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DJ UPDATE:Jakarta Protesters Attack Freeport Office Building(Comtex Finance Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)JAKARTA, Feb 23, 2006 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --(Updates with quote from, Freeport's Indonesia president, Jakarta police chief, update on mine blockade, background.) Students angry at U.S. gold mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) attacked the building housing its offices in Jakarta on Thursday, as the company's mine in Papua province remained shut for a second day due to protests. Up to 20 Papuan students broke windows and damaged facilities in the lobby of the building in the predawn attack, then set fire to the deserted offices of a travel agency on the ground floor. No one was injured at the deserted building. The violence was captured on video and aired by Metro TV. "We cannot tolerate this kind of vandalism," police chief General Sutanto told reporters in the capital, adding that 13 people had been arrested. Freeport was forced to shut its massive mine in Papua on Wednesday after locals - some of them carrying bows and arrows - set up barricades and demanded permission to sift through waste ore pumped out by the gold and copper mine. The blockades, which continued Thursday, followed clashes on the road earlier this week that left six people injured. The New Orleans-based company, which has seen revenues shoot up on soaring global gold and copper prices, said it hoped to resume operations soon, but the mine remained closed Thursday. Adrianto Machribie, president director of PT Freeport Indonesia, said the closure could cost the company $10 million-$12 million a day. "This is the figure based on last year's production and prices," he told Metro TV. The Grasberg mine, which has long had an uneasy relationship with local people, many of whom are desperately poor, last temporarily closed in 2003 after a landslide killed several workers. Although illegal, many people earn their living retrieving and selling tiny amounts of gold and copper from waste rock, or tailings, dumped by the mine. Freeport is also under fire over pollution allegations and its practice of paying millions of dollars a year to security forces to guard the open pit mine in Papua, which is also home to a simmering separatist rebellion. Security practices at the site came under renewed scrutiny after a 2002 attack on a convoy of teachers working at the mine killed two U.S. citizens. Local and foreign rights groups claim soldiers took part in the attack, allegedly to extort more security payments from Freeport. The Grasberg mine, the largest gold mine in the world and third largest copper mine, opened in 1973. Freeport estimates the mine, some 3,700 kilometers east of Jakarta, has decades of future production. -Edited by Craig Lewis (END) Dow Jones Newswires 02-23-06 0117ET |