Saturday, March 29, 2014

1) Indonesia, Freeport Deal Allows Copper Exports to Resume

1) Indonesia, Freeport Deal Allows Copper Exports to Resume

2) TIMIKA TENSE AFTER DEATH OF TWO RESIDENTS

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http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesia-freeport-deal-allows-copper-exports-resume/

1) Indonesia, Freeport Deal Allows Copper Exports to Resume

By Randy Fabi & Yayat Supriatna on 11:54 am Mar 28, 2014



Jakarta. Indonesia has reached a deal over export taxes with US mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, allowing nearly $4 billion worth of annual copper shipments to resume as early as next month.
Freeport and fellow US miner Newmont Mining Corp have halted copper concentrate shipments since January, refusing to pay an escalating export tax that they say breaches their contracts.
The export tax was introduced as part of a series of mining rules, which include a mineral ore export ban, to force companies to build smelters and process raw materials in Indonesia.
“We have solved the problem,” Deputy Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said at the Reuters Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit. “We will link the export tax, which is more like an export fee, on to the progress of the smelter development.”
To win a tax reprieve, Freeport agreed to pay the government a 5 percent security bond to build a smelter and sign supply agreements with smelter-building companies, Brodjonegoro said.
The final government regulation is expected to be published in the next few weeks, allowing Freeport to resume exports by the end of next month, he said, from the world’s fifth-largest copper mine in remote Papua.
“We are continuing to work with government officials to seek a resolution to these matters as soon as practicable so that normal operations can resume without adverse impacts to our workforce, the local community and our customers,” Freeport spokesman Eric Kinneberg said in an email.
Shares of Freeport ended 2.3 percent higher at $32.41 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Any mining company that takes action similar to Freeport’s will also be given a reprieve from the tax, which is set at 20 to 25 percent this year and rises to as much as 60 percent by the second half of 2016.
Newmont, which owns the smaller Batu Hijau copper-gold mine in Indonesia, was continuing to work with the government to try to secure a six-month export permit, company spokesman Omar Jabara said.
Newmont was also in talks, along with Freeport, around supplying copper concentrate to a proposed smelter that Indonesian state-owned miner Aneka Tambang, or Antam, is considering building in the country, Jabara said.
Earlier on Thursday, a trade ministry official said it had approved Freeport’s export certification but that it would still need approvals from the mining and finance ministries.
Freeport has reduced copper production at the mine in Papua by 60 percent, and its nearby mill was operating at half its normal capacity, due to the tax dispute.
— Additional reporting by Rieka Rahadiana and Wilda Asmarini in Jakarta and Nicole Mordant in Vancouver
Reuters
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2) TIMIKA TENSE AFTER DEATH OF TWO RESIDENTS
Timika, 27/3 (Jubi) – The killings of two residents of Mulia Kencana Village (SP7) of Iwaka Sub-district by an unidentified group has sparked fears among residents in Timika.
Several shops and kiosk were half-door opened because of the owners were worried that a tribal war could break out again.
Two men identified as Bernadus Douw and Yulius Pigome were found dead (KAPAN?). Douw was an employee at the Jayasakti Mandiri Foundation, which operate a farming business at Utikini Baru Village (Sp12). Their bodies have been evacuated to the Mimika State  Hospital for examination.
The victims were riding their motorcycles from Limau Asri Village (SP5) to their home in SP7 beforre when they were ambushed and killed.
Residents said the had never been involved in tribal clashes between Dani and Moni communities in Djayanti-Mayon because they belonged to the Mee tribe.
Angered by the killings, members of the Mee community gathered and blocked the road in the Timika Indah area. The victims’ families said the murder case must be immediately resolved through religious, customary and state laws so that the ongoing conflict in Djayanti-Mayon that has already claimed several lives could end.
“The point is we who represent the Customary Institution asked Dani’s Tribal Chief in Mimika Regency to meet the Mee’s Tribal Chief in order to have the same perception. We want the religious, customary and state laws would be equally enforced,” said Paskalis Douw on Thursday (27/3).
The latest killings has brought the number of fatalities linked to the disputes in Djayanti to nine.
Meanwhile, a Timika resident, Selvie said she was concerned about the deadly conflict. She hoped the perpetrators could be brought to justice and the killings would stop. The police remained on guard at Timika Indah Ground and the local council of Mimika as well as some vulnerable to prevent clashes. (Jubi/Eveerth/rom)
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Friday, March 28, 2014

