Government having dificulty dealing with illegal miners

BANDUNG (JP): Minister of Mines and Energy Kuntoro Mangkusubroto admitted on Friday that the government was having difficulty in dealing with rampant illegal mining throughout the country.

He said the government had been dealing with the problem by organizing local miners into cooperatives and giving technical training to small-scale miners.

"The ministry has run a pilot project for small mining cooperatives, but we found the problem was very complex," Kuntoro said in commenting on a mudslide which killed 26 illegal gold miners in Cipongkor, West Java, on Wednesday.

He said poverty was one of the main causes of mushrooming illegal gold and coal mining over the last two years when the country first became mired in the economic crisis, and any solution to the problem should be based on an integrated program.

"Besides, there were financial backers who took advantage of poor people, financing their illegal mining operations. But it was the financiers who took most of the benefits," Kuntoro said.

Kuntoro said that small-scale mining endangered not only the miners themselves but also the environment and other people, especially when mercury was used to assay gold.

"Metal waste dumped in the Kahayan and Barito rivers, Central Kalimantan, reaches 100 metric tons per year. Although the real damage would not become obvious until after 10 to 15 years, its impact would be as devastating as the Minamata tragedy," Kuntoro warned, referring to the Minamata Coast tragedy in Japan where toxic contaminated fish caused death and physical defects.

"The problem has to be handled seriously. We don't want to lose a generation," he said. (43)