Newmont resumes operation as dispute with locals ends

Newmont resumes operation as dispute with locals ends

JAKARTA (JP): Gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya
said on Monday it had resumed operation, after local residents in
a land dispute ended a week-long protest that blocked the
company's mining site at the Ratatotok village in North Sulawesi.

Newmont spokesman Yonaniko Salim said the protest ended
peacefully after the company made it clear that it was unable to
pay additional compensation for the disputed land.

"We're relieved that the protest had not turned violent," she
told The Jakarta Post over the phone.

Newmont has reported earlier that it was evacuating its
workers, as several protesters had allegedly made physical
threats against them.

The company had stopped operating since Monday last week, when
some 80 people began to block the access road to the mining site
and demanded the company to pay them additional compensation for
their land.

But according to Newmont, it paid 400 landowners "healthy"
compensation packages from 1989 to 1994.

Yonaniko said that most of the 400 landowners were already
satisfied with the compensations they received, which was then
about five times the market price of their land.

Only 20 landowners, she said, were among the between 80 and
100 protesters that blocked the road.

"My guess is that they brought along their friends and
families," she said.

However, Yonaniko added, the company was open to listen to
their new claims for compensation, if locals support them with
valid documents.

She said the one-week-long protest had cost the company 2,000
metric tons of gold ore per day.

But Yonaniko declined to call it a loss, saying the company
thought itself as fortunate that the blockade was only short-
lived. "We'll catch up in our production," she said.

In its press release, Newmont said that intensive negotiations
during the week had convinced the protesters that their course of
action was futile.

"We always felt that there were other alternatives to the
demonstrators and the actions they were taken were divisive and
potentially dangerous to the wellbeing of the community," Newmont
general manager Paul Lahti said in the press release.

He further hoped that people begin to understand that forcing
a mining company to shut down would result in nothing, and would
only benefit people taking advantage of the situation.

Newmont further praised the local government for its
involvement and the police for not taking a repressive approach
to end the protest.

Newmont Minahasa Raya is 80 percent owned by Denver-based
Newmont Mining Corp. and 20 percent by Tanjung Sarapung, which
local businessman Yusuf Merukh owns.

Aside from Newmont, coal mining company PT Kaltim Prima Coal
(KPC) was also forced to shut its operation after workers on
strike began occupying important production facilities since June
15.

Gold mining company PT Kelian Equatorial Mining in East
Kalimantan also experienced the same thing. It resumed operation
on June 8, after being forced to stop productions for weeks due
to road blockade by locals over land dispute. (bkm)