Michael --
I was invested in Freeport McMoran until I started to hear and read disturbing reports about Freeport's involvment in very serious abuses of human rights as well as large scale, unchecked environmental degradation. I'm usually able to ignore or repress what I don't like about a company's behavior and invest away -- for example, I'm now heavily invested in the oil sector and there's a heck of a lot I don't like there. But, if the reports I've been getting are even half true, Freeport has pushed the edge of the envelope too far, for me.
I've been grappling with this issue, and forgive me if I'm addressing an issue that is too far out of the scope of what should be posted here. I've enjoyed this thread for several months, and find your knowledge and experience about investing, as well as your sense of humor, enlightening and refreshing.
Here's a report about Freeport that I pulled from lbbs.org (search for "Freeport")
FREEPORT - MCMORAN
MINING CORPORATE GREED
By Jenna E. Ziman
There is a U.S. multinational corporation on the loose that watchdog organizations are keeping a close eye on. The company is a picture perfect example of a multinational company that knows no bounds in the race for profit, say human rights and environmental organizations.
The corporation is a New Orleans-based mining company named Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold. Its critics call it a monolith of U.S. corporate greed that has successfully evaded accountability for human rights violations and environmental devastation, escaped U.S. government audits, bought out the reporters investigating its operations and dodged responsibility for its crimes by blaming the very military forces that protect its operations.
In 1969, the glitter of Indonesia's abundant gold, silver and copper resources caught Freeport's eye. Today, Freeport's Grasberg mine in Irian Jaya is the world's largest gold mine and third largest copper mine, valued at $50 billion to $60 billion; a virtual golden egg of gargantuan proportions for its owners.
But for the people who live in Irian Jaya, the gold mine has been a nightmare. The dispossession of their lands, forced resettlement into malaria-ridden lowlands, pollution of rivers, and worse -- torture and extrajudicial killings -- have been the result of Freeport's mines for the Amungme, Dani, Moni, Komoro, Ekari and Nduga people, say human rights organizations.
"Freeport has taken over and occupied our land," said Tom Beanal, leader of LEMASA, (which stands for Amungme Tribal Council) the community organization of the indigenous Amungme people. "Even the sacred mountains we think of as our mother have been arbitrarily torn up by them, and they have not felt the least bit guilty. Our environment has been ruined, and our forests and rivers polluted by waste."
For his part in the financial success of Freeport-McMoRan, CEO Jim Bob Moffett raked in $83 million for 1995 and 1996 combined. Business Week named Moffettt the tenth most highly paid CEO in 1996.
"Looking at it another way," reported the Austin Chronicle in April, "Moffett's pay was nearly three times the total amount that (Freeport) has agreed to pay several thousand Amungme tribal members who have been displaced by the company's mining projects in Indonesia."
The Multinational Monitor named Freeport as one of the ten worst corporations of 1996. However, for the money-minded, Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold was listed as number 628 in the 1997 "Fortune 1000" listing of the biggest U.S.-based corporations.
Meanwhile, members of the indigenous Amungme tribe have literally watched their mountain disappear -- mining has removed enough earth to lower the mountain by 400 feet in the last seven years, and now the Ajkwa river is so badly polluted from the mine, that Kwamki-lama residents have been warned by Freeport's own employees not to drink the water or eat plants that grow near the water.
Mining the Earth, Undermining Justice
In its annual report, Freeport acknowledges its responsibility in dumping over 125,000 tons of potentially toxic rock waste (tailings) into the rivers of Irian Jaya every day. By Freeport's own estimates, the Grasberg mine dumped more than 40 million tons of tailings into the Ajkwa River in 1996. This has created a wasteland in the river valley below that pose major environmental, health and safety hazards for the surrounding ecosystem and the local inhabitants, say environmental organizations. Moffettt was quoted in the September/October issue of Mother Jones as saying that the environmental impact of the mine is the equivalent of "me pissing in the Arafura Sea." But the Amungme people and environmental organizations argue that the reality is quite different.
"The Amungme's land rights have never been acknowledged by the company, nor has the tribe been compensated for the ravages the mine has wrought on their land," said Danny Kennedy, director of Project Underground, an organization that supports communities threatened by mining and oil industries. "It has instead faced fierce repression and injustice for demanding that the owners of the land recognize both the tribe's right to the land and its right to live in a clean environment." In response to the controversy concerning land rights, Freeport said, "The land within Freeport's Contract of Work Area, like almost all land in Indonesia, is legally "tanah negara" (state-owned land) under the terms of the Indonesian Constitution. Under the Contract of Work with the government, Freeport has been granted clear legal right to use specified are to conduct our operations during the term of the contract."
According to BBC reports, the repression of the local population has caused the deaths of hundreds of people since the mine began operations in 1972. "We have not been silent," said Beanal. We protest and are angry. But we have been arrested, beaten and put into containers; we have been tortured, even killed."
The Australian Council for Overseas Aid and the Catholic Church of Jayapura both reported that Freeport turned a blind eye while the Indonesian military killed and tortured dozens of native people in the surrounding area near the mining concession. "Villagers were beaten with rattan, sticks, and rifle butts, and kicked with boots," one tribal leader told Catholic Church officials. "Some were tortured 'til they died."
