Newmont workers protest mine closure order
Saturday, April 15 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Hundreds of Newmont Minahasa Raya (NMR) workers took to street on Thursday and went to the office of North Sulawesi Governor in Manado to protest Tondano's court decision to shut down the company's gold mine in the province's Minahasa regency, Manado Post reported on Saturday.
The workers asked the local authority to delay any decision to close down the gold mine because if the mine is closed it would not only hurt the company's workers but it would also damage the future of the regency.
They also appealed the local authority and the company, which is owned by the Denver, U.S.-based Newmont Corporation, to settle the case amicably through an out-of-the court settlement so that the future operation of the company would not only benefit investors but also workers, the local government and the whole people.
Speaking before the protesting workers, the North Sulawesi Vice Governor Freddy Harry Sualang said he understood the workers' concerns, and on the need of the province to attract foreign investors. "But above all, we have to maintain the law supremacy," he said.
Secretary General of the Ministry of Mines and Energy Djoko Darmono, said in Jakarta on Friday he had received a guarantee from North Sulawesi Governor that Newmont gold mine would not be closed, Satunet.com reported.
He also denied that the Supreme Court's instruction to the local court to delay the order to close down the company's gold mine was not due to his ministry's lobby. "We just inform the Supreme Court about that the works of contracts granted to Newmont and the fact which takes place out there," he said.
Djoko said he was quite concerned about impact of the local court's decision to order the closure of the gold mine to foreign investors.
"Many foreign investors have cancelled their investment plans in Indonesia due to a growing uncertainty in the investment activities in the country," he said, citing that the Newmont case is one of main factors, which has caused the loss in foreign investors' confidence in Indonesia. (*)