Omar Jabara, Newmont Mining’s Senior Director of Communications and Media Relations, reports that “a three-judge panel at the Indonesian Supreme Court is in the process of reviewing the government’s appeal of the Manado District Court’s full exoneration of Newmont and its President Director, Richard Ness (even though appeals of full acquittals are supposedly forbidden under Indonesian) in April 2007, in the Buyat Bay pollution case. There could be a ruling in the coming weeks and there is concern that the panel may overturn the unanimous acquittal by the Manado District Court.”

In stark contrast to that possibility is a report from The Jakarta Post, “which is based on interviews with Buyat Bay residents who say they were tricked by NGOs to leave their village and claim they were sick in exchange for promises of money and better housing. This is a remarkable account of how residents were manipulated by NGOs for political purposes.”

Jongker Rumteh, writing in The Jakarta Post of November 27 this year, says “evacuees from the Buyat Bay area in South Minahasa, North Sulawesi, who have been living in Duminanga, Bolaang Mangondow regency, have returned home after rights groups failed to supply the amenities they had initially promised to provide them with.

“As many as 30 of 68 families have now returned to Buyat because the Buyat Bay Humanitarian Committee (KKTB) and a number of non-governmental groups, including the Health Legal Aid Institute (LBHK), reneged on their pledge to provide aid.

“The Buyat residents said they were even required by the NGOs to claim they had contracted various illnesses from tailings dumped by gold mining company PT Newmont Minahasa Raya into the bay area.

“A number of residents who spoke to The Jakarta Post in Buyat recently said they had been enduring cramped quarters built by the KKTB and administered by Abit Takalamingan, a South Sulawesi legislator from the Prosperous Justice Party.

“One returnee, Sudirman Modeong, who arrived back in Buyat six months ago, said that, unlike in Buyat, he was not able to catch fish in waters off Duminanga, because the area was too rocky. They lack the larger boats necessary to catch tuna, which is only available further from the coast and during certain seasons.

“‘When we moved to Duminanga, we were not provided with motor boats or equipment to catch tuna, so most of us could not sail to the open sea. We had to rely on fishing along the coast,’ Sudirman said, adding that had he and his family not been lured by the promises of KKTB and other NGOs, their lives would likely be better.

“Sudirman and his family now live in a substandard house, but say they are happy now, because Buyat Bay offers more hope for them.

“Sudirman said he no longer owned a home because he and a number of other residents burned their homes, after being lured by the promise from activists that they would be provided with fully furnished homes in Duminanga.”

“We were cheated by the KKTB and other rights groups,” Sudirman said.

The Jakarta Post article concludes that these returning Buyat Bay residents “are currently looking for a legal adviser to bring the case to court.”