Carlos A. Quiroz - Peruanista
April 4, 2010 - Between 4 to 9 people were killed today in Peru and about 17 were injured, after a clash between Peruvian police forces and informal miners blocking a main road, as part of a national strike against the Alan Garcia government's decrees intended to prevent informal gold mining.
The violence occurred early today Sunday April 4, 2010 as protesters blocked the Pan-American road in the small fishing town of Chala, located in the Arequipa region.
The government of Alan Garcia is trying to promote the formalization of between 60,000 to 100,000 informal miners who extract mostly gold in rivers and lakes of several provinces of Peru, producing between $600 to $840 million dollars in annual revenues.
According to the miners, they are also in support for a legal formalization but with rules that can promote their small businesses, something that is not accepted by the Garcia administration. There are not intentions for an open dialogue from the Peruvian government, that has chosen police repression instead.
The Prime minister of Peru, Javier Velasquez confirmed only one casualty but Peruvian radio station CPN and others covering the protests, said that at least four people were killed including 3 miners, a local civilian. About 7 police agents were injured in the attacks.
The national strike is organized by the organizations National Federation of Small Miners of Peru [Federación Nacional de Mineros Artesanales de Perú – FENAMARPE], and the Mining Federation of Madre de Dios [Federación Minera de Madre de Dios].
The FENAMARPE says in its website that more than 300,000 miners have started today “an indefinite strike” in the regions of Ayacucho, Arequipa, Apurímac, Lima, Piura, Ica, Puno, Cusco, Ancash, Huancavelica, Cerro de Pasco, Tacna, Huánuco, La Libertad, Cajamarca, Moquegua, Huancayo and Madre de Dios.
Rafael Seminario, one of the leaders of FENAMARPE said that at least nine people died this morning, after police shot the miners who were blocking the Pan-American road. The miners are demanding the approval of laws that will strength the small mining ventures, and that the government revokes decrees that “affect thousands of Peruvians that working in mining as their only way of living, in the poorest and most hidden regions of the country”.
The leftist blog Prensa Alternativa wrote that witnesses assured that “the police opened fire directly to the protesters”, killing Alejandro Llamoca Barriga (34), Edgar Mitma Wuilcarima (37), Arturo Zamaca Chiri (26) and Juan de Dios Larrea Huamaní (38). There could be more dead people, apparently hidden by the police at the local health care center, something yet to be confirmed.
According to BBC about 6,000 miners arrived from other regions to Chala , but other protests were also held in the coastal town of Nasca, and in the Amazonian regions of Madre de Dios, Cusco and Puno.
The Lima government has mobilized 6,400 police officers to avoid road blockades and other possible actions to be taken by the protesters, says Living in Peru adding:
Teódulo Medina Gutiérrez, from the Federation of Informal Miners, had explained that they want the repeal of the decree 012-2010, that establishes a reorganization of the informal mining activities in Madre de Dios region, because they consider it as unconstitutional.
Fernando Gala, Deputy Minister of Mining, told the press that the decree does not intend to take informal miners out of their business, as they claim. The government says that Russian and Brazilian mining corporations are manipulating the protesters.
Living in Peru also reports that the government of Peru has declared the state of emergency in seven provinces, giving the internal control to the Police, with the support of the Armed Forces:
Facing the possibility of an indefinite strike that may mobilize thousands of informal miners nationwide, the government declared the state of emergency in seven southern Provinces: Nazca, Palpa and San Juan de Marcona in Ica region, Tambopata and Manu in Madre de Dios region, and Caravelí and Camaná in Arequipa region.
Pollution and human exploitation
The president of Peru, Alan Garcia has said to CPN radio that his administration will avoid the existence of any informal mining activity, because it pollutes rivers, destroys the environment, slaves children and young workers and it creates natural disasters due to lack of proper technology.
In this sense, Garcia is right.
