Reject Freeport Protest, 7 April 2025

Why must this happen? Because since the work contract was established between the Indonesian government, America, and its allies on 7 April 1967, promises of development and prosperity for Papuan people have remained merely utopian dreams. PT. Freeport promised facilities for indigenous communities and proper markets, yet today, Papuan mothers still sell their goods roadside on torn cardboard sheets. They endure scorching heat, rain, dust, and mud. Their desire for a proper marketplace has never materialised.

Meanwhile, gold and copper resources in the Nemangkawi Mountains continue to be drilled, excavated, and depleted with complete disregard for ecological impacts: devastated ecosystems, biodiversity extinction, climate change, soil erosion, disrupted water cycles, and socio-economic damage to forest-dependent communities who rely on these areas for food, medicine, and building materials. All of these resources have become increasingly scarce. This process is accelerating toward extinction, with many forest species already completely vanished.

Rivers once clear and deep have become shallow and polluted. Communities can no longer fish or pan for gold as they once did. The Ajkawa River, Yamaima River, and their tributaries are now contaminated with mining tailings. This waste flows to estuaries and damages coastal areas. River transportation has become nearly impossible, forcing communities to travel by sea and brave dangerous waves just to reach the capital of Mimika Regency.

During 58 years of control over Nemangkawi’s natural resources, PT. Freeport has delivered not a single meaningful benefit to the Papuan people – the rightful owners of Amungsa Land. What they’ve received instead is waste, forests transformed into mining pits, and the destruction of Amungsa community social structures. All this contributes to a systematic extinction through consumption of food contaminated with toxic waste.

Community health continues deteriorating, with mortality rates rising due to water and soil contaminated with heavy metals. Meanwhile, health facilities remain minimal. PT. Freeport has never initiated funding for education of doctors, nurses, or professors from native Papuan communities. Employment opportunities remain virtually inaccessible. Freeport’s sole purpose has been extracting wealth for their own interests, while Papuan people endure suffering, dispossession, and exploitation of their natural resources.

Education remains available only for children of PT. Freeport “insiders.” As community members explain, “If someone works inside PT. Freeport, their children receive free schooling; otherwise, they receive nothing.” What about indigenous communities who live off the land and must struggle to finance their children’s education? The result: dramatically increasing numbers of uneducated children, school dropouts, and a critical scarcity of employment opportunities. Indigenous people are relegated to holding “empty, useless certificates” – even university graduates find their qualifications meaningless. They remain impoverished while their natural wealth is systematically exploited through extractivist practices built on injustice. Corporate investors become de facto rulers, while traditional landowners face eviction, blinded by false promises that never materialise.

Freeport Indonesia also serves as a gateway for numerous other exploitative investments, such as PT. Blok Wabu in Intan Jaya. Communities there have been forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands due to ongoing armed conflict between the Indonesian National Army (TNI) and the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB). The TPNPB defends its territory to prevent PT. Blok Wabu’s operations, yet militarisation continues intensifying under the pretext of state interests in mining development. Communities consequently live in perpetual fear, with their freedom of movement and expression severely restricted by capitalist interests while the state deliberately ignores their suffering.

The Lapago region (Papuan highlands) faces similar threats from expanding mining operations and palm oil plantations across Papua’s homeland. These extractive industries drain resources, harm communities, and contribute to systematic genocide, ecocide, ethnocide, and cultural destruction – processes that continue unabated.

Therefore, the Indonesian and United States governments must immediately revoke PT. Freeport’s mining permit at Mount Nemangkawi.

The Agimuga Incident: An Unhealed Wound

From 1977 to 1978, Agimuga became a killing field. Indonesian military operations scattered the Agimuga community, forcing them to flee into forests and across rivers. Many perished in the wilderness.

One figure memorialised to this day is Kelly Kwalik, a Papuan primary school teacher who became outraged when PT. Freeport’s operations destroyed a mountain sacred to indigenous communities. Kelly took up arms against Indonesian forces in 1977. Hans Frankenmolen documented this in his diary, recording Kelly’s condemnation:

“Indonesia does nothing for Papuans, especially those in the interior. Many promises, none kept. Just look at Agimuga.”

Kelly was later killed in December 2009. Thousands of native Papuans attended his funeral in Timika to pay their respects. Though branded a terrorist by the Indonesian government, for Papuan people he remains a resistance hero.

Violence and Intergenerational Trauma

Indonesian military attacks by land and air caused over 200 refugee deaths. The Asian Human Rights Commission documented more than 4,000 Papuan civilians killed during the 1977-1978 military operations. This state-perpetrated violence created trauma that continues being transmitted through generations and remains palpable today.

The Indonesian government must acknowledge this violent history. They cannot simply impose new investments without addressing unhealed historical wounds. The rights to free expression and self-determination for Papuan people continue being suppressed by militarism and a state system fundamentally opposed to their interests.

Linda Mote