Mexico Mining Crisis Seems To Be Escalating

Published by MAC on 2006-04-08

México´s mining crisis seems to be escalating, as striking miners and steel workers call on President Vicente Fox to intervene in an 11-day-old dispute. They are demanding that Fox upholds the legality of the strikes and for an embattled union leader, Napoleon Gomez, to be legally recognised as its representative. The union has said in a statement that the strikes would continue despite a Labor Ministry communique declaring the steel mill strikes illegal.

In Perú, hundreds of residents in the Río Ramis basin have marched to the regional capital of Puno to protest contamination caused by mining wastes, affecting various towns in the districts of Azángaro and Carabaya. Local authorities and social leaders urged the regional government to immediately shut down the mining centers of Chaquiminas and Pampa Blanca.

In Ecuador, local residents of Tarqui, San Fernando, Cumbe, Girón and Cuenca have become alarmed because the Canadian company IamGold is exploring in a protected forest. They demand the immediate revocation of the mining concession.