Aussie miners return to East Kalimantan
Aussie miners return to East Kalimantan
JAKARTA (JP): Australian mining staff, who evacuated the
province of East Kalimantan two weeks ago amid rising anti-
Australia sentiments, have been returning to the province after
being assured of their safety, several coal mining companies said
on Friday.
Coal mining company PT Kaltim Prima Coal (KPC) in Sangatta,
East Kalimantan, which pulled out all its Australian staff and
their dependants from the province on Sept. 18, said most of its
Australian top executives had returned to the province.
"The president, general managers and some superintendents have
returned to the province. All other superintendents are expected
to be back next week," KPC general manager of external relations
Bambang Susanto told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
Bambang said the Australian staff were assured that everything
was under control despite strains in political relations between
Indonesia and Australia over the East Timor issue.
KPC is equally owned by Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto and British
Petroleum.
It is considered one of the world's largest coal mines with an
annual output of 15 million tons.
Students and youth organizations rocked the towns of
Balikpapan and Samarinda mid last month in protest over the
Australian government's reaction to the East Timor issue, the
burning of the Indonesian flag in Australia and the alleged
mistreatment of Indonesian citizens in the country.
They were also upset over the fact that Australian honorary
consul Barry Cooke had broken his promise to meet them. The
consul fled the province one day before the scheduled meeting.
The angry student and youth protesters stormed into the office
of mining service company PT Thiess and roamed Balikpapan in
search for Australians.
They took two Australian mining executives hostage and forced
them to hold a press conference to apologize to the Indonesian
people for the burning of the flag.
Australian mining companies operating in the province withdrew
most of their expatriate staff and dependents in the wake of the
rough protest.
The Australian companies include KPC, gold mining company PT
Kelian Equatorial Mining (KEM), which is a subsidiary of Rio
Tinto, and PT Arutmin Indonesia, a subsidiary of Broken Hill
Proprietary Pty. Ltd. (BHP).
BHP said it evacuated 50 expatriate staff from Balikpapan in
the wake of the demonstration.
KEM pulled out about 22 Australian staff from the province in
the aftermath of the protest, but 10 Australian top executives
remained at its mining site in Long Iram, Kutai regency.
"Most of the evacuated staff have returned. The others are
expected to return next week," a Rio Tinto public relations staff
member said.
Both KPC and KEM claimed that the evacuation of the Australian
staff did not affect their operation.
"Production was going on smoothly. We were only concerned with
depressed coal prices," Bambang said.
Bambang said KPC was now considering plans to cut the number
of Australian workers and give Indonesian staff greater
responsibility in the operation in anticipation of similar
situations in the future.
He said the company, as part of its new employment policy,
would not extend contracts to Australian workers who were
assigned to unessential positions.
"Expatriate staff reduction would also enable the company to
cut costs," he said. (jsk)