1) Conflict in Indonesia’s Papua Region

1) Conflict in Indonesia’s Papua Region
2) Freeport Not to Pay 2013 Dividend
3) Newmont, Freeport Set to Secure Govt Approval to Resume Copper Exports

4) TNI assistance needed to  distribute election supplies  in Papua

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http://www.irinnews.org/report/99856/conflict-in-indonesia-s-papua-region

1) Conflict in Indonesia’s Papua Region



Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN
Papua is Indonesia’s poorest region
GOHONG, 28 March 2014 (IRIN) - The clearing of forests inhabited by indigenous people in Indonesia's Papua* Region by agribusinesses is fuelling conflict in the southern Merauke Regency, say campaigners. 

“Indigenous peoples rely on their land for their survival and therefore any incursion onto their land creates serious problems for any community,” Sophie Grig, a senior campaigner for Survival International, a UK-based indigenous rights advocacy organization, told IRIN. “These incursions in West Papua generally also involve the presence of the military to protect the project [which] leads to human rights violations.” 

Over the past four years, at least 74 people have died in the village of Baad alone - one of more than 160 across Merauke- due to infighting between communities created by disagreements over the sale of land to agribusinesses, and police brutality, according to Leonardus Maklew, a Baad resident who has been representing nine Malind villages in negotiations to defend their land from an Indonesian sugar cane plantation since 2010. 

“The most serious consequences have been human deaths. Up until now, the police, companies, and military never tried to understand our needs and our struggle,” said the 35-year-old ethnic Malind man. 

“Police and military personnel routinely accompany companies when they come to ask the Malind to sell their land. It is a form of intimidation,” said Sophie Chao, a project officer with the Forest People's Programme (FPP), a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands that campaigns for the rights of indigenous peoples of the tropical forest facing environmental destruction and human rights violations. 

Since 2009, when the local government initiated planning for the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), a mega development project aiming to convert more than a million hectares of forest to agribusinesses in Papua, at least 12 corporations have moved into areas inhabited by an estimated 116,500 indigenous peoples generally known as the Malind, who are struggling to survive in increasingly degraded, deforested environments. 

Tribal leaders co-opted? 

While police and military brutality against indigenous Papuans is nothing new in this resource-rich, former Dutch colony, violence between communities on this scale is unprecedented, residents say. 

“The government says we are just a hot-headed people, always fighting, but it is worse now. Tools that used to be used for hunting are now used against one another,” said Maklew, explaining that bows and arrows, and knives, are all commonly drawn during fights, which have occurred at least once a month since corporations started (in 2009) trying to convince villagers individually to sell their land, bypassing customary collective decision-making processes. 

Company spokespeople of PT Anugerah Rejeki Nusantara (ARN), a sugar cane plantation owned by the Wilmar International Group (WIG) headquartered in Singapore, often co-opt tribal leaders, paying them a salary to convince the other villagers to sell their land, according to the FPP, and without giving full information to communities that they will not see their land again, according toRainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO that campaigns for the protection of rainforests and their inhabitants. WIG strongly denies the charge. 

“Wilmar pledges to respect and recognize the long-term customary and individual rights of indigenous and local communities,”stated WIG in a public statement on 5 December 2013. 

IRIN repeatedly attempted to contact WIG by phone and email but the company declined to comment. 

However, in some cases, the amount offered for the land - 10,000 rupiahs (less than US$1 per hectare) per year - is not even enough to buy a packet of cigarettes in Indonesia, say activists. 

And then there is the whole issue of demarcation. 

According to the WIG’s own guidelines for community development and land ownership, “in Indonesia, land use and ownership is an inherently complex matter, exemplified in part by the high incidences of overlapping or un-delineated land rights in land concessions... development policies and projects, they can sometimes have an unintentional impact on the local communities, resulting in conflicts and disagreements.” 

