JATAM | Mining Advocacy Network

Markus Makur,  The Jakarta Post,  July 11, 2009

An employee bus belonging to gold mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia in Papua was reportedly set ablaze early Wednesday by unidentified people, with no fatalities reported. Armed with homemade guns, the group set the bus on fire before running off into the mountainous area.

Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Bagus Ekodanto said Thursday that Mimika police were still on the lookout for the arsonists. He added the group had burned the bus in a gold mining area in Tembagapura district, Mimika regency.
He said his officers were combing the mining area and had found indications the group had escaped toward the mountainous area.

"We heard the group fire shots far from the mountainous area," Bagus said.
"There was no armed clash with our officers. We have not identified the group yet."
He said, however, the police suspected the attackers came from Timika district and were dissatisfied with the current economic conditions.
"They could create trouble here," the police chief said.
"The group knew there were a lot of officers in Timika. So they committed the chaos far away in the mountainous area."

Bagus waved aside speculation that the group was now targeting Freeport, after the slew of recent incidents in the mountainous areas in the province.
"The burning of the Freeport bus was not linked to the recent incidents in the mountainous areas," he said.
Last September, two mortar shells were detonated at a mining concession run by Freeport; but the police have not yet identified the perpetrators, despite a glut of evidence.
This incident was preceded by the detonation of two explosives on the highway leading to a gold and copper mining concession run by Freeport, also in Papua.

One of the explosives was set off at a gas station at the 50-kilometer mark, while the second explosive was one of two placed under a bridge over the Kabur River at the 39-kilometer mark.
None of the explosions caused any significant damage.

Security officials have blamed the separatist Free Papua Movement for the slew of violent incidents in the province, including the occupation last month of the Kapeso airstrip in Mamberamo Raya regency.
Police have arrested three suspects in the case, all members of a rebel group who occupied the airstrip for a month, and have charged them under the Criminal Code's article on treason.