Traditional miners association criticized
Friday, April 14 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
The newly created traditional miners association (Ampera) is being criticized because the member miners are not local miners and don't use traditional equipments, according to the Banjarmasin Post daily.
Secretary of South Kalimantan PIB Dirham Zain said that the Ampera members used mechanical equipments in its coal mining activity.
He said that the term traditional miners referred to local miners using simple equipments in their mining activity.
He said that the association was intentionally created to protect the interest of illegal miners.
He said that the polemics on coal mining in South Kalimantan could not be ended particularly because of Governor Sjachriel Dirham statement that he would drop the January 2000 ruling, which prohibited coal trucks from public roads.
The government launched the ruling to prevent illegal miners from using the public roads to transport their coal products.
Large coal companies have their own roads.
There has been suspicion that the decision to drop the January ruling was aimed at protecting the interest of illegal miners in South Kalimantan. (*)