Indonesian Gold (4 page)

The shaman moved with stealth along familiar paths,
arriving at a point overlooking the most idyllic of river-island settings, where he took a moment
to rest. From his vantage point on the ridge, he could clearly see across the waterfall-fed
streams to his Longhouse village, a complex community building perched high on tall stilts,
half-encircled by a limestone ridge. Spray rising from the waterfall on his left painted a
welcoming rainbow across the sky, and the shaman offered a prayer of thanks to the mid-morning.
Villagers tended fields towards the center of the island, while children played at their heels
and, downstream, where the river rejoined to become one again, a pocket of thick forest remained,
untouched. In the distance he could see a longboat approaching, carrying supplies to the isolated
tribe.

The chief moved down the path to the river's edge, passing
through a naturally carved cavern hidden behind the waterfall, to emerge on the other side
unseen. He crossed a rope and bamboo suspension bridge, acknowledging the guardian statues on
either side. They had been placed there at the entrance to the longhouse by his forefathers to
protect those inside against evil spirits. He stepped onto the boardwalk that followed the
riverbank – the Perkins diesel's steady thump, thump, thump drifting up the gorge informing him
that the elders were watching television, inside.

Jonathan entered the long, carefully planned dwelling
unbuckling the
golok
in his stride, and was greeted by a chorus of voices acknowledging
his return. He smiled, and joined his extended family, taking the privileged position reserved
for the shaman in the communal room. There, he sat, comfortably cross-legged on a
tikar
mat, with the others, watching a European soccer match final via satellite, the parabolic dish
mounted conspicuously outside.

****

Eric Baird managed his way back to the transit station,
but not before finding the courage to dump the two bodies overboard not far from where they had
been murdered. Any investigation would not only complicate matters with respect to his client's
acquisition of the general exploration area, but might possibly require his returning to the
site. With an image of the wild, screaming bushman fresh in his mind, Baird opted to disguise the
truth. He would fabricate a story that would be credible.

The authorities accepted his well-rehearsed and convincing
story of how the boatmen had died. He remained at the transit station until Mardidi was well
enough to travel, taking advantage of the delay to prepare a fictitious report for survey work he
did not complete.

The pair returned to Samarinda where Baird paid one
thousand dollars compensation to the boatmen's families, the money gratefully received, the widow
of one kissing his right hand in gratitude as her oldest child looked on, in bewildered grief –
the boy's chest filling with pride when Baird explained that his father had died courageously,
whilst attempting to save his drowning companion from the mighty Mahakam's currents, when a
overhanging branch had knocked the man into the river.

Baird never revealed the true events to anyone; not even
to Mardidi. Upon his return to Jakarta the following week, he submitted a copy of his report to
the Indonesian Mines Department with recommendations that the area further east might be
deserving of further exploration activity. Baird had no wish to ever return to the scene of his
wild encounter, deciding then, that in the event Alexander Kremenchug
was
successful in
putting a deal together with the Canadians, he would find a reason not to return to this site.
Baird had copied an earlier report from his files; the data compiled some years before during a
survey of terrain, relatively similar to the target area. He understood that Kremenchug needed a
positive result from this initial survey, and he was only too happy to provide one. Baird
collected twenty-five thousand dollars for his efforts and an undertaking from Kremenchug that he
would be included in any vendor's share issues, once an investor had acquired the
property.

By an accident of bureaucratic blunder and Baird's
misleading submission to the Mines Department, Jonathan Dau's spiritual grounds remained
untouched for another two years, when a group of Samarinda businessmen discovered that the
stretch of river land had not been assigned to any of the mining companies. Nine months after
these local entrepreneurs acquired the exploration rights, they, too, abandoned the prospect,
when a number of calamitous survey expeditions earned the area a fierce reputation, and was then
considered taboo.

And along the Upper Mahakam reaches identified as
Longdamai, this isolated pocket of land became known as Longdamai
Sial
– a place cursed,
even in tranquility.

