How much produced at this "giant" copper & gold mine & care to guess at impact? Getting anywhere toward mined out since it has been producing since 68?
Two Americans Shot Dead in Indonesia, Several Hurt
Sat Aug 31,11:21 AM ET
By Dean Yates and Telly Nathalia
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead three people, including two Americans, and wounded up to 14 others on Saturday in an attack on a vehicle convoy near a giant gold mine in Indonesia's Papua province, officials said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Jakarta confirmed two Americans had been killed and said six or seven had been wounded, four seriously. A child was part of the group, but was not believed to have been wounded, the spokesperson said.
Papua Police Chief Made Mangku Pastika said the gunmen ambushed the convoy on a road near the world's biggest gold and copper mine, operated by Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of American-owned Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold Inc.
He said 14 were wounded, including nine foreigners, in an attack that will raise questions about the safety for foreigners in Indonesia's volatile outer reaches. The nationalities of the other foreigners were not known.
"An armed group, whose identity is unclear, blocked the road and then opened fire. Those who died were two Americans and one Indonesian," Pastika told Reuters by telephone.
The Australian embassy said nine of the wounded, including up to seven Americans, would be flown to the Australian city of Townsville for emergency medical treatment.
Townsville general hospital confirmed it had been notified to accept a number of wounded in the early hours of Sunday.
It was unclear if the wounded had already left Papua. Townsville, in the northeastern state of Queensland, is around a three-hour flight from Papua, much closer than major Indonesian centers, workers there have previously said.
NO MOTIVE, POLICE SAY
Pastika said there was no motive for the attack in the remote eastern region. A low-level armed rebellion has simmered in Papua for decades, although foreigners have rarely been targeted.
Activists have criticized Freeport over its environmental record and impact on the local community in Papua.
Pastika said the gunmen opened fire two km (miles) from Tembagapura, a high-altitude town that serves Freeport operations.
He said a number of people in the convoy were teachers at an international school in Tembagapura, which lies some 3,300 km (2,060 miles) east of Jakarta. It was unclear how many foreigners work at Freeport in Papua.
Pastika was speaking from Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, also in Indonesia's east. Police officials in Papua itself could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mindo Pangaribuan, corporate communications manager for Freeport, put the number of wounded at 10. He said police and the military had set off in search of the gunmen.
GOVERNMENT WILL TRY TO TRACK DOWN GUNMEN
The U.S. embassy spokesperson said the government had assured the embassy that security forces would try to catch the group.
"We have been in touch with the Ministry of Political and Security Affairs and also the Foreign Ministry and they have expressed their condolences and said they are going to try find those responsible and apprehend them," the spokesperson said.
Freeport began operations in 1968 and has long been a target of public criticism.
The company has defended its record, saying it makes an important contribution to the country and has spent millions of dollars in developing the local area.
Papua, formerly called Irian Jaya, was incorporated into Indonesia in 1963. In 1969, a U.N.-run plebiscite was held among local leaders, which resulted in a vote to join Indonesia. The vote has been widely criticized as unfair.
The only other major incident involving foreigners in recent years in Papua occurred in 1996 when guerrillas from the Free Papua Movement (OPM) kidnapped 23 people including six Europeans in two separate incidents. A total of four Indonesian hostages were killed and the rest freed.
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