Jayapura, Jubi – In March 1973, then President of Indonesia Soeharto, accompanied by the Governor of Irian Jaya Frans Kaisiepo and the Director of Freeport Minerals, officially inaugurated the Ertsberg mine for the first time. This mountain was excavated for copper concentrate to be exported from Nemangkawi abroad.
The mining material, in the form of concentrate, was conveyed from Nemangkawi through pipes to the Port Side harbor and transported by ships to foreign destinations for export. The Amungme people themselves refer to Ertsberg Mountain as Yelsegel-Ongopsegel because of its gleaming appearance, akin to the shining feathers of a Bird of Paradise.
“Mountain birds still exist in Nemangkawi until now because for the Amungme people, ‘Yelsegel-Ongopsegel’ or Ertsberg is a sacred place for our people since ancient times. It is believed that the spirits of our ancestors would stop there before ascending to eternal heaven,” said John Magal, Chairman of the Indigenous Peoples Organization of the Amungme Tribe (Lemasa), to Jubi in Timika, last week.
According to John Magal, when the first bore penetrated the sacred mountain, elders recounted that there was a great light emanating from Ertsberg towards the east of Nemangkawi. “They (the elders) recounted that the spirits of our ancestors had left the sacred mountain,” he said.
“The sacred mountain, by the end of 1972, had all roads built, cable cars smoothly operating, and pipeline routes well installed. In December 1972, the first 10,000 tons of Ertsberg ore were successfully shipped to Japan. The mine was operating smoothly and proudly,” wrote George A Mealey in his book titled Grasberg: Mining the richest and most remote deposit of copper and gold in the world, in the mountains of Irian Jaya, Indonesia.
Furthermore, Mealey, who is also the Mine Development Manager of Freeport, wrote that three months later, President Soeharto arrived, and with a jeep, he drove up to the “copper town” he named Tembagapura and inaugurated the mine. “Unexpectedly, he also renamed West Irian Province to Irian Jaya Province,” Mealey wrote in his book on page 106 of the 384-page book.
He acknowledged that despite growing up in Alaska, USA, to him, the mountains in Irian Jaya were the steepest mountains he has ever seen, and even more impressive is that there was copper mineralization everywhere.
At that time there were no policies regarding Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Freeport’s EIA was only conducted in 1997 after the Erstberg mine ended in the 1980s and closed in 1988. In practice, the Erstberg mine operated from December 1972 to 1988 until the copper concentrate dwindled and it was finally closed.
The second mine at Mount Grasberg, or what the Amungme people call Tenogoma or grassy mountain, began exporting concentrate in 1988, and since then, the first EIA was conducted in 1997.
Grasberg to underground mining
Since the Ertsberg mine began to decline from the 1980s until it closed in 1988, Freeport began digging the second mountain, Grasberg, also known as Tenogoma, for open-pit mining.
“I began describing Grasberg to financial advisors as a ‘porphyry copper-gold deposit,’ where copper and gold production could be expected, and possibly silver too. I noted that the geological structure of Grasberg resembled that of Ok Tedi, a porphyry copper-gold deposit being mined in Papua New Guinea. The Freeport team also visited there. Ok Tedi received widespread publicity at the time because of its rich surface gold capping deposit,” Mealey wrote in his book.
Thus, Mealey continued, Grasberg is referred to as a “potential porphyry deposit.” It is said that Grasberg is the world’s largest gold reserve and the third-largest copper reserve. “Grasberg is the most significant mineral reserve discovery of this century,” said George A Mealey.
Now, the Indonesian government’s downstream program has built a smelter plant in Gresik, and practically all mining minerals from the Central Papua Mountains are excavated in underground mines and transported by ship to Surabaya and Gresik.
Antara News mentions that Phase II of the Gresik Smelter is still being pursued to be completed by May 2024. The operation of the Freeport Gresik Smelter will enhance Indonesia’s downstream efforts. As a result, there is added value that the country and all aspects involved can benefit from.
Now, after the closure of the Ertsberg mine, what remains is a mountain with a hole thousands of meters high. The former excavation is now a hollowed lake named Lake Wilson. The name is given to commemorate Freeport’s 1960 expedition leader, Forbes Wilson. (*)
Merauke, Jubi – Thousands of indigenous Papuans in South Papua Provincetook to the streets at Brawijaya-Libra Circle Park in Merauke Regency on Tuesday (3/13/2024). They believed their political rights were undermined during the 2024 General Election, particularly regarding the legislative vote count held in four districts in the region.
