Robert S. Boyer, letter to the editor
Daily Texan
December 6, 1995

The Texan's generally excellent coverage of the Freeport story contains a clear error in the article "Senator puts appointment of OPIC official to Treasury position on hold" (Dec. 4). The story says, "The recommendations made by Munninghoff were investigated by the Indonesian human rights commission, which determined no human rights violations occurred."

In fact the commission said clearly that it did find many human rights violations. (See a copy of the report.) Moreover, it is probably incorrect to read the commission report as exonerating Freeport, despite frequent Freeport claims to that effect.

In an article titled "Freeport's involvement has not yet been investigated"appearing in the Jakarta newspaper Kompas on Oct. 2, we find the statement "Asmara Nababan (a member of the commission investigative team) said that the findings confirmed by the Commission in the field only went as far as obtaining proof of the human rights violations and did not include any investigation of the involvement of Freeport."

We also read, "But, according to Bambang W. Suharto (another member of the investigative team), efforts to obtain evidence of Freeport's involvement in the human rights violations in the area of its concession would involve interrogations. 'And if anyone wants to get proof of Freeport's involvement, that could only be done by the police who have powers to undertake interrogations,' he said."

Robert S. Boyer

Professor of computer sciences