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New York Times vs Freeport McMoRan

New York Times vs Freeport McMoRan

Miningnews, 29 Desember 2005

FRESH from an acrimonious stoush with Newmont Mining Corp over its Minahasa operation in Indonesia and its Yanacocha gold mine in Peru, The New York Times has turned its attention to Freeport McMoRan.

The article, which is also published in today\'s Sydney Morning Herald, accuses Freeport McMoRan, the operator of the world\'s biggest gold mine, Grasberg, in Indonesia\'s Papua province, of paying off local military and police to the tune of almost $US20 million since 1998, and making surrounding rivers "unsuitable for aquatic life".

The New York Times reportedly spoke to a number of Freeport ex-employees and detailed the extensive links the company had with the military in order to operate in the region.

According to the report nearly 90 square miles of wetlands have been "virtually buried in mine wastes…with levels of copper and sediment so high that almost all fish have disappeared".

Rio Tinto currently holds a 40% stake in copper and gold reserves at Grasberg discovered after 1994, which earned the company $US85 million from copper production in the first half of 2005.

Earlier in the year, The New York Times re-published secret tape recordings that surfaced around five years ago, in an article which painted a negative picture on the lives of the locals around the Yanacocha gold mine.

There were also claims about streams and canals being fouled by the mine, with a class-action suit being filed in Denver.

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