VZCZCXRO1174
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #0932/01 0912247
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 012247Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4120
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS PRIORITY
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA PRIORITY 0604
RUEHPB/AMEMBASSY PORT MORESBY PRIORITY 3330
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 0438
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON PRIORITY 1436
RHMCSUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHHJJPI/USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 JAKARTA 000932 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FBI PLS PASS CTD/ITOS I, CTD/ITOS II, GOU 
STATE FOR EAP/MTS, DS/DSS, DS/IP/EAP, DS/EAP/ITA, AND 
CA/ACS/OCS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/30/2017 
TAGS: ASEC PHUM PGOV EMIN CASC ID
SUBJECT: SECURITY ISSUES AT FREEPORT MINE IN PAPUA, 
INDONESIA 
 
REF: 06 JAKARTA 03404 (ANTI-FREEPORT DEMONSTRATIONS 
 
     ESCALATE INTO VIOLENCE) 
 
JAKARTA 00000932  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Marc L. Desjardins, Political Counselor.  Reason: 1.4 (b 
, d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  Executives of the U.S.-owned Freeport mine 
near Timika, Papua, report that despite a difficult start, 
police Mobile Brigade personnel have successfully taken over 
the Indonesian Armed Forces' old role in supporting the 
company's security operations.  Freeport provides some 
financial and materiel support to these units, and has taken 
steps to improve transparency and accountability in this 
regard.  Over the longer term, however, Freeport would like 
in-house personnel to take responsibility for all the 
company's security requirements.  Illegal miners in the 
company's area of operations pose the most serious current 
threat to Freeport's security.  End summary. 
 
Mobile Brigade Replaces TNI at Freeport 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU)  In June 2006, about 650 members of the Indonesian 
National Police's elite Mobile Brigades  replaced a roughly 
equivalent number of Indonesian Army (TNI) personnel 
providing security at the copper and gold mine operated by 
the U.S. firm Freeport McMoran near Timika, Papua.  Like the 
TNI before it, Mobile Brigades' mission is to provide limited 
perimeter security around the mine's roughly 2,000-square 
mile area of operations and, more importantly, to control 
access and security along the 70-plus mile road connecting 
the lowlands towns of Timika and Kuala Kencana with the 
company-built support town of Tembagapura and the mine 
itself, at an elevation of 13,000 feet in the Sudirman 
mountain range.  Freeport employs over 18,000 Indonesians in 
this area.  The Mobile Brigades units are augmented by 
Freeport's 900-strong in-house security force.  About 250 
organic TNI troops, posted in Mimika regency as part of the 
military's nationwide territorial command structure, provide 
security indirectly.  A small number of Indonesian Marine and 
Air Force personnel support Freeport-related security 
operations at the Timika airport and the company's port on 
the Arafura coast. 
 
¶3. (SBU) In a mid-March visit to Timika, Freeport management 
briefed Embassy officers on its experience with the Mobile 
Brigades to date.  The first six-month deployment, Amole I, 
was not a success.  These Mobile Brigades personnel, normally 
based in Jakarta, were poorly disciplined and engaged in 
predatory behavior including theft of Freeport property and 
collaboration with illegal miners (see below).  In one 
incident, a security camera recorded a Mobile Brigades 
officer using a bulldozer to try to break into a building 
where gold ore concentrate was stored.  Because travel by sea 
to and from Jakarta was counted as part of its deployment, 
Amole I was on site in Papua for significantly less than six 
months.  Unfamiliarity with the area and mission meant that 
Amole I personnel never learned how to perform their duties. 
Accordingly, Freeport made fundamental changes in planning 
for its successor force, Amole II. (Note: "amole" is word 
used as a greeting in a Papuan language.) 
 
¶4. (SBU) Amole II was deployed in January 2007.  Unlike Amole 
I, it does not have a fixed term of deployment.  Its 
constituent units, drawn from Papua-based Mobile Brigades, 
are individually rotated or replaced as needed.  This has 
made for significant improvements in capacity and discipline. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Freeport provides some funding, materiel support and 
other benefits to Amole II personnel. However, the Indonesian 
National Police refuses in principle to formalize these or 
other arrangements with Freeport in a Memorandum of 
Understanding.  Its position is that the INP's responsibility 
for law enforcement in Indonesia is absolute, and not subject 
to regulation or restriction by binding agreements with 
Freeport or any other foreign entity.  Law 3 of 2002 on 
National Defense shifted principal responsibility for the 
security of vital national assets to the civilian police. 
Prior to this time, the legal basis for army involvement in 
the security of national vital assets had been merely a TNI 
 
JAKARTA 00000932  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
decree. 
 
