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From Austin to Indonesia

Independent Reports on Human Rights Abuses by the Suharto Regime Come Home to Texas

by Robert Bryce
Texas Observer
November 17, 1995

On September 11, Steven Feld, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas, resigned his position in protest of Chancellor William Cunningham's and the University's association with New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan (See A Professor's Resignation). Cunningham has served on Freeport's board of directors since 1987.

Feld is an ethnomusicologist, a MacArthur fellow, a member of the American Academy of Sciences, and director of the Center for Intercultural Studies in Folklore and Ethnomusicology at UT. He is an authority on indigenous cultures in Papua New Guinea, and he objects to Freeport's huge gold-mining operation in western Papua New Guinea, an area the Indonesia government calls Irian Jaya. The mine has been the setting of frequent clashes between Indonesian army personnel and local people. Feld has also been writing to Cunningham since 1990, urging the chancellor to sever his ties and those of the university with the Freeport operation in Indonesia.

This is no ordinary gold mine. Situated higher than twelve thousand feet in an equatorial mountain range, the mine contains the world's largest known deposit of gold. The ore body, worth more than fifty billion dollars at current market prices, is estimated to contain over twenty-five billion pounds of copper, forty million ounces of gold, and seventy-five million ounces of silver. Freeport has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure in order to mine the ore. Nine percent of the operation is owned by Indonesia's Suharto regime. Some seventeen thousand workers are now involved in the mining effort, which began in 1972.

Between June 1994 and February 1995, twenty-two civilians and fifteen alleged guerrillas were killed or "disappeared" by the Indonesian army and that the armed forces were aided by Freeport security personnel.

The AFCOA Report

In his letter of resignation, Feld cited two reports published in the last six months, which allege Indonesian army personnel have committed torture, murder and kidnapping on and around the Freeport mine. The most comprehensive report was published on April 5, by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA), the national coordinating body for approximately ninety Australian non-governmental organizations that work on overseas economic development. Titled "Trouble at Freeport," and based upon eyewitness accounts, the report says that between June 1994 and February 1995, twenty-two civilians and fifteen alleged guerrillas were killed or "disappeared" by the Indonesian army and that the armed forces were aided by Freeport security personnel.

Specifically, the report claims that on Christmas Day, 1994, some three hundred local tribal people, armed with bows, arrows, spears and long blades, held a peaceful demonstration at Tembagapura, the town Freeport built to house employees near the mine site. "This time," says the report, "they raised the West Papuan flag in between two ABRI [Indonesian army] posts. Not long after, ABRI and Freeport security suddenly spread around to cover the crowd. Without warning the people, they raised their weapons directly to the crowd and started shooting. The rebels cried out to the ABRI and Freeport security to stop shooting, saying that they had not come for a bloody war, and that they just wanted to speak to Freeport officials and ABRI about their rights. However, those shooting did not care and kept shooting at the crowd from all directions." The report continues, "ABRI and Freeport security shot dead three civilians, five Dani people disappeared, and thirteen Waa and Banti civilians were arrested and tortured."

Later that day, according to the report, eyewitnesses saw Indonesian army troops execute five Dani tribesmen, earlier seen tied and blindfolded on a Freeport bus in Tembagapura. However, the bodies of the men were never found. The report also details extensive torture of the local people by the Indonesian military.

In response to the allegations, Freeport spokesman Bill Collier (who visited the mine previously, when he worked as a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman) said, "I've seen that report. Two things. One, we don't comment on allegations about the Indonesian government. Second, the allegations about Freeport security personnel are totally false. Freeport security over there is unarmed and focuses simply on security of the mine facility and families and workers and so forth." Collier refused to answer any other questions.

ACFOA estimates that the local people, who are primarily members of the Amungme tribe, have lost about ten thousand hectares of land since Freeport began mining in the region in 1967, and that a new contract signed by the company and the Indonesian government will allow Freeport to prospect on an additional two and a half million hectares of land occupied by the local people.

When it was released, the report caused an uproar in Australia and Indonesia. The Indonesian government promptly denied the allegations, saying that ACFOA had an "overactive imagination." But on April 7, Gareth Evans, the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, asked for an investigation of the situation at the Freeport mine. In addition, ACFOA asked for an investigation by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions and the Indonesian Commission on Human Rights.

The report recounts numerous acts of torture and detention of local villagers in Freeport shipping containers. The report further documents abuses that occurred on Christmas Day, 1994, saying that twenty Amungme villagers were detained after the demonstration in Tembagapura. "No one escaped torture," said one of the Amungme leaders.

The Catholic Church Report

The ACFOA report was followed in August by a report issued by the Catholic Church of Jayapura. The Church's report corroborates parts of the ACFOA report. It also describes additional alleged acts of torture and murder, including detention of local villagers in Freeport shipping containers. The reports quote eyewitnesses who said that on May 31, Indonesian soldiers "shot a number of Amungme indigenous people from Hoea, killing eleven of them." All eleven of the people, including Reverend Martinus Kibak, a protestant minister, were killed while they were praying.

