The Grasberg Copper and Gold Mine, the largest in the world of its kind, is carved out of a mountaintop 14,000 feet above sea-level in the highlands of Papua, Indonesia. In fact, the open-pit mine is so large that the crater can be seen by astronauts in the International Space Station. It is estimated to contain $108 billion worth of minerals, but before the mountaintop was carved up for its wealth, it was the sacred mother of the Amungme indigenous community. They and many other indigenous communities have since been driven from their home by the American mining company and operator of the Grasberg mine, Freeport McMoRan.
For the better part of the last century, the mine has functioned as a continuous source of environmental, labor, and human rights abuses, causing both mine workers and surrounding communities to suffer massively. It is a blight on the island and an emblem of brutal colonial rule by the Indonesian government and the corporations it has propped up with help from the US. In late 2021, the CAL team was asked to help address this pattern of abuse and to brainstorm ways to hold Freeport accountable for fifty years of dumping toxic waste into rivers used for fishing and bathing, for funding state violence against mine workers, and for taking indigenous land. What we’ve found so far provides a poignant example of how extractive industry operates around the world, and it ties corporate accountability to the broader contexts of colonialism, neoliberalism, and genocide.
This is the first post of a two-part blog series on the human rights and environmental impacts of the Grasberg mine. It will focus on the colonial history of Papua and the origins of Freeport’s mining operations there because, as we will explain, the history of the mine and Papaun independence are inextricably linked. The second installment will dive deeper into the specific human rights, environmental, and labor abuses perpetrated by Freeport.
Papua’s (Almost) Independence
Native Papuans have inhabited the western half of New Guinea for at least 40,000 years, and today there are between 250 and 700 indigenous tribes, all or most with their own language. Indigenous Papuans are ethnically distinct from Indonesians, and most are united in their ongoing quest for independence. Papua New Guinea achieved independence from Australia in 1975, but Papua—the western half of the island—existed under Dutch rule for the majority of the twentieth century, with a brief occupation by Japan during World War II.
The Morning Star remains a symbol of rebellion and hope for independence, with December 1st a day of remembrance — the anniversary of when Papuans first raised their flag.
The Papuan independence movement actually came tantalizingly close to realizing its aim. Beginning in 1957, despite a claim by Indonesia that it was “owed” Papua through a 1949 agreement with the Dutch, the Netherlands implemented a ten-year program intended to slowly release Papua back to its indigenous citizens. Native Papuans, believing sovereignty was near, established a provincial government, national council, military, police force, currency, national anthem, and flag (the “Morning Star”). However, in 1959, the discovery of alluvial gold deposits in Papua did what resource discovery so often does: changed the course of history. Soon after the discovery, a team of Dutch explorers and scientists began to search the region for larger deposits and the Dutch program for Papuan independence was cut short.
Indonesia, with US and Freeport Support, Invades Papua
Freeport, by then already a wealthy and influential corporation with mining operations around the globe, had been paying close attention to these developments. In 1960, then-director Robert Lovett met with President-elect John F. Kennedy to suggest several administrative appointments — including McGeorge Bundy, who would become Kennedy’s National Security Advisor and ultimately be instrumental in arranging for Papua to join Indonesia. Between 1961 and 1962, Freeport began directly negotiating with Indonesian army official Suharto (who would go on to be President until 1998) and was ultimately successful in persuading him to form a small Indonesian exploratory mission into the Papuan highlands to search for suitable gold mining sites.
In 1962, the Indonesian military invaded West Papua. Motivated to appease Indonesia by Cold War politics (and without consulting native Papuans), the US negotiated a deal to transfer Papua to Indonesia after a one-year “holding period” with the United Nations. McGeorge Bundy, Freeport’s national security pick, was a key voice in persuading the U.S. government to negotiate this deal. Referred to as the New York Agreement, it was conditioned on Indonesia holding a referendum allowing Papuans to vote on whether to stay a part of Indonesia or obtain independence by 1969. With this, the US and Freeport became instrumental in orchestrating the denial of Papua’s right to self-determination.
In 1965, Suharto began a months-long massacre and coup, killing an estimated ten million Indonesians and claiming the presidency. The U.S. supported the coup, had knowledge of the massacre, and offered to help suppress media coverage of the events and executions. This was viewed as a quick U.S. victory within the Cold War context—within a few months, the U.S. had helped “flip” Indonesia. Soon after, Suharto’s government struck its first foreign investment deal… with Freeport. The deal granted the mining company the exclusive right to mine Papua for gold and copper (the Indonesian government was given a 9.36% interest in Freeport’s venture, and Freeport was allowed to mine tax-free for five years). The contract was “highly publicized” and signaled to other U.S. companies—including several that attended a 1967 economic conference in Geneva aimed at designing the “corporate takeover of Indonesia”—that the western corporate world had confidence in Suharto’s government.
The vote on Papuan independence was indeed held in 1969, but only after a brutal, years-long campaign of intimidation, torture, rape, and killing against native Papuans that resulted in at least 30,000 deaths. This campaign was at least partially prompted by Indonesia’s fear of losing the economic boom provided by the Freeport deal. Ultimately, the Indonesian government restricted the referendum vote to 1,026 people (0.13% of the Papuan population), every one of whom voted to remain a part of Indonesia under threat of harm to themselves and family. Thus, between 1960 and 1969, Papua was traded like an economic and territorial pawn through the hands of the United Nations and the U.S. into the hands of Indonesia.
President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger visited Papua during the referendum in 1969, and, in a recently declassified memo from this trip, Kissinger described to Nixon that a direct election “would be almost meaningless among the stone age cultures.” Other declassified memos show that the U.S. worried about U.N. interference in the sham referendum, but that, thankfully, the U.N. “was aware of the political realities” of the “preordained” vote. Kissinger joined the Freeport board in 1988.
Freeport’s World
Freeport did more than benefit from Indonesia’s seizure of Papua; it helped—and continues to help—wrestle and maintain control of indigenous land, agency, and wealth. The 1967 contract between Freeport and Suharto’s government granted the company “broad powers over the local population and resources, including the right to take, on a tax-free basis, land, timber, water, and other natural resources, and to resettle indigenous inhabitants while providing ‘reasonable compensation.’” There was no mechanism of refusal or informed consent for the locals in question.
Of the hundreds of indigenous tribes in Papua, the Amungme and Kamoro communities have been particularly impacted by Freeport. Before Freeport, both the Amungme and Kamoro existed largely outside a cash/commodity economy, and certainly outside any private property scheme. Furthermore, before the 1960s, many native Papuans had never encountered foreigners. In the wake of Indonesia’s takeover, Freeport built “what amounts to an entirely new society and economy, all of its own making.” The Amungme and Kamoro communities, among many others, simply became a part of Freeport’s world.
The Grasberg mine exists today as a perpetual symbol of colonialism, its creation organized at a high level by global powers and intended to accomplish the United States’ geopolitical goals and enrich a specific American corporation without any regard for the lives and the sovereignty of native Papuans.
With this context in mind, the next installment of this blog series will address the environmental, labor, and human rights abuses committed by Freeport and on its behalf by military and paramilitary forces of the Indonesian government. We’ll describe the various stakeholders in question and how they each interact with this corporate-colonial apparatus, all with the aim of historically and globally contextualizing the abuses stemming from Freeport’s economic occupation of Papua.
Daniel Kiefus is the Office & Program Coordinator at Corporate Accountability Lab. Reynolds Taylor is a Legal Fellow at Corporate Accountability Lab.
