Official says no pressure from the U.S. over Freeport case

Director general of mining Surna T. Djajadiningrat said on Monday that there had been no pressure so far from the U.S. over the government recent ruling to ban the giant gold mining firm PT Freeport Indonesia from dumping its overburden waste material into the Wanagon Lake in the Papua province.

"So far there's no pressure (from the U.S.)," Surna was quoted by the Suara Karya daily as saying.

Freeport is a U.S.-based company.

The government issued the ban ruling following the landslide the landslide accident at the Wanagon Lake waste-dumping site, which killed four mining employees.

Freeport would only be allowed to dump its overburden into the Wanagon dumping site if the company has been able to come up with better ways to prevent similar accident from reoccurring in the future.

Meanwhile, the Indonesian Forum for Environment or popularly called Walhi planned to file a lawsuit against Freeport for the landslide accident, which also damaged the local environment.

The U.S. government has often made intervention every time Freeport is being attacked here.

There has been pressure for the government to close down the mining company over alleged corruption, environmental destruction and human rights violation.

A team of government expert is currently in the process of reviewing Freeport's mining contract of work to investigate whether the contract was obtained through corruption, nepotism and collusion practices.

Freeport obtained the contract from the former dictator president Soeharto.

Surna said that the team was expected to complete the work.

He added that he preferred a renegotiation of the contract rather than a decision to completely close down the mining operation, if the contract was proven to be obtained improperly. (*)