****

November 1989
Jakarta

The instant the traffic slowed to a grinding halt,
deformed children, the maimed and crippled, lepers and blind beggars all appeared as if by
command. Many were guided, pushed or dragged between rows of stagnated vehicles by their helpers,
most seemingly oblivious to the choking exhaust fumes that consistently blanketed the capital's
congested arterial roads. Street urchins swarmed through the grid locked traffic, skirting amidst
the carcinogenic-pumping machines, hands outstretched to the privileged within their chauffeured,
air-conditioned cocoons.

Screaming horns added to the cacophonous moment as a child
knocked hopefully against a Mercedes window offering an assortment of cigarettes, chewing gum,
and Chiclets, intimidated in no way by the driver's obvious anger as he waved her away with
clenched fist. She raised her eyebrows, mockingly, as if surprised or even afraid, then tapped
with greater determination as the foggy image behind the heavily tinted glass moved. The ragged
child tossed a glance further down through the midday traffic and observed that there was
movement ahead. Recognizing the intermittent brake-light flashes as the traffic commenced to
flow, she knew she would have to be swift.

‘
Tuan!
' the child called with muffled voice.
Billowing, ugly black clouds of fumes spilling from an adjacent bus' broken exhaust caused her to
cough, and she tapped impatiently on the passenger door window with even more vigor, painfully
conscious of the motorbikes that maneuvered their way between these near-stagnated rows of city
traffic. Injury went with the territory; her scarred limbs carrying fresh scabs over old wounds,
evidence of frequent encounters. A Suzuki squeezed past, the motorbike's burning exhaust within
touch of her legs, extended rear-vision mirrors grazing her skinny shoulders scoring the flesh
painfully and she wheeled, her eyes filled with venom as she spat, hitting the unsuspecting rider
square on the back. Then she turned her attention to the car's obviously wealthy
occupant.

****

Amused, Stewart Campbell observed the child's antics with
ambivalence, tempted to lower the window and drop a hundred
Rupiah
into her tiny hands.
The driver, sensing the Tuan's mood, eased the Mercedes forward to discourage the girl but,
ignoring the danger, she remained clinging to the door handle, undeterred. Swayed by her
persistence, Campbell activated the electric windows creating an opening through which he held a
crisp, newly printed one thousand Rupiah note, the money snatched from his well-manicured fingers
as several discolored packets of gum appeared in an outstretched hand.

‘
Terima kasih
,' he heard the scrawny peddler thank
him as the window closed, the expatriate simply nodding as the sedan moved forward, his thoughts
returning to the day ahead. Campbell glanced at his white gold, Patek Philippe watch and exhaled
heavily, in obvious annoyance with the traffic congestion. He leaned back against the
leather-upholstered seats and, with closed eyes, gently rubbed his temples. An earlier headache,
legacy from the previous evening's overindulgences, threatened to revisit and he recalled the
Saint Andrew's black-tie ball, thankful now he had resisted following the diehards to the
Chieftain's home, for the traditional follow-on breakfast.

Campbell
's mind roamed,
occasionally glancing at familiar landmarks as the Mercedes crawled towards the congested, outer
roundabout. The driver jockeyed for position amongst the other vehicles, skillfully avoiding a
converted, smog-belching private minibus that had cut dangerously across their path, near
spilling its load of standing passengers whilst they clung precariously to the overcrowded
Toyota's rusty frame.

As the city's skyline became more visible through the
smog, the impressive number of construction cranes evidencing Indonesia's apparent never-ending
growth momentarily distracted Campbell, and he recalled how significantly the capital had
mushroomed since his arrival, ten years before. A tight smile creased his face as he was also
reminded of how little he had known, back then, about this sprawling, Moslem-dominated, fractious
archipelago of two hundred million, and how much more there was to learn.

Although his professional background had given him some
prior knowledge with respect to the republic's vast mineral, oil and gas wealth, Campbell quickly
learned that the nation's real wealth lay in its diversity, and the depth of culture so apparent
within the republic's multi-faceted society.

