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)