Smoking gun.

• Author: Egan, Thomas J.
• Position: Response to 'Jim Bob's Indonesian Misadventure,' June 1996 by Eyal Press - Includes author's reply to the response - Letter to the Editor

It seems that ink for poison pens must be cheap and plentiful, because a virtual river of it flowed for Eyal Press's untruthful characterization of our company and its Indonesian mining operations ("Jim Bob's Indonesian Mis-adventure," June issue). You gave him four pages to create his false illusion, and it would take at least as much space to despel it, which you would never allow.

So let us settle for this one point: Press quotes a person using an alias, who quotes another individual anonymously, saying that employees of PT-Freeport Indonesia, our Indonesian mining affiliate, carry AK-47s. Press has made this charge before, quoting different unnamed sources. The truth is that our employees do not have guns; that would violate Indonesian law.

Why is it that none of the hundreds of outsiders who toured our operations in the past year have ever stepped forward to make this charge, other than anonymously to Eyal Press?

Why is it that none of the various investigations of human rights--which all determined that PT-FI employees were not involved in the violations--have ever raised this issue?

Why is it that none of the dozens of legitimate news media who visited our mine in the past year--unlike Press, who has never been there--have ever made this allegation?

Because this charge is a lie. Like much of Press's story, it is fiction, part of a smear campaign being waged by him and a small group of other fringe pseudo-journalists.

We regard our operation to be a model of economic development that minimizes environmental impacts and respects the rights of the local indigenous peoples. We are not perfect, but we are trying. We will continue to work with responsible individuals and groups to improve our operations, and we will not be swayed by individuals like Press, whose sole contribution to the debate is to spew mud and mendacity.

Thomas J. Egan,

Senior Vice President and

Senior Administrative Deputy

to the...