Photo: Courtesy of the Forest People's Programme
Young indigenous Malind children

In 2007, the World Bank suspended funding to WIG for palm oil operations in Sumatra and Kalimantan after an internal audit exposed the company's lack of respect for community land rights. After this, the company declared a moratorium on further deforestation, and resolved to obtain free, prior, and informed consent from communities, according to the UN Global Compact

But according to activists, the situation on the ground has not changed. 

“If anything, the situation in Papua is intensifying,” said Chao. 

The Malind demarcate their land in the 45,000 square kilometre area using rivers, stones, and certain trees, but as some villages sell their forests - such as Zanegi village, which ceded 300,000 hectares to an Indonesian timber company in 2009 - traditional means of demarcation are changing, leading to confusion and contributing to a rise in social tensions. 

“One of the most tragic outcomes where corporations are land grabbing, is that communities have become bitterly divided,”said Marcus Colchester, the director of FPP, who explained that the villages resilient enough to hold out from selling often face “terrible consequences” including intimidation, harassment and beatings, and sometimes even deaths - all of which are committed with impunity in Papua due to the political legacy of separatism. 

Police brutality 
Communities feel they are unable to speak out against the corporations and military to defend their forests, and to organize to campaign for it, without being labelled by the local authorities as separatists, and becoming vulnerable to police brutality. 

“Whenever we stand up to raise our voices, we are labelled as separatists,” Lucia Erni, 46, a woman from Sarui village and co-founder of the Nyam Noken, or Papuan Women's Rights Network, a three-year old local advocacy consortium aimed to empower Papuan women against gender-based violence. 

Papua has witnessed a low-level separatist insurgency since the 1960s when it was officially annexed by Indonesia in 1969, while activists continue to voice their discontent with the Jakarta government, calling for greater autonomy. 

Forty-five thousand Indonesian troops occupy the region to control the separatist movement, which has been ongoing for half a century and seen an estimated 500,000 Papuans die at the hands of the military, according to the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP), a political UK-based support network for Papuan self-determination. 

“The police and military are already around us, and we are stigmatized by the independence movement. They justify beatings and arrests by saying we are separatists,” said Maklew, who has been imprisoned five times since 2010. One conviction was for standing up to police after 23 women from his village were allegedly raped by the military. “We are not separatists, we are just trying to defend our lands and way of life,” he said. 

Those Malind who try to defend their land run the risk of clashing with military personnel, and are arrested and put in police custody, where they are often beaten and tortured, rights groups say. 

At least 47 Malind land defenders have died in Merauke in the past four years alone, while under police custody, according to Maklew, who says he himself has been beaten by police and punched in the face. 

Environmental conservationists say indigenous people are one of the only barriers against global deforestation and industrial interests. 

“When our peoples’ rights are secured then deforestation can be halted and even reversed,” stated the recently released Palangka Raya Indigenous People's Declaration, the result of the gathering of more than 10 indigenous groups worldwide, including the Malind, on 19 March 2014 to discuss how to assert their rights. 

Struggle to survive 

“Now we have to walk more than one kilometre to find a forest to gather sago [a major staple food],” said Nyam Noken’s Erni. 

And so far, there have not been enough jobs to go around. 

“The corporations often bring in their own workers from other parts of Indonesia, because they do not trust us,” said Maklew. “The government says MIFEE is a source of life and livelihood, but for us, this is not the case.” 

“Indigenous people, who have lived on these lands since time immemorial, deserve to be part of the decision-making process,” said Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, the executive director of the Tebtebba Foundation, explaining that not doing this takes a toll on communities. 

Women, who are traditionally responsible for gathering food for the family, now have to leave their children and husbands from dawn until dusk in order to find forests where they can gather enough roots, sago, and vegetables to last a few days. 

“It creates problems inside of the family. The men are angry and the children are left alone all day,” said one local woman who went by the name of Lucia. 

Photo: Jefri Aries/IRIN
A Papuan woman demonstrates for greater autonomy

Locals say the most deadly disease now is Tik - a Papuan word for an invisible disease that can be felt but not seen, used to describe the “seeds of mistrust that are being sown between and within communities,” said Maklew. 

“In Papua, land is like our mother, it gives life and continuity to the generations. Especially women, we are the caretakers of the forest. We cannot be separated from the forest and the land,” said Lucia. 

