Last week Peru’s president suspended civil rights in a northern Andean region after a series of protests had shut down the development of a new gold mine. The locals had resisted the government’s attempts to aid Newmont Mining to exploit the region’s watershed for their project and the politicians have responded to the the violence response to police tactics by banning the right to assembly and authorizing arrests without warrants throughout the four enflamed provinces.
“We have exhausted all paths to establish dialogue as a point of departure to resolve the conflict democratically,” the president told the Press, but his prime minister disagreed with the repressive measures and he resigned from the cabinet.
The environmental damage of draining four lakes to provided the mine with a reservoir for poisonous waste material has been at the heart of the conflict. The locals have no reason to believe the environmental studies by Newmont, since the world’s largest mining consortium has a long history of ignoring the wishes of the people. with no resolution in sight, Newmont’s NYSE stock prices have fallen from their high, but this set-back can only serve to push gold prices higher and that means bigger profits for its shareholders.
They know how to win win with the best of them.