Protester shot dead at Australian mine in N. Maluku
Sandy Darmosumarto and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
One tribesman on the North Maluku island of Halmahera was shot dead and four others were injured when paramilitary Mobile Brigade police opened fire to disperse hundreds of protesters demanding the closure of an open pit mine operated by an Australian firm, police said on Thursday.
Six persons, including a village chief and a Christian clergyman, were arrested for allegedly "provoking" the violence on Wednesday.
National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko Ardan said some 200 Brimob troopers had been deployed to the mine in the protected forest in Toguraci on Tuesday, when the protest by the Kao and Maliput tribes began.
"They were demanding access to the mine to start their own unauthorized mining operations," Soenarko said.
Currently, there are some 5,000 Kao and Maliput tribespeople on the island.
According to Soenarko, the protest on Tuesday ended peacefully after the tribespeople met with the management of the gold mine, which is operated by PT Nusa Halmahera Mineral (NHM), a subsidiary of Australia's Newcrest Mining Ltd.
However, the crowd returned the next day armed with sharp weapons, Soenarko said.
"The police fired warning shots. The second warning ricocheted and hit a protester, who later died at the hospital in Ternate," he said, referring to the North Maluku capital.
The casualty was identified as 30-year-old Rusli Tungkapi, a resident of Dum-Dum Pantai village.
The Coalition Against Mining in Forests and representatives of the Kao and Malifut tribes reported the incident to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in Jakarta and demanded that the commission probe the case.
"My brothers had no intention of inciting chaos. They just wanted to stage a peaceful rally. That's why they had informed the police beforehand," said Usman Sergi, a representative of the Kao and Malifut tribes.
He said the tribes had long being demanding that NHM stop its open-pit mining in the protected forest.
"We have seen how NHM destroyed the Gosowong forest. They have exploited the gold (ore) deposits in our forest and gave us nothing but a big empty hole in the ground. Now, they are preventing us from entering our forest," Usman said.
In his response, commission member Hasballah M. Saad said the rights body would question the National Police about the incident.
Currently, NHM has a concession extending to some 52 hectares in the Toguraci forest, some two kilometers west of Gosowong, where it has been operating an open-pit mine since 1992.
The Toguraci site is estimated to have gold deposits amounting to some 360,000 ounces.
In a statement on Thursday, Australian miner Newcrest Mining Ltd. said the incident took place during disturbances at its gold mine.
Reuters quoted the company as saying that the violence did not disrupt mining operations.
"The site is secure and safe and the mine is operating again," said Peter Reeve, a spokesman for the gold miner.
Law No. 41/2003 on forestry bans mining in protected forests as well as on ancestral land belonging to tribespeople.
However, the Ministry of Forestry issued a special operating permit last year for NHM to carry out mining in the protected forest in a bid to prevent lay-offs. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources also granted the company a similar permit.
State-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang owns 17.5 percent of PT NHM's shares. The rest are owned by Newcrest Mining Ltd.