According to the FPP, since 1900, Indonesia has lost over half of its forests, and is currently losing an estimated two million hectares more per year, mostly on the traditional land of indigenous and local communities. 

The country’s constitutional court recently declared that the state should pass ownership of some 40 million hectares of customary forests (30 percent of the country’s forests) to indigenous communities. Though the government has yet to do this under pressure from palm oil, logging, mining, pulp and paper and other project interests, forest and indigenous proponents say it is a step in the right direction. 

“Customary rights are guaranteed in the constitution. However, over the years, conflicting laws and regulations that govern tenurial rights have compromised these rights,” said Nirarta Samadhi, the deputy head of the President's Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight of the REDD+ Task Force Working Group on Forest Monitoring. “This decision is fundamental in the effort towards recognizing indigenous rights in Indonesia,” he added. 

*referred to as West Papua by some to distinguish it from neighbouring Papua New Guinea 

dm/ds/cb
Theme (s): Conflict, Economy, Environment,
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
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FRIDAY, 28 MARCH, 2014 | 20:32 WIB
2) Freeport Not to Pay 2013 Dividend
Zoom Out Zoom In Normal
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - US-based mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia announced it would not share its dividends for the 2013 fiscal year with all of its shareholders. Freeport spokesperson Daisy Primayanti said the company made the decision on the consent of its board of commissioners and shareholders.
“Including the Indonesian government, which was represented by the State-owned Enterprises Ministry, based on the company’s financial performance and cash availability,” she said in a press release dated Friday, March 28, 2014.
Daisy said the company’s performance in 2013 had plunged due to slumping sales of copper and gold, whose ore level was declining. Other factors were the commodities’ weakening prices in the global market and the accident at Freeport’s Big Gossan tunnel, which had hampered its mining operations.
Daisy said the company’s US$1 billion in cash was earmarked to develop its underground mining project, which would become the company’s main focus in 2017. She added the total investment value of the project reached US$15 billion.
Daisy said for the 2013 fiscal year Freeport had paid taxes and royalties to the government amounting US$500 million or equal to Rp5.6 trillion. “As the company resumes its export activities, it will be able to give significant income to the government  through taxes, royalties, and dividend payment,” she said.
The government through Law No. 4 Year 2009 has barred Freeport from exporting copper ore since January 12, 2014. Freeport will be allowed to resume exporting copper as soon as it is committed to constructing smelters in Indonesia. 
 
BERNADETTE CHRISTINA MUNTHE


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3) Newmont, Freeport Set to Secure Govt Approval to Resume Copper Exports

