November 29, 2007 by Lei.

This trip was the fastest one in terms of climbing, but the longest one in terms of access. So much time, money, and energy was wasted on issues that didn’t directly contribute to climbing, and Freeport Mine was the root source of all these stresses. I had thought that this is just what happens when you travel in a developing country, but one day I read in a local newspaper that the Freeport Mine actually belongs to a US company, and there were many complains about this business from local people. So I did some research, and felt it interesting enough to share my findings with people who might care how this influential American company — ordinarily subjected to rigorous scrutiny and restrictions in its home country — could adapt to, and even thrive in, a foreign business environment riddled with corruption, and operate in a remote area effectively under military law.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (“FCX”), the world’s lowest-cost copper producer and one of the world’s largest producers of gold, is an international mining industry leader based in Arizona, USA. PT Freeport Indonesia is one of its principal operating subsidiaries, whose principal asset is the world-class Grasberg mine in the province of Papua in Indonesia, which contains the world’s largest single copper reserve and world’s largest single gold reserve.

Picture of Grasberg Mine from Wikipedia

1. Engineering Marvel

In a special investigative report, the New York Times noted that “Freeport has built what amounts to an entirely new society and economy, all of its own making. Where nary a road existed, Freeport, with the help of the San Francisco-based construction company Bechtel, built virtually every stitch of infrastructure over impossible terrain in engineering feats that it boasts are unparalleled on the planet.”

In developing its open-pit mining operation, Freeport has shaved off more than 120 meters of the 4,884 meter-high Puncuk Jaya Mountain, or what we called Carstensz Pyramid, by 1996. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Carstensz used to be16,503 ft, or 5,031 m.

The cost of building a mine on a mountain was 3 billion USD.

2. Security Coalition

In March 2003, Freeport disclosed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it paid the Indonesian Military $4.7 million in 2001 and $5.6 million for the employment of about 2300 “Indonesian government security personnel”. Between 1996 and 2004 at least $50 million was spent by Freeport, officially on providing vehicles, accommodation and food for Indonesian Military personnel. The NYT reported that company documents it had obtained revealed that some individual commanders received tens of thousands of dollars, in one case up to $150,000.

It is well known that in many areas where mining is being conducted, there is a very close relationship between the companies and the armed forces and police. The result is that when conflicts erupt between the mining corporations and local communities, the latter are at a great disadvantage. Same for Papua, in order to control “insurgents” and “local resistance”, Freeport justified the needs for directly-controlled security forces, which in turn intensified the tension. But, why would there be “insurgents” and “local resistance” against the mine operation? Let’s see what Freeport did to local communities.

3. Economic Contribution

The Freeport mine, the biggest in the world, boasts about $1 million per day in profits (in gold and copper ore). The company contributed $33 billion in direct and indirect benefits to the Indonesian government, approximately 2% of GDP, between 1992 and 2004. In some years, it has been the biggest source of revenue to the Indonesian government.

However, the West Papuan people have seen very little of this largesse. In particular, the indigenous people who lived in the mining concession area have suffered numerous injustices and humiliations. The several thousand Amungme and Kamoro people who lived in the area were relocated from their traditional lands into refugee settlements, as well as gravitating to the mining town of Timika, previously home to a small population.

“Now it is home to more than 100,000 in a Wild West atmosphere of too much alcohol, shootouts between the soldiers and police, AIDS and prostitution, protected by the military”, the New York Times reported. This has led to what some have called “cultural genocide”. Without access to their traditional land and with little prospect of employment, the local people are losing their social and cultural cohesiveness. Alcohol abuse and drug dependencies are more common.

Freeport was not required to compensate the local people for anything other than the dwellings they had lived in, and is allowed to exploit the natural resources of the area unhindered.

Only 13% of the 17,000 employees working at Freeport are people from West Papua.

4. “Eco Terrorism”

The vast Grasberg deposit ensures a long mine life, so it is most profitable for Freeport to process a huge amount of ore each day, wasting around 14% of the copper in the ore, which remains in tailings disposed of into the river. For the same reason, a large amount of copper-bearing rock has been excavated then dumped instead of processed, because the joint venture chose to pursue higher grade ore as quickly as possible.

