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| Indonesian police officers man a security check point one day after an Australian employee of U.S. mining giant Freeport was shot to death by unknown assailants in Timika, Papua province, Indonesia, Sunday, July 12, 2009. A 40-member team of police and forensics specialists arrived Sunday to investigate the deadly shooting in restive Papua province, officials said. |
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Weekend ambushes blamed on separatist rebels killed two employees at the Indonesian mining complex of U.S. conglomerate Freeport, officials said Sunday, marking some of the worst violence in the restive Papua region in years.
A 29-year-old Australian mining expert was shot to death Saturday while traveling in a car just outside the company's massive Grasberg copper and gold mine, police said.
On Sunday, gunmen opened fire on two Freeport vehicles, killing a security guard and then ambushing police and anti-terrorist squads responding to the assault. At least seven others were injured in the three attacks.
Indonesian authorities blamed the violence on the Free Papua Movement, which has sought independence from the central government since the 1970s.
The escalation of tension in Papua, a highly militarized zone on the western half of New Guinea island, is an unwelcome development for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was re-elected just last week to a second 5-year-term. It also raised questions about a possible resurgence of Papua's secessionist movement, which until recent months had shown few signs of life.
The rebels see PT Freeport as a symbol of Jakarta's rule and a reminder that foreign investment in the area has failed to lift their standard of living.
The mine, which employs thousands of local workers, is majority owned by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. of Phoenix, Arizona, which posted revenue of nearly $18 billion for 2008. The Indonesian government holds a minority stake in the Grasberg mine, and there is a production-sharing joint venture with the Rio Tinto Group.
The security guard, working on a contract for Freeport, was killed Sunday morning when "shots were fired at two security vehicles," Freeport said in a statement. Five others were injured, but it was unclear who they were and how badly they were hurt.
Several police units, including an anti-terrorism detachment, responded.
"The attackers opened fire from distant hills, making it difficult for the police to return fire," said national police spokesman Sulistyo Ishakhe. Two police officers were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, he said.
The Australian mining expert was shot and killed on Saturday while traveling in a vehicle in the same area with three colleagues, PT Freeport said in a statement. The other people in the car were unharmed, leading police to conclude the shooter may have been a rebel sniper.
No arrests have been made in connection with the three ambushes, police said.
National lawmaker Yorris Raweyai, chairman of the Papua council, said the rising number of attacks was spreading fear among the local population even though they have seen similar incidents in the past.
Two Americans and an Indonesian schoolteacher were killed in an ambush in 2002 in the same area of the recent clashes.
"The killing of a foreign worker in Papua will have bad implications," he said, calling for an independent investigation. "The enforcement of the security must be carried out seriously and professionally."
The low-level insurgency for an independent Papua has been a source of clashes with government troops since the region was transferred from Dutch to Indonesian rule in the 1960s. West Papua was taken over through a stage-managed vote by community leaders called the "Act of Free Choice," which has been widely dismissed by international scholars as a sham.
Since then, about 100,000 Papuans - the equivalent of a sixth of the current population - have died in military operations in the resource-rich mountain area.
After years of relative quiet, the number of fatal incidents jumped this year ahead of April general elections, but it is unclear if there is a connection.
The Grasberg mining complex in Papua's remote highlands is one of the world's largest single producers of both copper and gold. It contains the largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest single gold reserve in the world, Freeport's Web site says.
Security has been beefed up at the site since Saturday's killing and employees were advised to be on high alert and not to travel to Timika, the town closest to the mining site, to avoid possible danger.
Business was otherwise not disrupted, Freeport spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan said.
The Indonesian government does not allow foreign media to freely report in Papua, where it has tens of thousands of troops. The site of Saturday's shooting was inaccessible to local reporters.