By Rangga Prakoso & Fidel Ali on 02:50 pm Mar 28, 2014
[Updated at 09:36 p.m. on Friday, March 28, 2014]
Jakarta. The government will allow Newmont Nusa Tenggara and Freeport Indonesia to resume exports of concentrates soon after the two companies showed their commitment to build copper smelters in Indonesia.
Indonesia imposed a gradual tax increase on copper concentrate exports on Jan. 12, but Newmont and Freeport argued the rule conflicts with their contracts of work that protect them from changes in taxes and duties.
The government also required that the two companies — which together account for 97 percent of Indonesia’s copper output — commit to build and supply smelter projects in Indonesia before they can resume concentrate shipments.
R. Sukyar, director general of mineral and coal at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, said that the ministry has sent recommendations for the companies to become registered exporters to the Trade Ministry, which has the power to issue the export license.
“Today we submitted a recommendation letter to the Trade Ministry for Newmont to be registered as an exporter,” Sukhyar told reporters on Friday. He adding that the ministry had submitted its recommendation for Freeport on Tuesday.
Sukhyar said that his ministry has verified Freeport and Newmont’s intentions in building smelters locally.
Freeport, which operates the Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua, proposed a public-private partnership to build a copper smelter to the government early this month. It is also conducting a feasibility study with state owned gold miner Aneka Tambang in plan to build a smelter.
Freeport owns a 25 percent interest in PT Smelting, which is currently the only copper smelter in operation in the country.
Newmont, on the other hand, has been working with an undisclosed third party to build a smelter and it said it is committed to supply concentrates to Indosmelt, Nusantara Smelting and Indovasi Mineral Indonesia, which are currently building smelters.
Deputy Finance Minister Bambang S. Brodjonegoro said that the Finance Ministry would like both firms to make a 5 percent deposit of their smelter investment as soon as possible for the ministry to start reviewing their concentrate export tax.
“Their progress [on smelters] must be clear first. This is because the [export tax] policy is in line with their progress,” Bambang said in his office on Friday.
The regulation — which is part of new mining rules introduced on Jan. 12 — would increase the concentrate export tax from 25 percent now to 60 percent by 2016, and eventually leading to a complete ban of concentrate exports in 2017.
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4) TNI assistance needed to  distribute election supplies  in Papua
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura | Archipelago | Thu, March 27 2014, 5:15 PM
The Papua General Elections Commission (KPUD) has requested backup from Indonesian National Military (TNI) headquarters in the form of a chopper to help with the distribution of logistical materials for the election.
“We have sent our formal request to the TNI commander. Hopefully we can use the resources in the near future because most of the regions here are hard to reach over land. We need to drop the logistical supplies by air,” Papua KPUD chief Adam Arisoy said on Thursday.
As many as 16 regencies in Papua are located in mountainous areas. They are namely Jayawijaya, Tolikara, Nduga, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Lanny Jaya, Yalimo, Mamberamo Tengah, Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Intan Jaya, Dogiyai, Deyai, Paniai and Mimika.
Papua KPUD had previously planned to drop the logistical materials using commercial flights. However, given recent unstable weather conditions, it decided to request backup.
Adam said the distribution of the logistical supplies was expected to occur on April 8, just one day before the legislative election. (dic)
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Thursday, March 27, 2014

1) Who stands for Papua?

1) Who stands for Papua?

2) Papuan customary councils  encoraged to develop their  areas

3) Two died due to arrows in Timika

4) Freeport closer to resuming copper exports from Indonesia

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1) Who stands for Papua?

By
Bobby Anderson
– 27 March 2014Posted in: Indonesia Votes

In Papua, where state sovereignty and legitimacy is deeply contested, representation matters. So in this national election, who purports to represent Papua?
Candidate residence is one way of sizing up the candidates and the results are telling. 63 out of 114 candidates running for DPR (national house of representatives) seats in Papua province live within the greater Jakarta area.  In neighboring Papua Barat, 17 out of 36 candidates live in greater Jakarta.
So, out of a total of 150 DPR candidates seeking to represent these provinces in 2014, only half, 53% to be precise, actually live in Papua.
Bad sign.

A quick review of CVs indicates that some of these Jakarta residents are ethnic Papuans, and many of them have extensive experience in Tanah Papua.
But a few of these Jakarta-based candidates have never actually lived here. If elected, their ability to adequately represent a constituency that voted for them is open to question.
Representation of residents versus non-residents in Papua province by political party also reveals some surprising results.
The new parties and the ‘presidential’ parties seem to have been particularly successful at attracting candidates who actually reside in the province. Meanwhile, the older, more established parties, who presumably have stronger party machines, continue to stock their candidate lists with non-residents.



For example, Surya Paloh’s National Democrat Party or Nasdem, and retired general Sutiyoso’s Justice and Unity Party or PKP, have the greatest number of locals, with 8 out of 10 resident candidates each. They are closely followed by Prabowo Subianto’s Gerindra and SBY’s ailing Democrat Party; both have 7 out of 10. 
On the other side of this coin rolls Megawati’s PDI-P, with 4 of 10, and the reheated New Order leftover Golkar, with 3 out of 10.
PDI-P is hobbled by Papuan memories of Megawati’s enthusiastic undoing of Papuan special autonomy, but this is more than made up for by Jakarta governor and front-running presidential candidate Jokowi’s star power. He is the only candidate that Papuans are enthusiastic about. Golkar remains the party of connections and contractors, and so will always have a stalwart base that will pause between the kickbacks long enough to vote.
Islamic parties fare on a scale of reasonable to poor. Nahdlatul Ulama’s PKB, has 6 of 10; Muhammadiyah’s PAN, 4 of 10, and  PBB, 4 of 10.