¶6. (SBU) While Freeport does not pay Mobile Brigades 
salaries, it does pay Amole II personnel voluntary support 
allowances.  Funds for these allowances are deposited 
directly into bank accounts associated with individual Mobile 
Brigades units.  To prevent skimming or diversion of funds, 
Freeport directly informs Amole II personnel how much money 
is being deposited and how much each member can expect to 
receive.  These monthly allowances typically work out to IDR 
350,000 (just under USD 40) for rank and file and IDR 500,000 
(just under USD 60) for officers.  When units complete their 
Amole II deployment, Freeport rewards good behavior with 
performance bonuses ranging from IDR 750,000 - 900,000 (less 
than USD 100) per member. 
 
Illegal Miners' Encroachment Threatens Security 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Freeport also provides Amole II with ground 
transportation in the form of vehicles and gasoline vouchers, 
with strict controls in place to prevent abuses.  Freeport 
also provides equipment and amenities for guard posts along 
the main road, including Motorola radios for duty-related 
communication.  Freeport's in-house airline, Airfast, 
provides a limited number of tickets to Jakarta for Amole II 
personnel.  Issuance of these tickets is approved 
individually by company management to prevent abuse. 
Freeport also provides phone cards for cell phone use. 
 
¶8. (C) Freeport does not train Mobile Brigades, and is 
concerned about the INP's poor capacity in the skill sets 
required for national asset protection.  While Freeport finds 
that Amole II is an improvement over TNI personnel previously 
involved in providing security, the company wants to move 
towards much greater reliance on its in-house security force, 
possibly phasing out Mobile Brigades entirely. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Currently, Freeport's main security headache is the 
presence of illegal miners working in its area of operation. 
While Freeport management estimates that these miners number 
in the thousands, police and other sources put the figure in 
the hundreds.  Some are reportedly backed by business 
interests in Makassar who were previously linked to illegal 
mining in the Nabire area.  They began arriving in large 
numbers in 2006, and pan for gold from tailings in the Ajkwa 
and Otomona rivers.  The miners are from around Timika as 
well as from elsewhere in Papua and other parts of Indonesia, 
and have reportedly bribed Mobile Brigades for access to the 
area.  Some Mobile Brigades personnel have started a 
lucrative sideline in selling supplies and daily necessities 
to the illegal miners, a practice Freeport security is 
attempting to clamp down on.  In early 2006, illegal miners 
occupied Freeport-owned base camp facilities (reftel), a 
situation that was resolved by negotiation after several 
months' standoff. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Disputes among the illegal miners over choice 
prospecting sites could lead to security problems.  Some 
illegal miners have already formed associations based on 
tribal affiliation, and these groups lay claims to specific 
areas for their operations.  The illegal miners' activities 
also present safely hazards.  Many are working on dangerous 
terrain, and there could easily be fatalities or injuries 
resulting from falls, drowning, or landslides.  Finally, 
Freeport says that many of the prospectors are using nitric 
acid in their operations, and this poses a threat to the 
environment. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Freeport's current strategy to deal with the 
situation is to prevent further encroachment on its area of 
operations by building fences and beefing up security 
patrols, but to avoid direct confrontation, which could 
easily touch off a violent escalation. 
 
¶12. (SBU) With regard to other potential security threats, 
Freeport remains concerned about the potential for violent 
incidents orchestrated by outside agitators, along the lines 
of the attack on the Freeport-owned Timika Sheraton Hotel 
last March (reftel).  Freeport believes that in the past, 
 
JAKARTA 00000932  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
elements of the Jakarta business and political establishment 
have planned these actions to bring pressure on the U.S. 
company.  The separatist OPM/TPN guerrilla group, which was 
behind the August 2002 murders of three Freeport employees at 
Mile 62 on the company road, also poses a threat to security. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶13.  (C) Although Freeport management regards Amole II as 
something of an improvement over the TNI units that 
previously supported its security operations, the company is 
tired of relying on poorly-trained Indonesian security 
personnel, whether military or police, who are a drain on its 
resources and of dubious reliability in a real crisis.  As 
last March's events showed, Indonesian security are reluctant 
to respond to potentially violent threats without direct 
authorization from Jakarta, which might well arrive either 
too late or not at all.  Indonesian sovereignty sensitivities 
would probably preclude a total privatization of Freeport's 
security operations, since such an arrangement would suggest 
the existence of a foreign colony on Indonesian soil. 
However, Freeport would like to move in this direction over 
the longer term.  The company is contemplating a 
locally-recruited, well-trained in-house security force, with 
a token police presence for oversight purposes.  End comment. 
HEFFERN