November 7, 1995

Thomas J. Egan, Senior Vice President and
Senior Administrative Deputy
to the Office of the Chairman
Freeport-McMoRan Inc.,
PO Box 61119,
New Orleans, LA 70161

Dear Mr. Egan,

Thank you for your letter and the enclosures sent to me on October 12. They were just forwarded from the University of Texas at Austin. I appreciate your efforts, in this package and in your previous one of September 19, to detail Freeport's view with regard to human rights and environmental issues at the mine site.

With regard to the September 19 letter, you take me to task for being malevolent without checking charges or doing research. I beg to differ with you on many of these matters since I have taken considerable time over the last five years to speak to a wide range of people who are very much in the know, including your own employees and former employees. Additionally, I have checked the veracity of eyewitness accounts through sources (including refugees and NGOs, government officials and journalists) in Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the United States.

In your September 19 letter you make seven points to which I would like to briefly respond.

1. "Freeport-McMoRan has taken a strong position in protecting the environment and mitigating environmental impacts in areas in which it operates." You might think you have taken a strong position in this regard, but OPIC's October 10th 1995 letter of termination to your insurance makes it clear that you (a) vastly misrepresented your environmental impacts to that agency, and (b) have been and are presently operating the mine in a way which poses major or unreasonable hazards with respect to national and international biodiversity, rainforest, safety, and human rights standards.
2. "The Toxic Release Inventory data which you cite is out of date and misleading." Not according to the Environmental Protection Agency, who provided me with further recent citations of fines and abuses since the data gathered and presented in their April 1995 report that cites Freeport as the number one polluter of land, air and water in North America.
3. "PT Freeport Indonesia personnel were not involved in the alleged incidents listed in the Australian Council for Overseas Aid report or the report of the Catholic Church of Jayapura." The reports in question did not directly charge that Freeport employees murdered, tortured, detained, harassed or abused indigenous West Papuans. But since your own letter makes it clear that Freeport cooperates in numerous material and logistical ways with the Indonesian military, I take it as duplicitous that the words "not involved" are the ones you choose to hide behind. Freeport works with and cooperates with the Indonesian military. Acts in question took place on or near Freeport sites, were witnessed by or took place in the presence of Freeport personnel, and involved Freeport equipment. Freeport was involved.
4. "Company employees are unarmed and not trained for military activity." I disagree and only my refusal to compromise confidential and vulnerable sources prevents me from sending you (a) a tape recorded statement and photographs from a former Freeport employee, (b) Freeport supply invoices from Cairns, Australia, (c) statement from a medical doctor with considerable experience in the area. These would make it very clear that I have serious documentary evidence that directly contradicts your statements on this point.
5. "You exaggerate the UT Geology Department's role in the Indonesian operations." I am sure you are correct that UT Geology students get a good opportunity to learn field geology prospecting in Irian Jaya (West Papua). But the bottom line is that Freeport's 1.4 million dollar contract with the UT Geology Department amounts to allowing a for-profit corporation to rent staff, facilities, and students of a public university at a remarkably cheap rate for prime space and skilled labor. Not to mention the fact that the University's highest official, William Cunningham, profits from the relationship as a paid member of Freeport's Board of Directors. In some states this relationship would constitute an actionable violation of ethics codes and in others would be entirely illegal. I do understand of course that Chancellor Cunningham has filed the required papers with the Texas Ethics Commission and that they have not objected to the simultaneity of his financial relationship with Freeport during the course of the Geology Department's contract.
6. "Your claim that PT Freeport has caused 'forced dispossession, impoverishment, and depopulation of indigenous New Guinean landowners' is ludicrous." Not according to refugees in Australia and Papua New Guinea, indigenous spokespeople in West Papua, NGOs, and medical doctors, not to mention international human rights organizations and journals like Pacific Islands Monthly and Far Eastern Economic Review. Among the more disgraceful practices, forced removals of highlands people to lowlands areas where they are highly susceptible to malaria are quite well-documented in eye-witness accounts. You may claim that PTFI does not directly perpetrate such actions, but the bottom line is that such removals are undertaken for Freeport's benefit and with Freeport's full cooperation.
7. "The primary beneficiaries of the Company's social and economic development programs include the Amungme and Komoro people, as well as other surrounding tribal groups, for which you have expressed concern." The indigenous people in question have consistently voiced a very different perception of the situation, and that leads me to believe that Freeport needs to make much more substantial efforts to address their concerns.

With regard to several of the points above, and in relation to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission materials included and interpreted in your October 12 letter, I am sending you a recent document. It is the response of the Amungme people to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission Report. In it you will note the following among the major points:

1. "...the root cause of the human rights violations is Freeport..."
2. "...the Commission should also have investigated the system of security practised by Freeport and ABRI..."
3. "The National Commission makes no mention of the involvement of Freeport in the human rights violations even though it knows all about the way in which the company has contributed to ABRI operations: the provision of a Freeport Security Command Post which is jointly used by Freeport Security and ABRI in Tembagapura, company helicopters which frequently transport troops and their supplies back and forth, three vehicles (which were painted over with camouflage after the facts about this affair came to light), as well as the containers in which detainees were held and tortured. There are also statements by witnesses who testified about the direct involvement of Freeport Security in the abuses."
4. Freeport's "...refusal to acknowledge our presence here as tribal people and our traditional rights...our sacred lands have been defiled and destroyed, our lands seized and taken over. The discrimination against us has meant humiliation, especially as regards job opportunities, [and] education..."

Mr. Egan, the real lesson of the ACFOA and Catholic Church reports, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission investigation, the testimonies of the Amungme people, and OPIC's decision to terminate Freeport's 100 million dollar insurance policy on the grounds of misrepresentation and "substantial adverse environmental impacts" is clear. Freeport has been more concerned with environmental advertising and publicity than with the real issues that impact the environment or people of West Papua. The company must become more responsible. Specifically, the company must recognize the importance of environmentally sensitive operations whatever its potential reduction of your huge profits, and of independent monitoring of environmental impacts. A more concerted effort to understand and implement the needs of indigenous people is particularly important. The real problem in many ways here is the militarization of the entire area. For Freeport this militarization insures a particular style of customary operation. But it is thoroughly oppressive to the traditional landowners, and has sparked numerous abusive instances of use of excessive force, intimidation, and violence against indigenous people. This must be radically changed, and it is Freeport who must initiate the change by substantially redefining its relationship with the Indonesian military police.

Sincerely,
Steven Feld,
after January 1, 1996,
Anthropology Board of Studies,
University of California,
Santa Cruz, CA 95064