The Orthodox Muslim party PKS, colloquially referred to as the beef corruption party [Partai Korupsi Sapi - PKS - geddit?] after a recent bout of corruption scandals comes in at a woeful 1 out of 5.
The real surprise here is the geriatric Partai Persatuan Pembangunan or PPP. Six of their 9 candidates actually live in Papua. 
Still, let’s not get too positive about these 63 candidate-residents. 46 of them, or 73%, live in Jayapura city or Jayapura district.


But enough about address, what about actual hands on experience? Which parties have attracted candidates with some real political credentials?
Again, it’s the younger “presidential” parties that have attracted most of the experienced past administrators. Ex-Governor Barnabas Suebu and ex-Vice Governor Alex Hasegem are with Nasdem, while ex-Governor Freddy Numberi and pastor/ lecturer Noakh Nawipa joined Gerindra. Hanura’s Menase Robert Kambu wasn’t the best mayor of Jayapura, but he excelled where his passion lay- as Dewan Pembina [board of patrons] of the Persipura football club.
But too many other candidates are ‘fillers’, lacking any substantive experience either in Papua or as Papuans. For example, Partai Demokrat is fielding a candidate from Toraja that appears to have no link to Papua at all.  One of Nasdem’s candidates is a Jakarta resident who worked in a travel agency, before joining the political fray.
Dividing the candidates up by ethnicity and religion is a particularly important way of grasping of representation for Papua. In a time of unregulated migration, Papuans legitimately feel subsumed by outsiders. Questions about “Papuan identity” is a significant dimension of the ongoing conflict between Papua and the national level government and that “identity” is measured in ethnicity and religion.
So contentious is the issue that Papua’s Special Autonomy law mandates that gubernatorial, vice-gubernatorial, and Bupati (district head) candidates must be ethnic Papuans. 
The law resolves the fluidity and complexity of Papuan identity in narrow terms. Those born of a Papuan father and a non-Papuan mother are Papuan, those born of a Papuan mother and a non-Papuan father are not— go figure.
That said, this law does not regulate legislative candidates.
Below is a table of Papua and Papua Barat legislative candidates by ethnicity and religion.
CandidateNo. of CandidatesPercentage
Papuan candidates8053%
Non-Papuan candidates7047%
Papuan & non-Papuan Christian candidates9261%
Papuan & non-Papuan Muslim candidates5637%
Papuan Muslim candidates2430%
Papuan Christian candidates5670%
Non-Papuan Muslim candidates3246%
Non-Papuan Christian candidates3651%
*Percentages do not tally evenly in non-Papuan religions: I excluded non-Muslim/ non-Christians from the count.

The pluralist parties field a majority of Christian candidates, including Demokrat, Gerindra, Golkar, and Nasdem. Islamic parties like PKS field exclusively Muslim candidates, as do the other parties with a core Muslim constituency, to PPP, PAN and PBB. These parties tend to court the migrant vote. If the religious and ethnic identity of the candidates is anything to go by, the parties consider that vote to be of serious political importance.

 Unsurprisingly, the Papuans I know aren’t enthusiastic about their choices. In the recent gubernatorial elections, my highland friends voted in new candidate Lukas Enembe in January 2013 but with no expectation of change. “I’m fine with whoever” remains a common sentiment among under-30s. This casual apathy stands in stark contrast to the recent regional elections in Aceh, Indonesia’s other province with a long history of armed conflict with the central government. There, voters were more cynical: Partai Aceh intimated a return to war if they lost, and my friends there voted for that gaggle of louts, not to govern, but to behave.

In Aceh, voters were intimidated; in Papua’s highlands, they were created. The Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) report “Carving up Papua” described how the 2012 provincial voter’s list (KPUD) contained 2.7 million names, which was almost equal to the entire provincial population according to the 2010 census. 65% of 2013 gubernatorial votes came from the highlands, which in 2010 contained 50% of the population. In highland Yahukimo, the KPUD numbers were 157% of the 2010 numbers. In Intan Jaya, 152%; in Tolikara, 151%; in Yalimo, 132%; in Puncak, 126%. In Enembe’s home district, Puncak Jaya, where he was Bupati for two terms, it was 151%, with 99.5% of votes going to Enembe.

