Freeport staff implicated in Indonesian shootings

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Police have charged two employees at U.S. company Freeport with alleged involvement in a spate of deadly shootings at the largest gold mine in the world, an official said Monday.

The workers were among seven people who will go on trial for premeditated murder and illegal weapons possession, said Col. Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, a national police spokesman.

It was unclear what positions the two held with Freeport and the company declined to comment.

Three people died and more than a dozen were wounded in a series of ambushes at Freeport’s Grasberg mining complex that began on July 11. A 29-year-old Australian and a security guard working for Freeport were fatally shot, while a policeman fell to his death while seeking cover during an attack.

It has been the worst violence at Freeport’s operations in Indonesia’s remote, easternmost province, since two American schoolteachers were killed there in 2002.

Papua is home to a four-decade-old, low-level insurgency against the government, and members of the Free Papua Movement — who see Freeport as a symbol of outside rule — were initially blamed by authorities.

It was unclear if the men have rebel connections. Police responding to gunfire in the same area spotted five suspects with rifles fleeing into the jungle Saturday, Yoga said. No one was injured.

Some experts believe the incidents result from an escalating rivalry between the police and military over multimillion-dollar illegal gold mining or protection businesses at the mine. Others blame criminal gangs.

It is difficult to get accurate information out of Papua, a remote and highly militarized area that is off limits to foreign journalists.

Freeport has been targeted with arson, roadside bombs and blockades since production began in the 1970s during the U.S.-backed Suharto dictatorship. It is also regularly the focus of protests by local residents who feel they are not benefiting from the depletion of Papua’s natural resources.