During his first years in-country, he had been contracted
by Baron Mining, a North-American-based mining conglomerate, to conduct onsite geological field
surveys throughout the republic. Campbell had trudged across areas in Indonesia never before
visited by Europeans, slept amongst isolated villagers of West Papua and squatted around evening
fires in Borneo's cloud-cloaked, highland communities – often listening to elders boast of
not-so-distant times, when they were still feared for their headhunting, or cannibalistic
practices.

Stewart Campbell's love affair with the island nation and
its people had not been immediate – his initial reaction, when witness to the poverty-stricken
peoples of the more neglected provinces in Eastern Indonesia, had cast its own, negative spell.
Before completing his first year in-country, he had already decided not to extend his time in
Indonesia. The corruption and tyranny of the Suharto regime, the debasement of many of the
minority groups within the Republic, and the incredible environmental impact the former general's
vested interest groups had throughout the islands convinced the American geologist that Indonesia
could not survive under such corrupt and immoral practices. As the time for his departure
approached, Campbell's position had mellowed, his attitude with respect to the ‘Indonesian Way'
tempered by exposure and opportunity. Before he realized how it happened, Stewart Campbell had
become inextricably enmeshed in the gold and diamond potential of Kalimantan, as Indonesia's
territories in southern Borneo were known.

In 1982, and in response to President Suharto's directive
to accelerate the transmigration process that annually deposited tens of thousands of Javanese
and Madurese families in outlying and difficult-to-control provinces, the Indonesian Department
of Mines announced revised, new-generation operating contracts for foreign mining investment in
all
Kalimantan
provinces. Campbell, who was virtually in the process of packing to leave
and return to his parents' home in Washington State, was immediately galvanized into action. The
enormity of such a push into Indonesian Borneo was a geologist's dream come true. Without
hesitation, he cancelled his flight and went about securing documentation that would enable him
to remain in the country legally. Campbell then approached the Indonesian Institute of Mines in
Bandung and offered his services on the basis that they provided him with the necessary permits,
the
quid pro quo
being that he would make himself available as an unpaid, consulting
geologist for a few hours each month. The Bandung director agreed, and the American established
his offices in Jakarta the following week.

Stewart Campbell could not have made his move at a more
appropriate time. Indonesia's reputation as a viable, resource-rich destination for
international, general exploration companies exploded onto the world mining stage with Freeport's
staggering copper and gold discoveries, in
Irian Jaya
. Jakarta's hotels were overrun with
waves of Canadian, American and Australian-based carpetbaggers touting offers to ignorant
concession holders, often securing valuable mining rights from unwitting, indigenous owners in
exchange for worthless paper scrip issued by nickel-and-dime, foreign, publicly listed companies.
Although there were many genuine foreign operators prospecting areas throughout the archipelago,
their numbers were heavily peppered with ‘Second Board' entrepreneurs whose capital base could
barely cover the costs of their overseas visits, let alone support any commitment to mine viable
projects. Word spread across the nation to isolated communities in Sulawesi, Irian, Kalimantan,
and Sumatra, from Sabang to Merauke and a flood of hopeful, provincial concession holders poured
into the capital in eager search of foreign partners. Most held simple, thumbprint-signed
documentation issued only at village level asserting their claim over small, traditional plots
whilst others, working in conjunction with local officials, carried letters from higher up the
food chain, often signed by provincial governors.

At the time, Campbell had been vociferous in his concerns
with the gold-rush mentality and the central government's ambitious agenda to attract foreign
miners at almost any cost. His condemnation of the system that stripped traditional owners of
their rights by transferring these through a maze of middlemen, corrupt government officials and
influential military groups only to be surrendered to foreign brokers, made Stewart Campbell
unpopular amongst his expatriate peers. Not-so-disguised threats filtered down through the Mines
Department suggesting that his appointment to the Institute should be revoked. The Director
immediately instructed Campbell to refrain from making further statements and the American
agreed, acknowledging that his tenure and legal residency were dependent on the institute's
goodwill.