Many Indigenous people have migrated from the Andes to the Amazon forests of Madre de Dios, Puno and Cusco searching for promising jobs in gold mining. They work for “middle-men” ventures who work for bigger mining concessions leasing from the government. This has led to the creation of unruly small mining towns, causing pollution by chemicals used by miners. See this video:
Unfortunately, and due to the records of the Garcia administration which allows bigger cmining corporations the same kind of abuses, it's hard to trust the intentions of Garcia and its cabinet.
The other side
While the Peruvian government has become very strict with small miners, doing its job to protect the environment but the Garcia administration overlooks worse abuses committed by big mining corporations in other parts of the country, like in Yanacocha (the second biggest gold mining venture in the world) and Tambogrande where people have died of mercury pollution. Both projects are located in northern Peru and one of the activists against these abuses, father Marco Arana, is now a potential presidential candidate.
Also the Garcia administration accuses the leftist Partido Nacionalista party to promote the strikes, and the minister of Environment, Antonio Brack has said that “bad elements” could infiltrate the protests as the miner may carry guns and act violently.
The small miners say they are not promoting violence, and they have invited the National Ombudsman and the National Prosecutor's Offices, to supervise the mobilizations. The general director of FENAMARPE also said that informal mining creates $850 million dollars annually and the strike could cause over S/. 2.7 million soles in daily lose to the national economy.
In this situation both parties are looking for a formalization of the small miners, but the government seems to want to eliminate the small competition, perhaps to benefit bigger corporations.
This is especially convenient now that the Inter-Oceanic highway is coming to completion, connecting both coasts of Brazil and Peru, allowing the transportation of gold production for exportation. More details about this conflict will come to light, as the strike continues this week.
Republished from Peruanista
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Monday, 5 April 2010
Friday, 15 January 2010
Hugo Blanco: `Only extinction of capitalism will ensure the survival of our species’; Reunión sobre cambio climático Copenhague
By Hugo Blanco, translated by Richard Fidler for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is already so high that the climate system has been brought out of balance. The CO2 concentration and global temperatures have increased more rapidly in the last 50 years than ever before on Earth, and will rise even faster in the coming decades. This adds to a multitude of other serious ecological imbalances, the impacts of which threaten the lives and livelihoods of the people of the world, most acutely, impoverished people and other vulnerable groups.
The imbalance of the climate system leads to greater and more frequent extremes of heat and rainfall patterns, tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, extreme flooding and droughts, loss of biodiversity, landslides, rising sea levels, shortage of drinking water, shorter growing seasons, lower yields, lost or deteriorated agricultural land, decreased agricultural production, losses of livestock, extinction of ecosystems, and diminished fish stocks, among others. These phenomena result in food crises, famine, illness, death, displacement, and the extinction of sustainable ways of life. -- People’s Declaration from Klimaforum09
January 2010 -- In response to this, the United Nations agreed to hold a Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), which met in Copenhagen December 7-18 to draft a treaty for the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.
The meeting ended without any agreement since the countries primarily responsible for global warming — led by the United States, which, with only 4 per cent of the world’s population, produces 25 per cent of the pollution due to carbon dioxide emissions — were unwilling to commit themselves to even the least reduction in that pollution.
At the last minute, after the official meeting had broken up, US President Barack Obama met with some accomplices and got them to sign, without discussion, a paper expressing “every intention” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but without any binding commitments, and promising “to help” the major victims of warming, basically in Africa and other poor countries, but again without establishing any amounts or enforcement mechanisms. Simply expressions of good intentions without any commitment.
Despite the failure of the official meeting, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales stated: “They say it was a failure, but I would not say that the Copenhagen summit has failed, but rather that it is a triumph for the entire world... because the developed capitalist countries could not impose their statement.”
We fully agree with him. It was different from the Kyoto meeting which set ridiculous goals that the US and other major culprits did not sign and did not fulfill — which made environmental protection a commodity, but nevertheless gave hope to people that something was being done. In Copenhagen, fortunately, the failure of the official meeting was completely clear.
This awakened many who still had the illusion that within the capitalist system it is possible to stop global warming, that the world’s major predators can act in defence of the survival of the human species.
