[Submitted by the West Papua Advocacy Team and the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network for the hearing on Extracting Natural Resources: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law.]

We would first like to thank the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law for holding a hearing on "Extracting Natural Resources: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law." In particular we thank Senators Durbin and Coburn for taking leadership on this issue.

There are few more tragic examples of the negative impact of US corporations on local peoples than the four decade operation of the Freeport McMoRan copper and gold mine in West Papua which has entailed continuing violation of human rights and environmental destruction: Freeport makes direct payments to the military for "protection" while the military uses provocation and may engineer incidents to justify its continued presence. When local people protest the major social and environmental impact the mine has had, they are repressed with force. This deadly cycle must end. US policymakers can help by demanding transparency concerning US corporate activities, and suspending military assistance until real reform occurs.

Below we highlight some areas of concern, and summarize several reports that provide much more detailed documentation and context.

Linkages with the military

Perhaps the most devastating consequence of the Freeport operation has been the Freeport hiring of the unreformed Indonesian military, purportedly for its "protection." These forces have carried out property destruction, torture and murder aimed at intimidating the local Papuan population. This brutality has been documented by the US State Department (in its annual human rights Reports), the United Nations, the Indonesian Human Rights Commission (a government entity), the Catholic Church and numerous Indonesian and international NGOs. In what amounts to shakedowns, the Indonesian military in particular has on occasion engineered "incidents" aimed at pressuring Freeport to increase payments for "security..."1

In addition to such shakedown operations, the Indonesian military has also sought to generate what in Indonesia are known as "horizontal conflicts," or inter-communal strife, as a basis for an expansion of security force presence and influence. In recent years this has meant the creation of militias, including fundamentalist Islamic militias, which the Indonesian military employs to intimidate civilian populations and to stir communal tensions.2 The threat of such violence in the Freeport mine area and elsewhere in West Papua is a growing concern, with fears of strife along the lines of the terrible blood letting in the neighboring Maluku islands earlier in this decade.

Indonesian security forces regularly conduct months-long "sweeps" supposedly targeting small resistance elements. One focus of these sweeps is in the highlands just north of the Freeport operation. These sweeps have been devastating to rural Papuans, entailing burned houses and churches, destruction of gardens and displacement of civilians to the surrounding mountains and jungles where many perish due to inadequate food, shelter and access to medical care. Moreover, Indonesian military blocking of humanitarian assistance to these besieged populations has greatly exacerbated conditions and increased the number of civilian victims of these sweeps. These sweep operations are vastly disproportionate to the "threat" posed by small groups of pro-independence Papuan militants who are often armed with nothing more than bows and arrows.3

US citizens have been caught in this conflict as well. New evidence implicates the Indonesia's military in the killing of two school teachers and their Indonesian companion in 2002 new Freeport's operations in Timika].

Environmental impact and destruction of local culture

For Papuans, and particularly the local Amungme and Kamoro, the 41-year operation of the Freeport mine has meant utter destruction of the Ajkwa river system, central to their economic life, as a consequence of the disposal of millions of tons of tailings and other mine waste, poisoning of local water sources due to acid mine drainage and the marginalization of the local population as a consequence of a massive infusion of non-Papuans organized by the Indonesian Government and Freeport to operate the mine. The military-organized and protected prostitution and other criminal enterprises that have accompanied this invasion have debased Papuan society and culture. It has also meant an explosion of HIV-AIDS in the Papuan population that lacks even the most basic health care infrastructure and other central government services.4

Papuan resistance to Freeport

Papuans have responded to this systematic assault on their culture, lifestyle and livelihood with peaceful demonstrations in the region typically calling for real self-determination, justice and the closure of the Freeport operation. These demonstrations have been supported by fellow Papuans who have staged large, sympathetic rallies in Jayapura and even Jakarta. Indonesian security forces have responded to these peaceful protests with harsh repression. The Indonesian "justice system," rather than defending the right to peaceful assembly and protest, has partnered with the security forces, meting out harsh sentences to those who dared to raise their voices to demand their rights.

Papuan civil society leaders, especially including Christian and Islamic clergy, intellectuals and, human rights, women and student organizations, have persistently and with remarkable success urged their fellow Papuans to rely on peaceful protest. They have also pressed for internationally-mediated dialogue between Papuans and Indonesian officials, the demilitarization of West Papua through the removal of non-organic military forces and an end to Freeport's destructive exploitation of West Papua's natural resources. The Indonesian response to such Papuan dissent has been to label dissenters "separatists" and to employ both security forces and the "justice system" against them.

We must change US policy

Despite the progress of democratization in Indonesia, the Indonesian military continues to operate as an unaccountable, corrupt force throughout Indonesia. The Indonesian military has been able to rely on the financial support of Freeport, a channel of support that contributes significantly to the ability of the Indonesian military to remain a rogue force not accountable to the civilian government.

Legislation that requires transparent reporting by US corporations concerning their foreign direct investments is desperately needed. As this hearing will demonstrate, linkages between security forces that engage in gross human rights violations and US corporations is a global phenomenon. Congress should do whatever it can to force these relationships into the light.

The US Congress should also take immediate steps to better encourage accountability by restricting military and other security assistance to security forces that are known to engage in human rights abuse. This is already the law, but it is poorly enforced. In the case highlighted above, US government training and other assistance to the Indonesian military, which has been normalized since 2005, should simply be suspended until there is real reform of that institution. Otherwise the US government is contributing to the problem of on an out-of-control Indonesian military.

For more information contact:

• Ed McWilliams, West Papua Advocacy Team, edmcw@msn.com (author)
• John M. Miller, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, etan@igc.org or www.etan.org