As the conflict over Southern Copper’s Tía María mining project drags on into its forth week, the Peruvian government is scrambling to try to resolve this social conflict and keep it from spiraling out of control. Public transportation, schools, and markets have all been closed through the Islay region in the department of Arequipa because of the violent protests.
Already looking forward to next week, twelve other unions in Arequipa have announced that they will go on strike for 24 hours in solidarity with the Tía María protestors. The strikers claim that the copper mine will contaminate their fields and the water from the Tambo River, even though the mining company and the government have exhaustively explained why this will not happen.
Carlos Gálvez Pinillos, president of the National Society for Mining, Oil, and Energy (SNMPE) told EFE, “We had Tía María in the portfolio, and I want to believe that it will move forward, but I do not want the same thing that happened with Conga,” referring to the violence that broke out in 2012 in Cajamarca, permanently poisoning relations with the local community there. The Peruvian government is desperately trying to find a solution in Islay, but the local community has said that its actions are too little, too late.
In related news, the Peruvian economy grew just a small 0.94% in February year-on-year, and actually shrank 0.3% from January to February. The Peruvian government attributed the low numbers to poor performance in the country’s construction and mining sectors. Peruvian officials have been optimistically hoping for a recovery in the country’s mining industry for a year, but the sector keeps missing its growth targets.
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