanty shops, selling goods from clothes
\nand food to spare parts, are springing up, some houses have
\nsatellite television aerials and traffic jams occur.<\/p>\n
Timika's first major hotel, a Sheraton Inn, opened last year.
\nRooms at more than US$100 per night are out of the range of most
\nlocal Indonesians, many earning less than $5 a day.<\/p>\n
Some residents fear the influx might be sowing seeds for
\ndiscontent in an area that has brought together a diverse mix of
\npeople from some of Indonesia's 300 or so ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
American and Australasian mine workers and their families
\nmingle in the main market with tribespeople still emerging from
\nthe Stone Age, Javanese migrants and Sulawesi traders.<\/p>\n
\"Life here is OK. I like Freeport because they generate jobs.
\nI don't have one yet but I am hoping,\" said Martinus, an
\nIrianese, as a plane landed at the local airport.<\/p>\n
The airport, a Japanese World War II base still pockmarked
\nwith craters from Allied bombs, is used for regular commercial
\nflights and by Freeport.<\/p>\n
Already, complaints are being raised over the soaring cost of
\nliving -- a shirt costing Rp 10,000 ($5) on the tourist island of
\nBali is double that in Timika -- and a lack of jobs.<\/p>\n
\"It is difficult for people to find jobs with Freeport. People
\nwho work there are happy. But, if they do something wrong, they
\nare out,\" a local legal aid official said.<\/p>\n
Freeport has some 14,500 people in Irian, three percent
\nexpatriates. Phase one of its purpose-built town for up to 20,000
\nworkers and families outside Timika is nearly complete.<\/p>\n
Briton Stan Batey, working with Cutts on Freeport's community
\ndevelopment program, said \"This is the Yukon to people from Java.
\nIt is the other end of the world to them.\"<\/p>\n
He was referring to Canada's famous Gold Rush in 1897-98.<\/p>\n
Spurring the search for jobs is what bankers say is over 40
\npercent under-employment in the Indonesian archipelago.<\/p>\n
Irian Jaya, just north of Australia, is home to only 1.7
\nmillion of Indonesia's 188 million people, 60 percent of whom
\nlive on Java, 3,000 km (1,870 miles) west of Timika.<\/p>\n
Seven migrant camps are north of Timika. They house about
\n20,000 people from Java and elsewhere in the archipelago,
\nstretching from west of Malaysia to a line south of Tokyo.<\/p>\n
The government's controversial transmigration scheme has
\nresettled more than 4.5 million people on outer islands, about
\n180,000 in Irian, since 1950.<\/p>\n
Rabu and his wife, Wati, were among the first people to leave
\ntheir homes in Java in 1985 to seek new lives in Irian.<\/p>\n
Like others in the camps, they were given a wooden house and
\ntwo hectares (five acres) of land to grow their own food.<\/p>\n
But life in camp SP-1 has not turned out as they expected.
\nThey make around Rp 80,000 ($38) a month from a food and drink
\nstall attached to their home and rarely go into Timika.<\/p>\n
\"Quite a lot of people here work for Freeport but there is no
\nfeeling of jealousy between the 'haves' and 'have-nots',\" said
\nRabu, 50, eying the brick house of a Freeport worker.<\/p>\n
American Wesley Gleason said: \"I think Timika is no different
\nfrom any other mining town the world over. It is growing by leaps
\nand bounds, drawing people at a rapid pace.\"<\/p>\n
\"Most of our men enjoy it here but for wives there is very
\nlittle to do,\" Gleason, Freeport's logistics foreman, added.<\/p>\n
He will be among the first of 2,000 or so to live in
\nFreeport's new town, Kota Baru, within the next year. The $600
\nmillion town will also have shopping centers and theaters.<\/p>",
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