Over the weekend, Peruvian daily El
Comercio reported on the rise in general levels of criminal activity in
areas with illegal mining. Four people were recently killed in the gold mining
capital of La Pampa, in the Peruvian department of Madre de Dios. According to
the report, this region has gone from being a hotbed of illegal mining to a
hotbed of crime more generally. According to an unnamed witness, who has since
retracted his testimony, the four were assassinated after a dispute with
illegal miners.
On the subject of Madre de Dios, Sandra Belaunde wrote an
editorial in El
Comercio bemoaning the plight of the blighted region. According to
Belaunde, Madre de Dios is one of the regions that enjoy the highest level of
spending per capita, and yet, 75% of employment is informal. Money moves
through the region, but through illicit conduits like illegal gold mining and
human trafficking.
She notes that violence is an everyday occurrence, with a
homicide rate of 6.7 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. While Belaunde realizes
that the expensive interdictions carried out by the Peruvian governments
against the criminal syndicates are not treating the root of the problem, she
worries that if they were to stop, illegal mining would grow exponentially.
In other mining-related news, Nilson Flores Suárez, the
former leader of the National Federation of Artisanal Miners, has declared
himself a congressional candidate for Arequipa in Keiko Fujimori’s.
Organizations of informal miners have officially endorsed the candidate, who
though perennially running for elected office, has yet to win an election.
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