Copenhagen brought together not only official representatives. In the international demonstration on Saturday, December 12, there were 100,000 people concerned about climate change. The meeting was preceded by massive demonstrations in England and other countries.
An organisation was formed, “Change the system, not the climate”, and it issued the “People’s Declaration in Klimaforum09”.
In the meeting of the presidents, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez repeated two slogans raised by the people in the streets: “Change the system, not the climate” and “If the climate were a bank they would have saved it by now.”
Evo Morales reported that when he went to speak they evacuated the room so that only the official leaders heard him. He posed five questions on climate change that the United Nations should put to the world’s peoples in a global referendum, asking that they answer yes or no, "That will leave the decision in the hands of the peoples of the world.” (The United Nations will hold no such referendum, of course.)
1. Do you agree with re-establishing harmony with nature while recognising the rights of Mother Earth?
2. Do you agree with changing this model of over-consumption and waste that the capitalist system represents?
3. Do you agree that developed countries should reduce and re-absorb their domestic greenhouse gas emissions so that the temperature does not rise more than 1 degree Celsius?
4. Do you agree with transferring everything spent on wars to protecting the planet and allocating a budget for climate change that is bigger than what is used for defence?
5. Do you agree with establishing a Climate Justice Tribunal to judge those who destroy Mother Earth?
Morales has also issued a call for the “Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change” in defence of humanity, life and the planet. Those invited will be not only the presidents of interested countries concerned about the issue, but experts, academics and representatives of the social organisations.
“The goal is to achieve a consensus position to be raised at the next Summit on Climate Change to be held in Mexico in December 2010.”
The People’s Summit will be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia April 20-22, coinciding with the first worldwide celebration of Mother Earth Day recently instituted by the United Nations.
It is naive to think that the world’s major polluters will do anything about climate protection.
Large multinational companies are the ones who govern the world through the “leaders” who are nothing more than their servants.
Their neoliberal religion commands them to make as much money as possible in the shortest time possible. They know very well that to do this they must destroy nature. They know very well that they will have no descendants, but they do not care. Through their media they spread the most possible disinformation about global warming and the appropriate steps to be taken.
Evo is right when he says:
They only deal with the effects and not the causes of climate change.
Climate change is a product of the capitalist system, which favours the pursuit of the maximum possible profit. That is the purpose of the capitalist system, with no consideration for the lives of others. In Copenhagen we should analyse which countries are doing the most damage to the environment and, with that in mind, focus on the need for those countries with the greatest responsibility to pay for this debt to the global climate. That is an obligation ...
The Copenhagen summit is much more global in nature, it is a debate about life, about humanity. Here we have profound differences with capitalist governments. I remain convinced that capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity.
We might still be able to ensure the survival of the species. We have cause for optimism in the meeting of 100,000 people in Copenhagen, the formation of the organisation “Change the system, not the climate”, the call for the meeting in Cochabamba, the violent impact on the rich countries of Europe of the freezing temperatures in recent days.
Apparently we Indigenous peoples, who for centuries have been struggling and dying in defence of Mother Earth and the defence of our collectivist solidarity, will no longer be alone.
Only the extinction of capitalism will ensure the survival of our species, and the sooner the world understands this the better.
[Hugo Blanco was a leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities, but an international defence campaign won his freedom. He continues to play an active role in Peru's Indigenous, campesino, and environmental movements, and writes on Peruvian, indigenous and Latin American issues. He edits the Lucha Indigena newspaper. An earlier English version of this article first appeared at Another Green World.]
The concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is already so high that the climate system has been brought out of balance. The CO2 concentration and global temperatures have increased more rapidly in the last 50 years than ever before on Earth, and will rise even faster in the coming decades. This adds to a multitude of other serious ecological imbalances, the impacts of which threaten the lives and livelihoods of the people of the world, most acutely, impoverished people and other vulnerable groups.
