Rights body rejects calls to probe Freeport
Rights body rejects calls to probe Freeport
JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights yesterday rejected an appeal by Irian Jaya students to look into allegations that PT Freeport Indonesia played an active role in the killings of civilians in the province earlier this year.
A group of Irian Jaya students visited the commission's secretariat yesterday to demand that the commission follow up its earlier report establishing that human rights violations had been committed by the authorities in dealing with an uprising.
The commission's report implicated Freeport, an American copper and gold mining company with an operation in Timika, Irian Jaya, but only to the extent that some of the killings occurred in the company's area of operation and that some of its facilities -- a container and a bus -- had been used.
The military is currently preparing a tribunal to try some of the soldiers whom it said violated procedures in handling the conflict in Timika. The human rights commission established that 16 civilians were killed and four went missing between October 1994 and June 1995 during military operations.
Clementino Dos Reis Amaral, a member of the human rights commission who met with the 12 students, said his organization had neither the capacity nor the authority to follow up on its findings on the allegations of human rights violation.
"It is under the authority of the Irian Jaya provincial administration and local police to conduct a follow up investigation," Clementino said.
"You have the right to know the result. But you have to go to the local administration and police, because we have submitted our reports to them," he added.
He denied the suggestion that the commission was protecting Freeport. "We have no interests with Freeport whatsoever. What would the benefit of defending Freeport be?" he said.
He admitted that the commission's investigation team during their trip to Irian Jaya used Freeport's helicopter, but this in no way affected the impartiality of the report.
He said the Freeport helicopter was the only mode of transportation available to take the team to remote areas during the course of its investigation.
The students, who said they came from the Solidarity Forum for Irianese Students and Youths (FOSPEMAPI), earlier told Clementino that another visit by the Commission to Timika is necessary to establish the extent of Freeport's involvement in the killings.
"We want to know whether Freeport was involved in the killings or not," said Yafet Kambai, who heads the delegation.
Yafet said that even based on the existing Commission's report, there was sufficient ground to prosecute the mining company as an accessory to the killings.
Freeport's spokesman Paul Murphy said separately yesterday that several other independent investigations had proven that Freeport and its employees were clean.
He said Freeport is obliged to provide facilities to the authorities, but stressed their use are not its responsibility. (imn/03)