Am I right in thinking that Freeport were very close to Suharto [evil murdering bastard, recently deposed as Indonesian dictator—shame he didn’t get the Ceaucescu treatment] as well?

Yes—Suharto was the commander-in-chief in taking West Papua into Indonesia... There’s a lot of money changing hands in all of this. Today we have the Dutch Amro Bank—it has shares in Grasberg. I think it is helping Freeport to develop the new contract now, the second contract, for the extension of another 50 years of exploration.

RTZ are also involved. Then there are the Korean logging companies. And most of the logging companies belong to Suharto.

He was involved in West Papua through his infamous timber baron crony Bob Hasan. And they belong to the Army as well. So, in the logging camps, there is the army.

The army doing the logging work? Yes. So people like the Forest Department cannot do anything because they are civil servants.

‘We are Army and we are bringing this, so you cannot say anything, you cannot ask for a letter, permission, or whatever…’ So that’s just pure corruption. Pure corruption. Can you tell us what effects the Freeport mine has had on the local people?

There ... more.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.