The imbalance of the climate system leads to greater and more frequent extremes of heat and rainfall patterns, tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons, extreme flooding and droughts, loss of biodiversity, landslides, rising sea levels, shortage of drinking water, shorter growing seasons, lower yields, lost or deteriorated agricultural land, decreased agricultural production, losses of livestock, extinction of ecosystems, and diminished fish stocks, among others. These phenomena result in food crises, famine, illness, death, displacement, and the extinction of sustainable ways of life. -- People’s Declaration from Klimaforum09
January 2010 -- In response to this, the United Nations agreed to hold a Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), which met in Copenhagen December 7-18 to draft a treaty for the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.
The meeting ended without any agreement since the countries primarily responsible for global warming — led by the United States, which, with only 4 per cent of the world’s population, produces 25 per cent of the pollution due to carbon dioxide emissions — were unwilling to commit themselves to even the least reduction in that pollution.
At the last minute, after the official meeting had broken up, US President Barack Obama met with some accomplices and got them to sign, without discussion, a paper expressing “every intention” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but without any binding commitments, and promising “to help” the major victims of warming, basically in Africa and other poor countries, but again without establishing any amounts or enforcement mechanisms. Simply expressions of good intentions without any commitment.
Despite the failure of the official meeting, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales stated: “They say it was a failure, but I would not say that the Copenhagen summit has failed, but rather that it is a triumph for the entire world... because the developed capitalist countries could not impose their statement.”
We fully agree with him. It was different from the Kyoto meeting which set ridiculous goals that the US and other major culprits did not sign and did not fulfill — which made environmental protection a commodity, but nevertheless gave hope to people that something was being done. In Copenhagen, fortunately, the failure of the official meeting was completely clear.
This awakened many who still had the illusion that within the capitalist system it is possible to stop global warming, that the world’s major predators can act in defence of the survival of the human species.
Copenhagen brought together not only official representatives. In the international demonstration on Saturday, December 12, there were 100,000 people concerned about climate change. The meeting was preceded by massive demonstrations in England and other countries.
An organisation was formed, “Change the system, not the climate”, and it issued the “People’s Declaration in Klimaforum09”.
In the meeting of the presidents, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez repeated two slogans raised by the people in the streets: “Change the system, not the climate” and “If the climate were a bank they would have saved it by now.”
Evo Morales reported that when he went to speak they evacuated the room so that only the official leaders heard him. He posed five questions on climate change that the United Nations should put to the world’s peoples in a global referendum, asking that they answer yes or no, "That will leave the decision in the hands of the peoples of the world.” (The United Nations will hold no such referendum, of course.)
1. Do you agree with re-establishing harmony with nature while recognising the rights of Mother Earth?
2. Do you agree with changing this model of over-consumption and waste that the capitalist system represents?
3. Do you agree that developed countries should reduce and re-absorb their domestic greenhouse gas emissions so that the temperature does not rise more than 1 degree Celsius?
4. Do you agree with transferring everything spent on wars to protecting the planet and allocating a budget for climate change that is bigger than what is used for defence?
5. Do you agree with establishing a Climate Justice Tribunal to judge those who destroy Mother Earth?
Morales has also issued a call for the “Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change” in defence of humanity, life and the planet. Those invited will be not only the presidents of interested countries concerned about the issue, but experts, academics and representatives of the social organisations.
“The goal is to achieve a consensus position to be raised at the next Summit on Climate Change to be held in Mexico in December 2010.”
The People’s Summit will be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia April 20-22, coinciding with the first worldwide celebration of Mother Earth Day recently instituted by the United Nations.
It is naive to think that the world’s major polluters will do anything about climate protection.
Large multinational companies are the ones who govern the world through the “leaders” who are nothing more than their servants.
Their neoliberal religion commands them to make as much money as possible in the shortest time possible. They know very well that to do this they must destroy nature. They know very well that they will have no descendants, but they do not care. Through their media they spread the most possible disinformation about global warming and the appropriate steps to be taken.
Evo is right when he says:
They only deal with the effects and not the causes of climate change.
