TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Saturday, March 23, said that he had to face strong political tension when the government striving to take over shares of PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI). Jokowi recalled his experience during an event of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Islamic Boarding School API ASRI Magelang, Central Java.

Jokowi mentioned that he received messages intimidating him and cabinet ministers if they control Freeport shares. The messages included threats that a conflict would arise in Papua and the President would get a bad experience in the region.

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Those threats, Jokowi asserted, did not occur. Because when Freeport was successfully taken over by Indonesia, the US President Donald Trump smiled at Jokowi, and President Obama also did not question anything about Freeport earlier.

According to Jokowi, both acts of the US leaders proved that those threats merely aimed to frighten Indonesians to refrain from taking over the shares of Freeport Indonesia for decades.

On Friday, December 21, 2018, President Jokowi officially announced that Indonesia became the majority owner of PT Freeport Indonesia after increasing its share ownership to 51.23 percent through state mining holding company PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) as the government’s representative.

FRISKI RIANA