In Indonesia, protests over Chinese zinc mine loan amid earthquake fears

“We want the embassy to accompany us [to the Chinese government] that most people reject the presence of the mine and that there is no need to give credit to DPM.

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 Indonesian coal miner Bumi Resources, which is owned by the Bakrie Group.

NFC said on April 27 that it had obtained a $245 million loan from Carren Holdings Corporation Limited for DPM to develop the mine. Hong Kong-registered Carren Holdings is wholly owned by Chinese state-owned investment company CNIC Corporation, 90 percent of which is owned by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange of China.

The protesters had sent a letter on Tuesday to Wu Zhiwei, the economic and trade counselor at the Chinese embassy, ​​highlighting the “serious and irreversible dangers” posed by the planned mine.

“Many internationally renowned experts have confirmed that there is a high risk that the project’s planned tailings dam could collapse. If that happens, a flood of millions of tons of toxic mine waste will kill many of us,” the letter said.

“We are shocked and concerned that China continues to develop and invest in such a disastrous project. We respectfully request the Chinese government to…immediately stop any state-backed funding for the project and ask the NFC to immediately suspend all activities of this project.”

Tailings dams are embankments built near mines to store mine tailings in liquid or solid form.

Residents had protested in 2020 in front of the Chinese embassy in Jakarta and the Chinese consulate in Medan, but they were “particularly disappointed that the Chinese embassy has cut off communication with us since mid-2021,” the letter said.

The embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mining mess

According to the 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, when DPM obtained mining concessions of 27,420 hectares (67,756 hectares ) in Dairi. . The area is estimated to contain about 5 percent of the world’s zinc reserves.

Zinc can be used for consumer and industrial goods, including electric vehicles. Last year, scientists from Australia’s Edith Cowan University discovered that batteries made from zinc and air, combined with new materials such as carbon, iron and cobalt-based minerals, could power electric vehicles in the future as a more sustainable replacement. better and more environmentally friendly. for lithium-ion batteries.

If the project goes ahead, DPM plans to mix most of its mine waste with cement and inject it back underground, while the remaining toxic waste will be stored in a tailings dam covered by a 25-meter wall of up. But safety experts – commissioned by NGOs helping residents in their fight against the DPM project – said the planned dam would be vulnerable to earthquakes.

Experts quoted at the Bakumsu case conference in 2020 noted that the mine is located near the Sumatra subduction megathrust, where the Indo-Australian Plate subducts under the Eurasian Plate, which has caused powerful earthquakes such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. It is also only 15 km from the Great Sumatran Fault, which often produces significant earthquakes, further increasing the risk of disaster.

“A sudden failure of the tailings dam caused by an earthquake would send a wave of liquefied mud over the region in a northerly direction,” experts said at the conference.

The company also planned to build its tailings dam “within 400 meters of the residents’ settlement, with churches and mosques where a large number of people could gather,” Bakumsu said.

Tongam Panggabean, director of Bakumsu, cited the example of a tailings dam breach in Brazil in 2015 that left 19 people dead and hundreds homeless, with villages destroyed and river systems polluted. The mining company involved, BHP, offered $25.7 billion in compensation.

“Honestly, I am surprised that a Chinese government agency is supporting the DPM project, given all these risks. There’s no upside,” Tongam said Tuesday.

Keep fighting

Residents have an ongoing appeal against the Indonesian government’s issuance of environmental approval for DPM to the Supreme Court, but the case is only at the stage of selecting the panel of judges, according to Monica.

Residents lost a previous court case in which they sought public information about DPM’s labor contracts, she said.

“We will still fight, because we think about our next generation, we don’t want to move,” said Monika, mother of one. “It is not so easy to move and adapt to the new environment. In the new country, we won’t necessarily have as much land as 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, Parongil, one of 11 villages downstream from the mine.

“Even now, the community in Dairi is already divided between supporters and opponents of mining. This shows that there is already conflict in people’s lives. [If the project materialises]our culture will also erode, not to mention the environmental pollution from mining,” she said.

“We hope in the loans given by the investors [to the project] it can be canceled because when they finance this, they also finance the destruction of Dairi communities.”