Kotabaru residents blockade BCS’s coalmine site
Monday, December 22 2003 - 03:30 AM WIB
The paper said that the blockade lasted for about six hours.
The newspaper reported that the villagers run the blockade after the company’s management refused to join local legislators to inspect alleged pollution caused by the coal mining operation.
The local legislative council sent its two members Sikun and Jamaluddin to carry out a field inspection on the company’s mine operation. The company’s management initially agreed to join the team but when the two legislators arrived at the Sebuku village, none of the company’s executives showed up.
The two legislators then went to the office of PT BCS to meet the company’s executives but they still refused to hold a meeting as proposed by the villagers. The refusal angered the villagers who then blocked all the access roads to the company’s mine site
The blockade caused a temporary halt in the operation of the company, which exports about 1.8 million tons of coal a year to India, Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia.
BCS is a local company which started operation in 1994.(*)