They carried dozens of banners expressing their demands and protests regarding the conduct of the 2024 election. They gathered and delivered speeches at Brawijaya Circle Park despite the rain, under tight security surveillance.
Various speakers took turns voicing the aspirations of the indigenous communities of South Papua, all of which were related to their political rights. One of the speakers, also a South Papuan activist, Victoria Diana Gebze, stated during her speech that the indigenous people of South Papua took to the streets to protest because there were irregularities in the 2024 election process.
“We, the indigenous people of South Papua, have sincere hearts and high tolerance to accept anyone from the archipelago who comes to this land to live together in harmony. We want peace, and we do not want to resort to protests like this but our political rights are not respected,” she said.
Gebze also urged the Acting Governor of South Papua, Apolo Safanpo, as the political leader in the region, to listen to and address the aspirations of the indigenous people of South Papua regarding the elections.
“Furthermore, we urge the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the General Election Commission (KPU) as the organizers of the 2024 elections to be accountable for the indigenous Papuan candidates whose votes went missing during the vote tallying process. Also, the reports of vote-buying that have been filed with Bawaslu,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Communication Forum for Indigenous Papuan Candidates, Robert Kaiba, expressed that they observed a flawed system, one that deviated from the election process itself. There were violations that occurred before the election process and during the vote tallying in various polling stations in several districts that did not reflect a fair democratic process.
“There were violations, such as alleged vote-buying in Jagebob District, vote-buying in Bupul, and irregularities in the electoral process in Kimaam. These have been reported to Bawaslu but there has been no follow-up or communication to us regarding the handling of these issues,” said Robert Kaiba.
Kaiba added that initially, they protested to the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) of Merauke Regency and the South Papua People’s Assembly (MRPS), but the outcomes of their efforts did not meet their expectations.
“Therefore, we take to the streets to protest and demand that high-ranking regional officials, including the governor, regents, MRPS chairman, Bawaslu, and KPU, come and talk to all of us,” he concluded. (*)
Jayapura, Jubi – The Democracy Alliance for Papua (ALDP), conducting independent monitoring during the 2024 elections, concluded that the political understanding among election participants, electoral organizers, and the public was severely lacking during the implementation of the 2024 elections in the Papua and Mountainous Papua provinces.
“No wonder that honest, safe, and peaceful democracy did not materialize in the voting process, as there was a complete absence of election awareness campaigns directed at the public,” said Antoni Ibra, the Coordinator of the Independent Election Monitoring Team from ALDP, speaking to Jubi in Jayapura City, Papua, on Monday (11/3/2024).
Antoni Ibra explained that this conclusion was based on the monitoring results starting from February 11, covering the logistics distribution phase, voting process, vote tallying at polling stations (TPS), and district plenary sessions.
The lack of understanding could even be considered fatal. For instance, there were legislative candidates in Nduga Regency who did not know which political party they represented. This indicates a lack of political education for the candidates.
“These political parties also nominated legislative candidates without providing any political education, so today we see communities fighting just to support a particular candidate. The candidates might not care about community conflicts, all they care about is advancing to the Regional Representative Council (DPRD),” he said.
“One candidate for the DPRD in Nduga Regency admitted that her votes were taken away, and she did not know where they went. When asked which party she belonged to, she admitted she did not know, only knowing that she was a candidate,” Ibra recounted a conversation with one female candidate from Nduga.
A similar situation, though not identical, occurred with lower-level election organizers. For example, how to use the Recount Information System (Sirekap), continued Ibra.. In Jayawijaya Regency for one, there were still election workers (KPPS members) who could not fill out Sirekap.
“And they are not only in the Mountainous Papua. Even in Jayapura City, in the Wahno Sub-district [of Abepura District], KPPS members could not fill out Sirekap, so the community had to help them,” he said.
According to Ibra, these examples highlight the fact that election awareness campaigns to build public understanding, which should have been conducted one year before the elections, did not occur. He suggested that there should have been at least three rounds of campaigns involving the Regional Apparatus Coordination Agency (Kesbangpol), the General Election Commission (KPU), and the Election Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).
“The public also needs to have political understanding. To achieve a clean and democratic election process, awareness campaigns involving the public are crucial. It is no surprise that today there are many conflicts, battles, and fraud in the elections. This is all due to the lack of awareness campaigns,” he said.
All of these serve as important notes for election organizers to improve and intensify awareness campaigns and build political understanding among the public, Ibra concluded. The same applies to election participants because, according to Ibra, democratic elections can only be realized if the public has received adequate political education, enabling them to have the capacity and maturity to engage in politics. (*)
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