Photo: TeleSUR/Rael Mora.
A three-day general strike against the Tia Maria mining project of transnational Southern Copper Corporation in the southern region of Arequipa in Peru was launched on May 12.
Peru
Photo: TeleSUR/Rael Mora.
A three-day general strike against the Tia Maria mining project of transnational Southern Copper Corporation in the southern region of Arequipa in Peru was launched on May 12.
New information was released on October 14 at the Financing Development with Transparency annual conference about the controversial operations of US mining company Newmont.
Journalist Raul Weiner and accountant Juan Torres released their investigation, claiming it proves the US transnational committed tax fraud by not paying the Peruvian state about US$137 million last year alone.
Newmont owns Yanacocha in Peru, a set of five gold mines that make up the second largest gold exploration in the world. The transnational also owns an expansion project called Conga.
Peru will host the UN-sponsored Conference of Parties climate talks this December. The world鈥檚 peak climate conference, the COP is an annual event first held in Berlin in 1995, leading to provisional developments such as the Kyoto Protocol.
Peru is also a country increasingly affected by the consequences of climate change. A study published by the United Nations Development Project said: 鈥淧eru has been ranked third globally in terms of risk to climate related disasters.鈥
El Salvador joined four other Latin American countries in recalling its ambassador from Tel Aviv in protest against Israel鈥檚 bloody attack on the Gaza Strip, International Business Times said on July 30.
Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Peru have all recalled their diplomatic representatives to Israel.
WikiLeaks cables released on June 9 shed new light on the United States' role in the Bagua Massacre in Peru on June 5, 2009.
The cables suggest then-US ambassador Michael McKinley may have encouraged the Peruvian government to use force against protesters in an operation that cost 10 protesters and 24 police officers their lives.
Indigenous groups in the Amazon had been blockading highways for seven weeks. They were protesting against decrees passed by Peru鈥檚 then-president Alan Garcia.
With Newmont-Buenaventura set to resume building operations at the controversial Conga mine site this year, the Peruvian government has passed a new law granting legal immunity to security personnel who injure or kill protesters. The promulgation of Law 30151, which was officially gazetted on January 14 after being signed by President Ollanta Humala, indicates the state and its transnational corporate backers are planning an expanded campaign of repression against Peruvian communities resisting their neoliberal development model.
Cusco, a city of 400,000 in south-eastern Peru, was totally paralysed on February 25. It was the first day of a 48-hour general strike initiated by trade unions and other civic groups.
The Peruvian government has renewed its commitment to several controversial mining mega-projects. The projects have provoked huge regional protests against the environmentally destructive expansion plans of foreign mining corporations.
Speaking at a mining industry conference held in the southern city of Arequipa on September 16, Minister of Energy and Mines Jorge Merino indicated that Conga (in Cajamarca), Tia Maria (in Arequipa) and Corani (in Puno) will be developed with the backing of President Ollanta Humala's administration.
The Conga gold and copper mining project is becoming one of Latin America鈥檚 most significant environmental battlefronts. It is pitting almost the entire population of the northern Cajamarca region of Peru against the invasive forces of the multinational mining industry and its governmental puppets in Lima.
In recent years, there have been many strikes and protests. This has led to hundreds of arrests, scores of injuries and several protester deaths.
Hundreds of protesters from the indigenous advocacy NGO Survival International gathered outside Peruvian consulates and embassies in London, Paris, Madrid and San Francisco on April 23. They had gathered to urge the Peruvian government to reconsider expanding the Camisea gas mega-project.
Camisea鈥檚 Bloc 88, deep in the Amazonian jungles of south-eastern Peru, is thought to contain over 10 trillion cubic feet of gas.
One year has passed since the community of Cajamarc, in Peru's northern highlands, rose up against the 鈥淐onga鈥 copper and gold mine, a US$5 billion mega-project proposed by the World Bank-backed Newmont-Buenaventura consortium.
The unified cry of the protesters is still: 鈥淐onga no way!鈥
The region bordering the mine site is home to an agricultural population that relies on the natural highland water system. Destroying this precious and fragile asset would end the viability of their existence.
The highland agricultural community of Santa Rosa de Cajacuy, in Peru鈥檚 central Ancash department, has been severely affected by a toxic spill from the BHP Billiton and Xstrata-operated Antamina mine.
Antamina is one of the world鈥檚 largest sources of copper and zinc. It relies on a 300 kilometre high-pressure pipeline to pump resources from the mountains to coastal port facilities.
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