”Chinese involvement in Indonesia mining project sparks protests, concerns of environmental disaster“ 13 June 2024

An Indonesian community is protesting against the involvement of the Chinese government in a zinc and lead mine in North Sumatra, citing the region’s earthquake-prone nature and the high risk that could result in environmental disaster.

Twenty-five residents of the Dairi Regency of North Sumatra on Tuesday rallied outside the Chinese embassy in Jakarta against the planned underground mine by Dairi Prima Mineral (DPM), saying they wanted to send a message to Beijing...The embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comments...

DPM is an Indonesian joint venture between mining giant China Nonferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction Co (NFC) and Bumi Resources Minerals, a subsidiary of the Indonesian coalminer Bumi Resources, which is owned by the Bakrie Group. NFC said on April 27 it had scored a loan of US$245 million from Carren Holdings Corporation Limited to DPM to develop the mine. Hong Kong-registered Carren Holdings is fully owned by Chinese state-owned investment company CNIC Corporation, whose 90 per cent stake is owned by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange...

According to Medan-based North Sumatra People’s Legal Aid and Advocacy Association (Bakumsu), an NGO that provides legal support to communities, the zinc mining fiasco dates back to 1998...If the project is realised, DPM plans to mix most of its mining waste with cement and inject it back underground, while the remaining toxic waste will be stored in a tailings dam covered by a 25-metre-high wall. But safety experts...said the planned dam would be vulnerable to earthquakes...

“A sudden tailings dam failure caused by an earthquake would send a wave of liquid mud over the region downstream to the north,” the experts said in Bakumsu’s case briefing in 2020...The company also planned to build its waste dam “within 400 metres of the residents’ settlement, with churches and mosques where large numbers of people could congregate”, Bakumsu said...

The residents have an ongoing appeal against the Indonesian government’s issuance of environmental approval to DPM at the Supreme Court, but the case is only at the stage of selecting the panel of judges...“We will still fight, because we think about our next generation, we don’t want to move,” said Monica, a mother of one. “It’s not that easy to relocate and adapt to the new environment. In the new place, we won’t necessarily have land as big as the land that we have in Dairi. Our lives will get worse if we give up our ancestral land for mining.” Monica said the project was already affecting “social relations” in her village...“Even now, the community in Dairi is already divided between supporters and opponents of mining..."

“We hope the loans that have been given by investors [to the project] can be cancelled because, when they fund this, they also fund the destruction of Dairi communities"...