The mine’s tailings, generated at a rate of 700,000 tons per day, are the subject of considerable environmental concern. The waste rock remains in the highlands, up to 900 feet deep and covering 3 square miles (8 km²), but its runoff and the finer material gets washed into the headwaters of the Ajikwa River and settles out all along the course of the river. This rate of heavy metal pollution is more than a million times worse than achievable with standard mining industry pollution prevention practices. The waste has also accumulated in the lowlands and has now buried 233 square kilometers of once-abundant wetlands as well as destroying at least 130 square kilometers of rain forest. The fish have nearly disappeared from the river. The mine’s management has warned local people not to drink water or eat plants growing near the river, but has not explained why.
It’s amazing how the company could operate such a vastly invasive mining operation in an area of such ecological and cultural significance, yet still pollute so irresponsibly with relative impunity. Unfortunately, the environmental law is not enforced by the Ministry of Environment due to the joint venture’s pervasive financial and political influence.

The environmental record of the Freeport mine is so bad that in 1995 the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which insures US companies against political risk, revoked Freeport’s insurance. No other company had ever been cut off before. The OPIC insurance policy was reinstated in April 1996, after Freeport threatened to file a protracted lawsuit against the federal agency, but then Freeport instead decided to cancel its insurance policies with both OPIC and the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) five months later. In so doing, Freeport avoided an imminent investigation by the World Bank agency into its mining operations.

5. “Cultural Genocide”

“Our environment has been ruined and our forests and rivers polluted by waste. The sago forests which serve as our primary food source have become dry, making it hard for us to find food. The animals we have hunted in the past have disappeared so we no longer know where to hunt…”

“Even the sacred mountains we think of as our mother have been arbitrarily torn up by them..” members of the indigenous Amungme tribe have literally watched their mountain disappear — mining has removed enough earth to lower the mountain by 400 feet within seven years.

For local people, the gold mine has been a nightmare – the dispossession of their lands, forced resettlement into malaria-ridden lowlands, pollution of rivers, and deprivation of the basic means of making a living. The environmental devastation wreaked by the mine and the lack of adequate compensation and benefits from the mine’s operations has fuelled support for the Free Papua Movement, which has waged a low-intensity guerrilla war for many years. It has also led to sporadic uprisings by local people, many which have been violently suppressed by the Indonesian military.

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November 10, 2007 by Lei.

Friday morning, we moved from Zebra Wall (3600m) to base camp (4000m), an easy two hour hike. To my surprise, 4000m here doesn’t feel bad at all, though by any standard, gaining 4000m elevation within a day is a very rapid ascent. So today, we skipped acclimatization, and headed for the summit at 4:30am.

Climbing

Carstensz is a big rocky mountain for which the summit can only be gained by “climbing” instead of “hiking” like many other big mountains. The climb is a mix of rock scrambling, and in some sections, up to 5.8 climbing. Since most vertical sections of the 800m climb already had fixed lines left by previous teams, we all moved un-roped, which made it very acrophobia-unfriendly when we moved along the sharp edge on the summit ridge.

Summit Ridge

Though 5.5-5.6 climb sounded trivial, it is quite strenuous when you have to climb 800m of that at 4800m elevation without much rest (there’s no belay break because of the fixed lines). So we used ascenders to aid through many sections to save strength. There were a few big gaps that I couldn’t jump over with my short legs, so I had to really make a 5.7 or 5.8 move to climb up, and those few moves would cost me 20 seconds of puff, puffing catching my breath.

Tyrolean Traverse on Summit Ridge

The most interesting and strenuous part of the climb is Tyrolean Traverse. Before this trip, I didn’t even know this word not to say the skill. Basically, in order to cross the largest gap on summit ridge, you have to climb a horizontal line of about 20m by hanging under the rope and pull yourself through. Hanging yourself in the air at 4800m itself is scary enough, not to say the upside-down positioning make it hard to breath at an already hard-to-breath altitude.

Lei on Summit

We summited about 10am, a pretty good speed. Then it started snowing and raining when we started descending. 800m drop requires endless rappel. The rain, the long stretch, the sharp rock, the complex route structure, the varying direction, all make repel in this situation a very, very, serious business. A split seconds relaxation could result in an accident. This is the first time I fully appreciated every little tip I gathered while I was learning the business – the comfort of harness, the helmet, the prussic, the extension of repel setup, and of course, keep yourself disciplined when you repeat the process so many times at a time that you are already tired and you are eager to escape to the safe ground.

Rappel

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November 8, 2007 by Lei.