The report recounts numerous acts of torture and detention of local villagers in Freeport shipping containers. The report further documents abuses that occurred on Christmas Day, 1994, saying that twenty Amungme villagers were detained after the demonstration in Tembagapura. "No one escaped torture," said one of the Amungme leaders. "They were beaten with rattan, sticks and rifle butts, and kicked with boots. Their hands were all crushed and were swollen. We were detained in groups. The number detained earlier were tortured until they died, but later arrivals were just interrogated in a normal way."

At about the same time, the report says another fourteen villagers, some Amungme and some from the Dani tribe, were taken to the Freeport workshop in Koperakopa. With their eyes taped shut and thumbs tied, one of the victims said, "We were beaten and tortured one by one by the soldiers, who took turns. They screamed at us and threatened to kill us if we would not confess that we had taken part in the demonstration in Tembagapura. Rifle butts, boots, fists, sticks landed on every part of our bodies."

H.F.M. Munninghoff, the bishop of Jayapura, said the church investigated the situation and issued its report because of the allegations in the ACFOA report. "This report is a very sad story about a number of incidents in the region around Timika, in the Fak-Fak district," he said. "The district is also the centre of Freeport Indonesia Corporation mining activities." The Church's twenty-seven page report includes the names of all those who were killed, tortured or disappeared.

Freeport is allowed to mine in Irian Jaya because it is one of the Suharto regime's biggest taxpayers (some reports describe it as the largest, others the second largest) and the mine is a reliable source of hard currency.

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT FREEPORT

The reports come at an embarrassing time for the University of Texas. Last December, the UT Board of Regents voted to name a new molecular biology building on the main campus after Freeport chief executive officer and UT alum Jim Bob Moffett. And under an exclusive contract with Freeport-McMoRan, the UT Geology Department has provided over one million dollars in geological research in Irian Jaya.

Shortly after the announcement that the building would be named for Moffett, Feld sent a letter of objection to Cunningham. Feld wrote, "No profits have ever been shared nor will be shared with the Amungme; their disenfranchisement is central to Freeport's wealth. They had no say in the takeover of their homelands for mining nor in the resettlement programs that removed them for the benefit of Freeport Indonesia. Their lands have been annexed, their wealth has been absorbed. They receive no land rent and no royalties and have virtually no legal, political or economic recourse to this forced dispossession. When some Amungme rebelled in frustration in 1977 and blew up part of a pipeline, Indonesian military retaliations resulted. Gardens and houses were destroyed, people murdered and tortured. Indonesia claimed that 'only nine hundred' were killed. Others put the estimate at twice that number."

The incident was recounted by BBC reporter George Monbiot, in his book Poisoned Arrows. Monbiot wrote that after the pipeline was blown up, "villages were then strafed by the Indonesian army from helicopter gunships and bombed by [U.S. made] Broncos; to intimidate the population girls were raped, then killed, slowly, by having sticks thrust up their backsides; soldiers took photographs of each other posing with their feet on the heads of the villagers they'd shot. American employees at the mine were well aware of what was happening, and seemed to regard it as entertainment."

Freeport is allowed to mine in Irian Jaya because it is one of the Suharto regime's biggest taxpayers (some reports describe it as the largest, others the second largest) and the mine is a reliable source of hard currency. Since taking control in 1965, Suharto has ruled his country with an iron fist. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that his regime killed more than half a million people when it came to power.

Despite Suharto's murderous record, Moffett thinks highly of the dictator. In 1991, he wrote a letter to Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group, which said, "We find President Suharto to be a compassionate man."

Suharto retains control over his far-flung island archipelago by tightly controlling the press, commerce and the military. Last year, Suharto closed down four opposition publications, including Tempo, an influential newsweekly. On April 17, The New York Times reported that several journalists were arrested on charges of "insulting the government," a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison.

According to stories published in The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times, a number of international business monitors credit the Indonesian regime with the creation of the world's most corrupt government. The worst corruption in the country may be in its military, which has brutally murdered hundreds of civilians over the past few years. On November 12, 1991, two hundred and seventy-one unarmed mourners were shot to death in East Timor, while attending the funeral of another civilian. Two American reporters were injured in the shooting, which was shown on CBS. The incident is one in a long string of such occurrences in East Timor. An estimated two hundred thousand Timorese have been killed by the Indonesian military since it invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975.

On September 26, The Canberra (Australia) Times reported that Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights had completed its investigation of the events in Irian Jaya. The paper said the Commission confirmed many of the allegations in the earlier reports, including the massacre of unarmed civilians and the killing of the eleven villagers at the prayer meeting.

But from Freeport's perspective, the most damaging news occurred on November 1, when the Overseas Private Investment Corporation confirmed that it has canceled the company's political risk insurance due to environmental destruction at the mine site (see "OPIC Cancels Freeport Insurance," page 8).

Cunningham has thus far ignored the human rights reports at the mine. It will be more difficult for him to ignore the OPIC decision; he is on record saying that he would not be associated with any enterprise that damages the environment.

In 1990, he told a group of students, "I have never been involved in any project, in my opinion, which would endanger or damage the environment," and added, "I would not permit myself to be involved in any such project."

Robert Bryce is a contributing editor for the Austin Chronicle, where a version of this story was published on November 10, 1995.