Views from the hemispheric South, on the struggle of workers and the poor, from around the world, with a very few pieces I wrote myself.
PERU: Humala and his subordination to capital
Posted 14th December 2011 at 01:24 by eyeheartlenin
Updated 20th December 2011 at 04:28 by eyeheartlenin
Updated 20th December 2011 at 04:28 by eyeheartlenin
[From the Fracción Trotskista; unofficial translation]
La Verdad Obrera Nº 456 (Version only on the internet) / International
PERU: DOWN WITH THE STATE OF EXCEPTION IN CAJAMARCA! DOWN WITH REPRESSION!
NATIONALIZATION NOW OF MINING AND GAS!
HUMALA AND HIS SUBORDINATION TO CAPITAL
Thursday, December 8, 2011
By: LOR-CI (Bolivia)
In the few months that Ollanta Humala has been governing, a series of struggles has been taking place in Peru: In August 1,134 miners from Shougang Hierro Perú, began a strike of indefinite duration, demanding equalization of their wages, a fair raise and other demands; the same thing happened with the miners of Cerro Verde; in the Department of Puno, Aymaras and Quechuas carried out a hard struggle against all mining activity in their towns and in defense of their lands. In these last two months, the situation has heated up more, since groups of miners from Ancash, Andahuaylas and Cajamarca have gone out to fight for a series of demands that dispute, once again, the servile role the government displays to the mining and petroleum transnationals.
What is happening is that in Peru, in these recent years of economic boom, mining extraction has been the spearhead of the economy; for instance, Perucámaras reported that 32% of the total exported by the eight regions of northern and northeastern Peru was no less than $3.12 billion US in sales of gold, the exports of gold from the region of Cajamarca being 72% of the total sales of that region of the country.
Conga, a mining region in conflict
The Conga project of the Yanacocha-Newmont firm already has precedents in the fraudulent deals that different administrations established, in favor of the big transnational corporations. Conga is the result that Yanacocha-Newmont got in its favor, through a ruling of the tribunal of justice against the French enterprise Blue Ridge Management Group during the corrupt administration of Fujimori and Montesinos, in which the US ambassador and even the CIA intervened.
Social organizations and regional and local authorities rejected the Conga Project, because it is located in extremely vulnerable headwaters and basins; it covers regions designated as conservation areas and would affect more than the four lakes considered in environmental impact studies prepared by the mining company; for that reason, they are requesting the withdrawal of Project Conga machinery and that its infeasibility be recognized.
However, the Ollanta Humala administration, with talk about development and nationalism, tried to convince the people of Cajamarca of the goodness of the millions of dollars that will favor the government's plans of social inclusion, thus championing the mining transnationals.
Unconvinced by the government's nationalist demagogy, the people and the workers went out to the streets to protest and to request, through a regional strike, the withdrawal, once and for all, of Project Conga and of the Yanacocha-Newmont firm. Faced with these just demands from the people and the workers, the government decided to intensify the repression, by declaring the state of emergency in four provinces of Cajamarca for 60 days, as a provisional measure, until "peace and domestic order are re-established" in this region of the country. In a message to the nation, Ollanta Humala announced that the state of emergency will be in force in the provinces of Cajamarca, Celendín, Hualgayoc and Contumazá, beginning at midnight, December 5. The decision was made after leaders from Cajamarca refused to lift the protest they began eight days ago, against the Minas Conga project, that prevents free passage, as well as basic services to the population.
The CGTP and the Left are not raising an independent policy
The union federation CGTP and the Peruvian left have joined the nationalist winds of the Humala administration. Mario Huamán, an historic bureaucrat at the head of the CGTP, far from putting himself on the side of the struggle of the workers and the poor, has been playing a role of containing and reconciling the workers' struggles. The Peruvian left, in occupying political posts, has only put itself at the service of the employers and is betting on the government of the "great transformation." Now it is asking that the state of exception in Cajamarca be lifted, and that the repression be ended, but without breaking its ties to Humala's administration.
Organizations of the Peruvian left, among which are groups related to international tendencies like the UIT or LIT-CI, are correctly condemning Humala's repressive character and his being an agent of the transnational corporations, but without making any reference to, and self-critical evaluation of, having called for voting for Humala, when he was a part of the repressive forces in the Peruvian mountains, and now he is acting as a guarantor of the deals of the transnationals.
From the FT-CI, we say to the toilers, to the workers, to the campesinos, to the exploited people and popular groups, that we must struggle from a policy of class independence, for the nationalization of the mining firms, without any compensation and under the control of the workers and the campesino and indigenous communities.