We flew into Timika yesterday afternoon, and the town looked pretty calm, no trace of the riots. Upon arrival, we got the confirmation that we were going to cross the mine in the evening. However, it became a “no go” after four hours of waiting. The explanation was “the car broke down”. But I suspect the real reason was to wait for another team (Alpine Ascents) to combine two trips in one to further increase the profit margin for the local cartel operator.

Again, the plan is to go in the evening. Why evening and waste a whole day in town? I began to suspect that the rumored story I read before would happen on this trip. Steven, the local guide, simply advised “stay away from the window”. I later confirmed that our approach is only “semi legal”.

Originally, after paying a hefty fee to gain permits from the Indonesia Tourist Office, the Indonesia Army, and the Indonesia Papua Police, we were assured a “fully legal” approach to cross the mine. Due to the recent riot in Timika, Freeport Mine revoked their consent for fear of being held responsible if the climbers got into trouble with aboriginals in the area. After negotiation, Papua police promised to take responsibility in escorting us while crossing the mine. Why would they want to take such a responsibility? Actually the hefty fee for “permits” is largely a cash transaction, so the real big money is only to be earned if we can cross. Based on the stories I read before, I wonedered if there were ever a “fully legal” approach to cross the mine.

View of Freeport Mine from top of Carstensz

Around 7pm, when it’s already completely dark, cars taking two teams of climbers including us arrived at the police station. We were immediately boarded on to an old bus that obviously was used to transfer mine workers. Then some armed police or army people joined us, and ordered each of us to sit at a certain position, basically, one person in each row of seats. Later I understood that it was to make it convenient for us to duck down. We were also ordered to put on a baseball cap and a jacket despite 90F hot and humid temperature, because that’s how the mine workers would dress to go to work. They also pulled several long metal boards to block the lower half of the side window.

For two hours, the bus roared through rain and dark country roads that climbed up towards the center of Freeport Mine. Every once in a while, maybe six or seven times, whenever we passed a check point, one police would yell at us to duck down. I wished I could sneak a few pictures, but seeing how freaked out some team members were, I didn’t want them to think I was trying to murder the team.

Two hours later, we changed into two vans that seemed to belong to the security office of Freeport Mine, and everyone put on a worker’s vest and helmet. For the next hour, we crossed the heart of Freeport Mine, passing by many giant trucks, whose tires were taller than our van; crossing through lands full of modern industrial frameworks and pipelines. I’m actually very impressed with how modern and how orderly the mine field was. Though we saw very few people moving around, all the working equipment looked well maintained, and all kinds of trucks moved around diligently with a seemly clear purpose. Near the top of the mine, there’s also a large residence area that looked like a fair sized modern town. Its modernly structured apartment buildings were a sharp contrast to the simple or shabby local residence I saw in Timika or Jakarta.

During a big portion of this last hour, we were driving with a dim head light in an endless narrow tunnel. The tunnel construction was quite rough that I couldn’t stop imagining what would happen if the tunnel collapsed. When we were at the exit of the tunnel or certain turning points, the driver would turn off the headlights, and drove to a hidden corner or spot, then came out again with headlights on to disguise the actual direction we came from.

It was already 10ish when we were dropped off at Zebra Wall, the end of the smuggling journey. However, the car behind us was no where to be seen. Were they caught? Were they lost? It turned out that their car broke down at a traffic light and had to wait for our car’s return to “rescue” them. A traffic light was a funny spot to have a “semi legal” car break down. They have to keep ducked down for a long time until no cars/people around, and then ran to hide behind a wall!

From Zebra Wall towards the Mine

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November 6, 2007 by Lei.

Yesterday afternoon, after sitting in traffic breathing the suffocating air for hours, I confidently stood in front of the reception desk at the airport transit hotel again. It’s a different receptionist this time, he looked up and down the reservation table, and shook his head, “No, I can’t find your reservation.” “That’s not possible. I was here yesterday, and you told me that I have a reservation for tonight”. He searched more carefully again, “Ah, found it. It’s canceled!” But this time, he was able to reach my local agent on phone.

The agent thought I was to arrive on Monday, so canceled my reservation after he couldn’t find me at the airport in the afternoon. Then he said, “Anyway, there’s some changes. We are not flying tomorrow, thus we will stay in downtown tonight. Dave (the guide) will explain everything when he arrives tonight”. That doesn’t sound good.

