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The government of Peru announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement on changes to the controversial Las Bambas mining project after meeting with mayors whose constituents have raised concerns over its environmental impacts.
Those constituents, however, are singing a different tune, saying they won’t talk with the government about any proposed changes until after it rescinds the state of emergency declared last month.
The Peruvian government sees the project as essential to economic growth. Owned by a consortium led by the Chinese government, the Las Bambas project is expected to open next year and produce 400,000 metric tons of copper by 2017.
Peru is the world’s third largest producer of copper and mining accounts for the majority of its exports. The government claims the Las Bambas project alone will increase its annual gross domestic product by 1.4 percent.
Residents in the areas affected by the project, however, have been protesting the government’s attempt to expand the project beyond what they say was initially promised. Local campesinos, in particular, are concerned that the project will contaminate their land – concerns that have boiled over into often violent protests.
Last month, Peruvian police opened fire on a protest that attracted 15,000 people, killing four people and injuring more than a dozen. A day after that protest, the government declared a 30-day state of emergency.
Since then, campesinos from the southern Peruvian towns of Cotabambas and Grau traveled over 10 hours to the capital of Lima to voice their demands directly to those in power. “The struggle continues,” said Efrain Condori. Despite the agreement between the mayors and the state, “There is no truce,” he said. “There is no agreement with us. We have not been informed. On the contrary, the (government’s) ministers have met only with the mayors who have come to Lima and have set another meeting that we the people from Cotabambas and Grau did not know about."
Even some members of Peru’s ruling party have disagreed with the government’s decision. Congressman John Reynaga, for example, said that while he is, "part of the government,” his position “is in defense, I reiterate, of the department of Apurimac, which I represent, and to the last moment we are going to guarantee the right to life, to environment, and to employment. Those are fundamental issues that the mining company… is not respecting."
Protests in support of the campesinos have since expanded to the adjacent region of Abancay.
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