Inco moves staff following terror threat in Indonesia

The nickel operations of Inco (N-T) subsidiary International Nickel Indonesia “are proceeding as normal” following threats made against foreign interests on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Wire service reports said Inco Indonesia had requested additional police to guard the company’s nickel laterite operation at Saroako. Inco said in a statement that it had moved some staff offsite for their own protection. A report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said 58 Canadian and four Australian workers were leaving the Saroako area and the network said sources told it there was a death threat against the company’s Western employees.

On May 23, both Canadian and Australian foreign ministries issued a warning to their citizens to defer travel to Sulawesi and if in the area, to leave. The Canadian warning referred to a “credible terrorist threat to Western interests in South Sulawesi Province,” while the Australian warning said there had been specific terrorist threats against Westerners “around and between the cities of Saroako in South Sulawesi Province and Salonsa in Central Sulawesi Province.”

United States and British consular services had already issued more general advisories against travel to Sulawesi, after religious clashes between the majority Muslim and minority Christian populations in the area. Sulawesi and the adjacent Moluccan islands have been the site of massacres and forced “conversions” by gangs of Muslims.

The Saroako nickel operation, which produced 17,700 tonnes nickel in the first quarter of the year, has been the focus of demonstrations by anti-mining groups, but the consular warnings linked the current threats to militant Islamic groups connected with Jamaah Islamiyah, the group blamed for the Bali bombings in October 2002 and the car-bombing at a Marriott hotel in Jakarta last August. The Philippine-based Islamic terror group Abu Sayyaf has been reported to be active in the northern part of Sulawesi as well.

Inco shares were not trading in Toronto on the Victoria Day holiday, but at presstime had traded at US$30.67, down US8, on New York.