It’s almost 11pm when the guide Dave and two other climbers from the UK arrived at the hotel. While I was on my flight to Indonesia, a riot erupted in Timika of Indonesia Papua due to conflicts between local tribes and the police. Quoting from one news report, “normally such fights stop when the death toll on both sides become equal or one tribe pays a hefty fee”

So here I am stuck in Jakarta for an extra day. A couple of other teams who were one or two days ahead of us are still stuck in Timika.

Today’s latest update seems not bad. The local police, who we paid a hefty fee to in order to obtain permits, guaranteed full responsibility for our safety. So we are flying to Timika early tomorrow morning, and then we plan to head into the jungle directly.

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November 5, 2007 by Lei.

Shortly before 5am, I woke up to the prayer chanting in the neighborhood.

I finally studied the city map to orient myself, and called a taxi to visit the famous Plaza Indonesia, an upscale mall in the heart of downtown. The flawless design and luxurious decoration, the shining display of jewelry and brand name merchants would qualify this mall as a high end mall in the US as well. Well, my main purpose was to come to have lunch at Sari Ratu, an Indonesian restaurant recommended by my colleague Petty.

Plaza Indonesia, a modern shopping mall in Jakarta downtown

The moment I sat down, several waiters came up and dumped nearly 20 plates of various dishes on my table, including a large bowl of rice that was enough for 10 people, then left me with just one smiling waiter, who was holding out a menu to me. “These are all for me?” I can’t believe it! He nodded with a smile. “You are not joking with me?” He sincerely replied “No”. I took a quick glance at the menu, then pushed back to him, “Then I don’t need to order anything. This is too much for me already!” He still insisted on handing me the menu and pointed at the prices on the menu. I finally figured out that he does not understand English that well, so I resorted to guessing plus gesture language to communicate.

It turns out that they serve lunch in the opposite way Chinese dim sum is served. Instead of you picking what you want from a cart, you choose what you don’t want on the table and tell them to take it away. Out of my habitual curiosity, I picked dishes that I never had, including a plate of brain! “What animal’s brain?” I asked. “Ah, yes, animal.” He was happy to catch the key word. “Is it pig? Sheep? Cow?” He shook his head and tried hard to think, then finally found the right word, “Yes, Beef!” “Ah, cow! Mad Cow?” I jokingly asked him. Again, he happily nodded his head. Even though I knew he probably didn’t get what I was joking about, it felt kind of scary to me, especially since I just read “Deadly Feast” a few weeks ago. I took a bite from each of the two pieces of brain in the plate, and calculated my chance of catching Mad Cow disease. The thoughts made me less excited about the dish.

Once the city wakes up, its traffic seems to be in rush-hour mode until late night. When I hired a taxi to go back airport in the mid afternoon, the highway was jammed all the way from the city to airport. So my taxi driver took some local roads to bypass. Now I finally see why Indonesians have so many motorbikes. A two lane two way local road is often monopolized by the vehicles from the dominating direction. In this case, there are three or four outbound vehicles on this little two lane local road so that only motorbikes can pass from the opposite direction. Occasionally a car that tried to come from the other direction would cause deadlock for a while. But drivers are really skillful too. They often quickly jump onto the side walk of the opposite direction to make room for the opposite traffic, then continue back in the wrong lane.

Jakarta Traffic

Traffic also causes bad air. Like many cities in China, Jakarta is a very populated city with a large urban/suburban area, but the public transportation appears to be very limited or not efficient. In this big city, nothing is really close to other things. Thus, the motorbike is as popular as the bicycle is in China, and many people cover their face with a bandana while riding; so do traffic police and workers at toll booths.

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November 4, 2007 by Lei.

After numerous stops (Boston –JFK-Anchorage-Taipei-Jakarta), almost two days since I left Boston, I finally arrived in Indonesia. There are many things I need to adjust to, such as the hot and humid air, switch of time zone, and the numerous 0s I have to count for money (1 USD = 9000 Rp).

After lengthy waiting for landing visa and luggage, I walked out of customs one hour after our landing, but nowhere was I able to find the local agent I expected to meet. Luckily, it turned out that our assumed reservation is at the airport hotel, which is just above the terminal. But the bad news is, there’s no reservation for me here tonight! I guess my local agent must have been suffering from jet lag.