La Verdad Obrera Nº 456 (Version only on the internet) / International
PERU: DOWN WITH THE STATE OF EXCEPTION IN CAJAMARCA! DOWN WITH REPRESSION!
NATIONALIZATION NOW OF MINING AND GAS!
HUMALA AND HIS SUBORDINATION TO CAPITAL
Thursday, December 8, 2011
By: LOR-CI (Bolivia)
In the few months that Ollanta Humala has been governing, a series of struggles has been taking place in Peru: In August 1,134 miners from Shougang Hierro Perú, began a strike of indefinite duration, demanding equalization of their wages, a fair raise and other demands; the same thing happened with the miners of Cerro Verde; in the Department of Puno, Aymaras and Quechuas carried out a hard struggle against all mining activity in their towns and in defense of their lands. In these last two months, the situation has heated up more, since groups of miners from Ancash, Andahuaylas and Cajamarca have gone out to fight for a series of demands that dispute, once again, the servile role the government displays to the mining and petroleum transnationals.
What is happening is that in Peru, in these recent years of economic boom, mining extraction has been the spearhead of the economy; for instance, Perucámaras reported that 32% of the total exported by the eight regions of northern and northeastern Peru was no less than $3.12 billion US in sales of gold, the exports of gold from the region of Cajamarca being 72% of the total sales of that region of the country.
Conga, a mining region in conflict
The Conga project of the Yanacocha-Newmont firm already has precedents in the fraudulent deals that different administrations established, in favor of the big transnational corporations. Conga is the result that Yanacocha-Newmont got in its favor, through a ruling of the tribunal of justice against the French enterprise Blue Ridge Management Group during the corrupt administration of Fujimori and Montesinos, in which the US ambassador and even the CIA intervened.
Social organizations and regional and local authorities rejected the Conga Project, because it is located in extremely vulnerable headwaters and basins; it covers regions designated as conservation areas and would affect more than the four lakes considered in environmental impact studies prepared by the mining company; for that reason, they are requesting the withdrawal of Project Conga machinery and that its infeasibility be recognized.
However, the Ollanta Humala administration, with talk about development and nationalism, tried to convince the people of Cajamarca of the goodness of the millions of dollars that will favor the government's plans of social inclusion, thus championing the mining transnationals.
Unconvinced by the government's nationalist demagogy, the people and the workers went out to the streets to protest and to request, through a regional strike, the withdrawal, once and for all, of Project Conga and of the Yanacocha-Newmont firm. Faced with these just demands from the people and the workers, the government decided to intensify the repression, by declaring the state of emergency in four provinces of Cajamarca for 60 days, as a provisional measure, until "peace and domestic order are re-established" in this region of the country. In a message to the nation, Ollanta Humala announced that the state of emergency will be in force in the provinces of Cajamarca, Celendín, Hualgayoc and Contumazá, beginning at midnight, December 5. The decision was made after leaders from Cajamarca refused to lift the protest they began eight days ago, against the Minas Conga project, that prevents free passage, as well as basic services to the population.
The CGTP and the Left are not raising an independent policy
The union federation CGTP and the Peruvian left have joined the nationalist winds of the Humala administration. Mario Huamán, an historic bureaucrat at the head of the CGTP, far from putting himself on the side of the struggle of the workers and the poor, has been playing a role of containing and reconciling the workers' struggles. The Peruvian left, in occupying political posts, has only put itself at the service of the employers and is betting on the government of the "great transformation." Now it is asking that the state of exception in Cajamarca be lifted, and that the repression be ended, but without breaking its ties to Humala's administration.
Organizations of the Peruvian left, among which are groups related to international tendencies like the UIT or LIT-CI, are correctly condemning Humala's repressive character and his being an agent of the transnational corporations, but without making any reference to, and self-critical evaluation of, having called for voting for Humala, when he was a part of the repressive forces in the Peruvian mountains, and now he is acting as a guarantor of the deals of the transnationals.
From the FT-CI, we say to the toilers, to the workers, to the campesinos, to the exploited people and popular groups, that we must struggle from a policy of class independence, for the nationalization of the mining firms, without any compensation and under the control of the workers and the campesino and indigenous communities.
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Well who can blame what exists of the peruvian left for voting for humala over Keiko Fujimori though. not exactly much representation for the left there...she was just gonna continue the neoliberal shit, and humala was at least saying sort of "left-nationalist" type things. I seem to remember something about more just distribution of natural resource profits.
Shame he didn't even deliver that, tho.Posted 23rd December 2011 at 03:58 by DragonDrop 
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