Filling Suharto's Pockets
Freeport adamantly claims no responsibility for human rights violations, but the company's critics point to the close relationship between Indonesia's President Suharto's military regime and Freeport. The mining company provides housing, food and transportation to the military, in return for their services guarding the mine. The sub-district of Timika, the location of Freeport's mining concession, is presently the most militarized district of all Indonesia, including East Timor. The U.S. State Department, in it's 1995 report on Indonesia, stated, "where indigenous people clash with development projects, the developers almost always win. Tensions with indigenous people in Irian Jaya, including the vicinity of the Freeport McMoRan mining concession near Timika, led to a crackdown by government security forces, resulting in the deaths of civilians and other violent human rights abuses."
Freeport continues to maintain close relations with Suharto's regime, which has a 10% share in the mine. The Indonesian government will receive an estimated $480 million this year in royalties, taxes, and benefits from the mine; not to mention a smelter to be built on Java, which is being constructed in a joint venture between Freeport and Mitsubishi. In a statement released to address Freeport's relationship with the Indonesian military, the company said that its "relationship with the Indonesian Government is stipulated in its Contract of Work, which requires Freeport to grant the Indonesian Government, including the military, access to its infrastructure. The company is contractually obliged to provide logistical support for any government official, including the army."
Company critics believe Freeport's hides behind its relationship with the Indonesia government, in order to dodge responsibility for the violations committed by the government's security forces protecting the mine.
Freeport's ties with the Indonesian Government do not stop with the military. In March of 1997, an Indonesian company known as PT Nusamba acquired about 4.5 percent of Freeport Indonesia, in a bizarre business deal by which the $254 million commercial loans for the purchase were guaranteed by Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold itself. As it turns out, PT Nusamba is controlled by a prominent Indonesian businessman named Mohanad "Bob" Hasan, a close friend of President Suharto. And Nusamba is a subsidiary of the Nusamba Group, of which the majority is owned by foundations chaired by Suharto.
"Essentially, this created a situation where an American business is underwriting the purchase of its stock by the President of Indonesia," said Kennedy.
Furthering the Power Block
According to Federal Election Commission documents, Freeport-McMoRan gave the Democratic National Committee $40,000 on August 26, 1996. On September 6, the wives of Freeport's top executives, Chief Financial Officer Richard Adkerson, vice chairman Rene Latiolais, and chief investment officer Charles Goodyear, wrote checks to the DNC totaling $35,000. Four days later, Jim-Bob Moffettt's wife Louise wrote a check to the DNC for $2,500, for a total of $77,500 in donations from sources related to Freeport- McMoRan.
In order to solidify its collaborative power-block even further, Freeport has lobbied Washington for military aid to Indonesia, has strengthened its links to other multinationals such as Fluor Daniel, Mitsubishi, RTZ-CRA and Asarco. In October of 1995, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), a US federal agency that supports American companies doing business overseas, canceled Freeport's $100 million political-risk policy, after a lengthy investigation. The report cited environmental problems at the mine. In a letter dated October 10, OPIC told Freeport that the mine "had created and continues to pose unreasonable or major environmental, health, or safety hazards with respect to the rivers that are being impacted by the tailings, the surrounding terrestrial ecosystem and the local inhabitants." The OPIC insurance policy was reinstated in April 1996, after Freeport threatened to file a protracted lawsuit against the federal agency, but then Freeport instead decided to cancel its insurance policies with both OPIC and the World Bank's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) five months later. In so doing, Freeport avoided an imminent investigation by the World Bank agency into its mining operations. This powerful collaboration of multinational corporations, government ties and military force has supported Freeport in its battle against the protests of the local population, international human rights organizations and environmental organizations.
Demanding Justice
On April 29, 1996, Tom Beanal filed a $6 billion class-action lawsuit against Freeport on behalf of the Amungme people. Beanal's lawyer, Martin Regan, has charged Freeport with "eco-terrorism" and "cultural genocide." He has stated that the company's private security guards, acting under corporate policy, have engaged in arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and property destruction.
A federal judge rejected the case, on the grounds that the environmental claims could not be tested against any international law, and the human rights charges were unclear. However, the lawsuit has been refiled, with clarifications of Freeport-McMoRan's alleged human rights violations. The suit now appears to have a good chance in court under the Alien Tort Compensation Act, said Kennedy. However, Freeport believes the lawsuit has no basis in law or fact. "It is clear that the Irianese supporting the suit are being misled by lawyers and activist groups seeking to advance their own agendas," the company said.
Attempting to placate the local indigenous people, Freeport offered to invest one percent of its annual profits (roughly US $15 million) in local "development" schemes. The offer was rejected by Beanal. He pointed out that Freeport had failed to ever consult with the indigenous community or to compensate them for the years of environmental damage and human rights abuse. Although the Amungme people have received some material assistance from the company, tribal elders say their people's living standards are low. Only 13% of the 17,000 employees working at Freeport are people from Irian Jaya.
"Speaking on behalf of the entire Amungme community, from Delematagal to Jigimugi, [we] will continue to wage a struggle for the rights of the Amungme people, with regards to their rights to their natural resources and their environment which has been damaged by Freeport," Beanal said. Beanal was recently awarded the Jane Begley Lehman Award in recognition for his commitment to addressing social justice issues.
Jenna E. Ziman is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter.
|
