Jakarta – Hundreds of people have attacked and torched a mining camp run by a local subsidiary of US giant Newmont on Indonesia's Sumbawa island.
The attack on Sunday followed in the wake of deadly clashes in Indonesia's Papua province last week during protests to demand the closure of a gold and copper mine run by US firm Freeport-McMoRan.
"The attack took place on Sunday morning but we had already evacuated the base camp on the previous day and temporarily halted our explorations there," Newmont spokesman Kasan Mulyono said. He said that the company, Newmont Nusa Tenggara, which also mines for gold and copper, received reports of the planned attack on the camp, where the company is exploring possible mine sites, and had evacuated its 135 workers.
Mulyono said he was told that hundreds of people had attacked the camp in the jungles some 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of the company's main mining site in Batu Hijau, destroying and then setting fire to buildings.
"From our air reconnaissance flights, we estimate that about 80 percent of the buildings in the camp, all semi-permanent buildings, were destroyed," Mulyono said.
He said he had no details about who conducted the attack or the reasons behind it. Police overseeing the area could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Koran Tempo quoted Sumbawa district police chief Abdul Hakim as saying that three people were arrested following the attack, which he said involved up to 500 people.
The daily said that a week earlier, local residents had blockaded a road leading to the mine and demanded that they be involved in the company's exploration operations.
The residents also reportedly wanted the company to pay money into a community development fund. In Papua, Freeport-McMoRan pays one percent of its profits into a fund controlled by local tribespeople.
Another Newmont subsidiary, Newmont Minahasa Raya, has been accused in court of polluting a bay near its mine in North Sulawesi province.
The company agreed last month to pay 30 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement of a civil suit but is still facing a separate criminal case.