So I decided to venture into the downtown area to enjoy my only day in the city. I got a cheap hotel called Sparks in a low-end section near the old city. It turned out to be very nice inside, and they are very thoughtful – not only do they welcome guests with tasty drinks in the lobby, they also supply ample condoms of various flavors and lubricants in each room!

Thoughtful Supplies in my Hotel Room

Jakarta is a big city. The urban sprawl is comparable to the major cities in the world, and the modern part is just like any metropolitan cities in the western world. Though drivers do cut through the traffic at will like they do in China, they do respect police a lot! For example, the taxi driver dare not stop to pick up clients in departure zone at airport, so I ended up jumping into a moving taxi when no policeman was in sight.

Poor and Rich of Jakarta, view from Hotel Sparks

My hotel is located on a busy local road, like the one that crosses an old farmer’s market, such as Xin Jiang Village, in Beijing 10 years ago or even worse. The surrounding area looks like residence for a poor labor class, which is in sharp contrast to the modern high rises in the back drop when looking out from my hotel window. Despite my initial nervousness about safety concerns in Indonesia, I ventured out for dinner after 6pm, and it was already dark outside. To be safe, I didn’t even carry my camera.

I actually felt quite comfortable and soon relaxed while I carefully picked my steps over dirty puddles, holes, and bumps, to navigate through food/merchant stands, random round-ups of stuff or properties on side walk, and intimidating traffic that was not afraid to cut by within just an inch of pedestrians. Each side of the street is lined with all kinds of not-so-tidy shops and street venders, and numerous motorbikes cut between the traffic to make the two-lane street wide enough for 10 motor mobiles. My biggest challenge was crossing the street, which takes a lot of courage, patience, and luck among this no-rule no-light river of traffic.

Three-Wheeled Taksi in Jakarta

What impressed me most in this area is the creativeness and pervasiveness of the “taksi” system here. At a hotel or airport, you can see the standard taxis like those in any other city; then there are numerous three-wheeled little motor carriage that can stuff in 4 or more people in a space as big as one square meter; yet, there still are numerous motorbikes providing individual “taksi” services. When I was in Russia, I was afraid to look at men on the street because I was afraid of arousing troubles with those ubiquitous drunk guys; Here, I also had to avoid looking at men on the street, because almost every brief glance at them would get an offer for “taksi”!

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November 2, 2007 by Lei.

It was a quick decision to take on a trip today to climb Carstensz Pyramid (4884m / 16,023ft), the highest peak of Oceania (Austral-Asian continent).

Carstensz Pyramid is on the island of New Guinea, the world’s third largest island, in the province of Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), a remote corner of Indonesia. Though it’s not so high compared to other mountains, it involves fifth class rock climbing on beautiful limestone structures with some sections up to 5.8 in difficulty, and it takes 16 rappels to get off the summit ridge. This makes it the most technical peak among the seven summits, and this peak is what motivated me to start rock climbing three years ago.

Gaining access to Carstensz Pyramid is also very challenging, complicated by it’s proximity to the Freeport Mine, the world’s largest open pit gold mine. From 2002 through 2005, the peak was off limits to climbers because of conflicts between local authorities. Starting in 2005, climbers finally could obtain legal permits to fly in via helicopter after paying a sky-high fee. Even so, the local authorities still sometimes obstruct the operation of helicopters, thus some climbing groups have dressed up like dirty mine worker to cross the mine field in the night in a vehicle without headlights.

The climbing part aside, gaining access itself is a gamble, which is what stressed me most for this trip. We originally planned to fly in via helicopter, but less than two weeks before the trip, we were told that the helicopter operation was halted indefinitely because locals are having issues with the landing and refueling of helicopters. The good news is, we were granted legal permit to cross Freeport Mine in a “legal” vehicle provided by them. Just as it is in China, rules are made by humans here and can be changed by humans at any time. You never know what will happen on this cartel controlled land.

The island of New Guinea itself is one of the most exotic and fascinating places left to travel in the world. A few weeks ago, I read a book called “Deadly Feast”, which talks about the origin of diseases such as Mad Cow that have spread through cannibalism. Cannibalism sounded like an ancient practice, but it actually was still in practice just a decade ago on this island! But don’t worry, they have stopped such practices today, and are now known for their colorful aboriginal culture. Our schedule on this trip is very tight, though I hope to have a chance to visit the Dani tribe, where the men still wear the traditional penis gourd and little else.

Dani Porters

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