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)