Latin American update
Published by MAC on 2007-05-12
Latin American update
12th May 2007
Peoples' blockades were mounted last week against mining projects in both Peru and Argentina.
The Episcopal Conference of El Salvador has delivered a salvo of criticisms against the mining of precious metals.
A community plan is being proposed to cope with the apparently unremitting consequences of air pollution from the notorious Doe Run smelter in La Oroya, Peru.
A number of Colombian trade union and civil society organisations have expressed outrage at the laying-off of the entire workforce of privatised company, Minercol. Multinational mining giants, Barrick Gold, CVRD and Rio Tinto have all recently opened offices in the country. The magazine, CounterPunch, hammers home accusations of collusion with terrorism by US coal miner, Drummond Coal.
As predicted last week, Paraguay's newly promulgated neo-liveral mining law is already luring Canadian companies to the trough.
Brazil's federal prosecutor's office and Para state's environment ministry have called for Alcoa to be denied a licence on enviornmental grounds.