Newmont accused of twisting Minister's statement to mislead public
Thursday, January 18 2001 - 04:00 AM WIB
The Indonesian environmental group Walhi has accused PT Newmont Minahasa Raya of twisting the statement of Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources to mislead the public as if the company did nothing wrong at all.
The gold mine operator had conducted a suicide attempt by twisting the conclusion of the verification team on surveys related to the impact of the company's undersea waste disposal site in the Buyat Bay in Minahasa , North Sulawesi, Raja Siregar, a senior executive of Walhi said in a press release.
"This might happen due to the ignorance of the mining company on the information related to the result of the verification team's studies," Siregar said.
The government established an independent verification team in 1999 to verify the surveys made by Walhi related to the impact of Newmont's tailings dumped into the Buyat Bay. The results of Walhi's surveys which said that the company's tailings could pose a serious problem to the environment, have angered the local people, who then demanded the government to close the mining site.
According to Newmont, the verification team has concluded that the surveys carried by Walhi were not valid because the methods it used did not meet the standard.
However, Walhi said that Newmont mistakenly cited the conclusion of the verification team. The environmental group even accused the mining company of intentionally twisting the statement to mislead the public.
According to Walhi, the conclusion of the verification team as contained in Energy and Mineral Resources Minister's letter NO. 5167/28MEM.P/2000 is related only to the team's desk works.
In its desk survey, the verification team agreed that they could not make any conclusion related to Walhi's surveys because they found lack of samples and methodology. The team then agreed to follow up the desk work with a field study before coming with a final conclusion. The study should based on methodology, which should be agreed by all the team members. (*)