Officials: Shooting breaks out at Freeport mine in Papua for second day

Officials say shooting breaks out near Papua mine

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Shooting broke out Sunday between Indonesian security forces and suspected rebels in Papua, near to where an Australian employee of the U.S. mining giant Freeport was killed a day earlier, police and company officials said.

Officials said they could not confirm local media reports that Freeport security guards were shot in the incident.

“Suspected separatist rebels ambushed and opened fire on the police’s anti-terror unit members who were searching for perpetrators” of Saturday’s killing, said Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto.

“We cannot confirm any casualties. We are waiting for further information,” he said.

Freeport spokesman Mindo Pangaribuan confirmed the shooting, but gave no details.

Papua, a desperately poor and militarized province on Indonesia’s easternmost tip, is home to separatist rebels who denounce PT Freeport as a symbol of Jakarta’s rule.

Two Americans were killed in an ambush in 2002 near Freeport’s Grasberg operations, a massive open-pit mine.

The Grasberg mining complex, one of the world’s largest single producers of copper and gold, has been a constant source of friction with local Papuans angered over the outflow of profit to foreign investors, while they remain poor.

Security was increased after Saturday’s killing and business was not disrupted, Pangaribuan said.

The Indonesian government does not allow foreign media to freely report in Papua, where it has tens of thousands of troops. The site of Saturday’s shooting was inaccessible to local reporters.