Fierce Infrastructure Battles in Peru

 8th Novem­ber Indige­nous pro­test­ers march against Minas Con­ga mine in defense of their water and lands

Cajamarca: Conga occupation not moved

Campesinos from some 40 pueb­los across Celendín province, in Peru’s north­ern region of Caja­mar­ca, held a meet­ing at Huas­mín vil­lage Oct. 23 to announce a cross-coun­try march that would arrive in mid-Novem­ber at the planned site of the Con­ga gold mine, where marchers would join the encamp­ment that has been estab­lished there [for almost two years]. … (Servin­di, Oct. 25; Celendin Libre, Oct. 23)

Comuneros (com­mu­nal peas­ants) in Celendín’s Yagén pueblo, Corte­gana dis­trict, weeks ear­li­er announced their readi­ness to resist the Chadín II hydro-elec­tric project, to be built by Brazil­ian firm Ode­brecht in the head­wa­ters of the Río Marañón, a major trib­u­tary of the Amazon—with much of of the ener­gy gen­er­at­ed slat­ed for local min­ing oper­a­tions. In a state­ment, the Defense Front for the Inter­ests of Pueblo Yagén said they would reject the “canon” of funds offered to local com­mu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment of the project in their area. The state­ment also reject­ed offers of new roads for local com­mu­ni­ties, say­ing they would only facil­i­tate  the despoil­ing of their lands by Odebrecht’s heavy equip­ment. … The state­ment closed with the slo­gan: “Nei­ther Con­ga nor Chadín! Respect the peo­ple!” (Celendin Libre, Sept. 30)

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Cuzco: unrest over water mega-diversion

In a pop­u­lar assem­bly Nov. 6, res­i­dents of Espinar vil­lage in Peru’s Cuz­co region declared them­selves on a “war foot­ing,” pledigng to resist immi­nent con­struc­tion of the Majes Siguas II irri­ga­tion mega-project, which would divert water from indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the high­lands to agribusi­ness inter­ests on the coast. … Lat­er that day, Espinar’s may­or Oscar Mol­lo­huan­ca announced that some 100 police troops had attacked local vil­lagers at Urin­saya in Copo­raque dis­trict, beat­ing five. The where­abouts of one vil­lager has been unknown since the attack. … (Radio Uni­ver­sal, RPP, Nov. 6)

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Peru: government ultimatum to illegal miners

Peru’s gov­ern­ment has issued an “ulti­ma­tum” to small-scale arti­sanal min­ers in south­ern Puno region, say­ing that if they do not remove their dredges and oth­er equip­ment from the water­sheds of the Ramis and Such­es rivers (which both flow into Lake Tit­i­ca­ca), they will be dyna­mit­ed. …

The state­ment fol­lows weeks of protests by infor­mal min­ers in sev­er­al regions of the coun­try, demand­ing “for­mal­iza­tion” of their claims. A clash with Nation­al Police troops was report­ed Oct. 2 from a min­er road­block at Hua­machu­co, La Lib­er­tad region. The Region­al Fed­er­a­tion of Arti­sanal Min­ers and Small Pro­duc­ers of La Lib­er­atd (FREMARLIB) said two min­ers were killed in the con­fronta­tion, and sev­er­al wound­ed and detained.

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