One wonders how these non-existent voters will cast their ballots, especially in the highlands.
Special thanks to my friend Justin Snyder, who offered me a few choice morsels from his extensive mining of the KPU website.
Bobby Anderson works on development issues in Eastern Indonesia, and he works and travels frequently in Papua and Papua Barat. This and other writings can be found at http://independent.academia.edu/BobbyAnderson
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2) Papuan customary councils  encoraged to develop their  areas
The Jakarta Post, Sentani | Archipelago | Thu, March 27 2014, 7:54 PM
The Jayapura regency administration, in Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, is providing an opportunity to local customary councils to develop their respective areas.
Assistant to the administration's regional secretary, Wiklif Yerisetouw, said a regional regulation on customary villages had been ratified, which would help clarify the role of the customary councils.
"The administration hopes that the development carried out by the customary councils will be in line with the existing conditions in the customary villages," Wiklif said in Sentani on Thursday as quoted byAntara news agency.
He also underlined the importance of customary communities in enhancing development and people's welfare in Jayapura. The locals need to be involved in the development to enable them to build a new Jayapura based on local wisdom.
He said the establishment of the customary councils in Jayapura was intended to help speed up development in Jayapura through synergy between the administration and local communities.
Head of the Moy Customary Council, Yohanes Kalvindone, welcomed the administration's initiative, saying it would help preserve the Papuan tradition of demu, where community elders gather to discuss the best interests of their villages.
"By doing this, the customary leaders will be able to unify and revive the existing customary capacities for the sake of and the welfare of the local communities," Yohanes said.
Previously, representatives of the Jayapura administration launched the chairmanship of the Moy Customary Council, which oversees a number of villages, including Sabron, Dosay, Waibron, Maribu, Kwantemei, Bonya and Kendate. (yon)
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3) Two died due to arrows in Timika

Thu, March 27 2014 22:08 | 280 Views

Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA News) - At least two people, who belonged to a tribe in Timikas remote areas, died after some unknown people hit them with arrows on Thursday at 4:00 a.m. local time.

"We havent yet found the perpetrators. However, our personnel in the Mimika Resort police force is investigating the scene and has questioned several witnesses," the Chief of Public Relation of Papua Police, Senior Commissioner Pudjo, told ANTARA here on Thursday.

He added that the casualties, including Natalis Douw and Julius Pigome from the Mee Tribe, will be taken to Enarotali through Nabire district.

Pudjo said both the casualties, who were found in Habitation Unit 7, were not related to either the clash incident, or tribal wars that occurred in Djayanti of the Iwaka area.

According to a resident in Timika, Amir, the situation in the city is tense due to the incident.

Amir said the family and relatives of the victims were angry and had gathered in the Timika Indah Square.

"The situation in Timika is highly tense, particularly the area near the Timika Indah Square that is located downtown," he said.(*)
Editor: Heru
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4) Freeport closer to resuming copper exports from Indonesia
JAKARTA, March 27 Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:01am EDT
(Reuters) - Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc has received export certification in Indonesia, a government official said on Thursday, taking it a step closer to resuming shipments from the world's fifth-largest copper mine.

The company has not exported copper concentrate since January from the mine in remote Papua and it must still reach a deal on an escalating export tax, which it and a fellow U.S. miner Newmont Mining Corp have refused to pay, before restarting shipments.
Any prolonged stoppage in exports by Freeport would support global prices of the base metal, which have lost almost 11 percent this year and are currently recovering from a 3-1/2 year low of $6,321 a tonne hit earlier this month.
"Freeport has received certification as a registered exporter from the trade ministry," Thamrin Latuconsina, trade ministry export director for mining and industrial products, told Reuters.
But the firm has not been given a green light to export copper concentrate yet and it still needs a recommendation letter from the mining ministry to do so, Latuconsina said.
Latuconsina said he expects Freeport to apply for this permit soon, adding that for this it would have to comply with Indonesian rules including paying the export tax.
Freeport has reduced copper production at the mine in Papua, and its nearby mill was operating at half its normal capacity, following the dispute with the government on the new tax.
The tax was introduced on Jan. 12 as part of package of new mining rules aimed at forcing miners to build smelters and process raw materials in Indonesia. (Reporting by Yayat Supriatna,; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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