Climate change is a product of the capitalist system, which favours the pursuit of the maximum possible profit. That is the purpose of the capitalist system, with no consideration for the lives of others. In Copenhagen we should analyse which countries are doing the most damage to the environment and, with that in mind, focus on the need for those countries with the greatest responsibility to pay for this debt to the global climate. That is an obligation ...
The Copenhagen summit is much more global in nature, it is a debate about life, about humanity. Here we have profound differences with capitalist governments. I remain convinced that capitalism is the worst enemy of humanity.
We might still be able to ensure the survival of the species. We have cause for optimism in the meeting of 100,000 people in Copenhagen, the formation of the organisation “Change the system, not the climate”, the call for the meeting in Cochabamba, the violent impact on the rich countries of Europe of the freezing temperatures in recent days.
Apparently we Indigenous peoples, who for centuries have been struggling and dying in defence of Mother Earth and the defence of our collectivist solidarity, will no longer be alone.
Only the extinction of capitalism will ensure the survival of our species, and the sooner the world understands this the better.
[Hugo Blanco was a leader of the Quechua peasant uprising in the Cuzco region of Peru in the early 1960s. He was captured by the military and sentenced to 25 years in El Fronton Island prison for his activities, but an international defence campaign won his freedom. He continues to play an active role in Peru's Indigenous, campesino, and environmental movements, and writes on Peruvian, indigenous and Latin American issues. He edits the Lucha Indigena newspaper. An earlier English version of this article first appeared at Another Green World.]
Monday, 27 July 2009
Indigenous Communities Angered by Peru Environment Minister
Indigenous communities from the Peruvian Amazon are angry over recent comments from Peru’s environment minister that Pluspetrol’s Lote 8 on the Corrientes river, is a “shining example” of how oil projects can benefit local communities.
The only thing “shining” in Lote 8, as evidenced in the photograph attached, is coming from the four major oil spills that have occurred in the region, just this year.
The spills were witnessed by FECONACO, the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes, who runs an environmental monitoring project in Corrientes.
As a result of the spills, FECONACO explains in a press release dated July 24, local communities and the environment are being forced to carry a toxic burden: water and food supplies are being diminished, “wildlife is being contaminated and dying, and biodiversity is being wiped out.”
FECONACO wants the minister, one of the few ministers to retain their position after the recent violence in Bagua, to travel to the region and bare witness to the pollution of lote 8, and “speak to the people here to find out the truth.”
Indigenous Communities Angered by Peruvian Environment Minister
Iquitos, 24 July 2009 – Indigenous communities in the Amazon jungle have been angered by recent statements by Peru’s environment minister, Antonio Brack Egg. In an interview with the newspaper El Comercio, Brack stated that petrol exploitation is having minimal environmental impact. He also referenced Pluspetrol’s Lote 8, on the Corrientes river, as an extraction site which was not causing contamination and was having a positive impact on the nearby communities.
In fact, the monitoring project run in Corrientes by FECONACO (the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes) has evidence of four major oil spills in Lote 8 in the first half of 2009.
Wilson Sandy Hualinga, indigenous coordinator of the monitoring project, said, “I see these things because I live there, in the community of San Cristóbal in Lote 8. The oil spills pollute the rivers and ecosystems. The fishermen in these areas are finding less fish and developing unknown diseases. Wildlife is being contaminated and dying, and biodiversity is being wiped out.”
“We know our territory, because we were born and raised there. We also know how petrol companies work, how they cheat and hide from the authorities. Antonio Brack should come and speak to the people here to find out the truth.”
Antonio Brack Egg was one of few ministers to retain their position in a major cabinet reshuffle designed to restore confidence in the Peruvian government. In recent months Peru has been shaken by a series of events, most notably the violent conflicts in Bagua between indigenous protesters and police which resulted in at least 34 deaths.
Notes
FECONACO represents indigenous communities on the Corrientes river, a major oil production region of Peru.
FECONACO’s monitoring programme has run since 2005, training indigenous people to record evidence of pollution in and around their communities, with the aim of improving the environmental practices of oil companies working in the area.
Republished from Intercontinental Cry
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
