Hundreds of illegal gold miners take their case to Bogor Council

Hundreds of illegal gold miners from Gunung Pongkor on Monday took their case to the Bogor Council for what they called "inhumane treatment" by security personnel of state miner PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) that officially controls the area as its mining concession.

The delegation of illegal miners were received by two councillors from the Commission A, Soleh Bunyamin and Aris Suwirya.

The head of the delegation, Abdul Mutholib, explained that they conducted illegal mining activities in Gunung Pongkor because economic situation forced them to do so.

But the response from Antam had been very harsh. When illegal miners were caught red handed by Antam's security personnel, they were treated like animals. Some of the caught illegal miners were stripped and even forced to conduct homosexual activities in front of the security personnel.

"The treatment of those security personnel against us have been beyond the limit, and we cannot tolerate that to continue to happen until now. We are human being, we are not animals that they can treat at their whim," he said.

In addition, security personnel also exploded two locations of illegal mining, namely Cepu and Longsoran, so that illegal miners could not mine for gold in those two areas.

Responding to the illegal miners' case, Soleh Bunyamin and Aris Suwirya said that they regretted the human rights violations against the miners and added that the Council would follow up the case with Antam and security forces tasked to protect Antam's operation.

They said they would demand Antam to provide an area for illegal miners to mine for gold so that there would be no more conflicts between the two parties. (*)