Peru: Police Abuse in the Pay of Mining Companies
Peru: Police Abuse in the Pay of Mining Companies
Luis Manuel Claps
Extractives in Latin America
December 16, 2013
Peru is a mining conflict country. In September of this year, the Defensoría del Pueblo (National Ombudsman Office) reported 223 social conflicts in September alone, with more than two thirds of them linked to minerals. The report also registers 196 dead and 2,369 injured in disputes over natural resources from 2006 to 2011. The database of the Latin American Observatory of Mining Conflicts (OCMAL) registers 34 cases across Peru. Even though the State has increased its presence in some mining areas and has its own Social Conflict Administration Office, the front line often becomes the ugliest side of corporate-community relations.
Hard Partners
A report published this month by Peruvian NGOs Grufides, Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras (Human Rights without Borders), the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (National Coordinator for Human Rights, CNDDHH), and the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) of Switzerland, revealed that mining corporations have signed agreements with the National Police to secure their assets. Titled "Police in the Pay of Mining Companies," the report examined the links between the police and mining corporations Antamina, Gold Fields, Sulliden Gold, Xstrata Tintaya, Minera Coimolache, and Yanacocha. These agreements allow them to request permanent police presence or ask for rapid deployment of larger units to prevent or repress social protests. In some cases, the companies provide full financial and logistical support: an incentive to use force.
Expanding Giant
The Switzerland-based commodities giant Glencore Xstrata owns the Tintaya mine and its expansion Antapaccay. Protesters in the province of Espinar have accused the company of causing pollution. As the protests grew, police moved in: three people were killed and around one hundred were injured. In a typical "knee jerk" reaction, the government of Ollanta Humala suspended freedom of assembly and imposed a state of emergency. What then? In an unusual display of force, the police arrested the mayor leading the protest against Xstrata. Dozens of riot police carrying plastic shields stormed the municipal building to pull Óscar Mollohuanca out.
Far away, indignant voters in the relaxed Swiss town of Hedingen decided to donate to charity some US$120,700 of taxes paid by Glencore Xstrata Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg in protest against the commodities trader’s business practices.
On the Payroll
Early this year, the report "Policía mercenaria" (mercenary police) released in April by the combative newspaper Hildebrandt en sus trece, reported that in normal conditions, mining companies pay around S/.48 a day (US$10) to the official in charge, and S/.28 a day (US$10) to sub officials, for providing protection to the corporation. In circumstances denoted as “special," the pay can be as high as S/.78 a day (US$28). Mar Pérez from the CNDDHH says that these agreements put all the responsibility for the repression of the protests in the hands of the police. "If someone dies," she notes, "it is much harder to investigate the crime."
More:
https://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/16/peru-police-abuse-pay-mining-companies