Aymara campesinos are occupying installations of the Inti Raymi Mining Company outside the Altiplano city of Oruro, in protest of the pollution of local water sources.
As protests continue in defiance of a state of emergency, the CEO of Newmont Mining acknowledged that conditions do not exist to move ahead with the giant Conga project.
Campesinos in Peru’s northern Piura region pledge to resist announced plans by Chinese mining company Zijin to move ahead with the long-contested Río Blanco copper project.
After a new Shining Path attack left five soldiers dead in Peru’s jungle, anti-terrorism prosecutor Julio Galindo said the guerillas control illegal gold-mining operations.
South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), linked to the ruling ANC, and the upstart AMCU accuse each other of being controlled by the mineral industry.
Embera indigenous communities on Colombia’s Pacific coast came under bombardment by army helicopters, while an Awá community expelled illegal gold miners from their land.
The Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations (CAOI), meeting in Cundinamarca, Colombia, called for construction of a "new paradigm" for a "sustainable civilization."
Even establishment voices in Peru are calling for a suspension of the Conga mining project, as Cajamarca region remains under a state of emergency for another month.
Campesinos in Peru blocked roads to protest the pollution of local waters by a US-owned mining project in Áncash region, and the Pasto Grande II water diversion scheme.
Leaders in Peru’s Cajamarca region said they see no purpose in continuing talks with two Catholic priests trying to mediate a solution to the dispute over the Conga mining project.
More than 100 local residents were sickened by a toxic spill at the giant Antamina copper mine in Peru. Anonymous hackers promptly vandalized the company website.
Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, suddenly develops a touching concern with democracy in Venezuela, grasping at the opportunity for long-sought regime change. Predictably overlooked in the world media's Manichean view of the crisis are voices of Venezuela's dissident left that takes a neither/nor position opposed to both the regime and the right-wing leadership of the opposition. Also unheard are voices of indigenous dissent and resistance. In an episode that received little coverage, December saw protests in the remote Orinoco Basin after a leader of the Pemón indigenous people was killed in a confrontation with elite Military Counterintelligence troops. The military operation was ostensibly aimed at clearing the region of illegal mining—while the Pemón themselves had been protesting the mining. The indigenous leaders view the militarization of the region as intended to make way for corporate exploitation under the Orinoco Mineral Arc plan. (Photo: EcoPolitica Venezuela)
