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LatinNews Daily - 19 August 2015

Deadly mining clash in Bolivia

Development: On 18 August Bolivia’s interior minister, Carlos Romero, announced that he will present a criminal complaint before the attorney general’s office against those responsible for the death of a police official in the municipality of Tacacoma, La Paz department, after clashes with local protesters that also left ten other security officials injured.

Significance: The clashes came after months of simmering tensions between local residents and miners from local cooperative Rosario de Ananea over accusations that the cooperative has breached a compensation agreement to exploit the mine. The conflict illustrates the continued problem of mine invasions despite recent (2013) legislation aimed at addressing this issue. It comes as the national government led by President Evo Morales is seeking to shore up confidence in the mining sector, which is struggling in the face of lower mineral commodity prices.

  • Police sergeant José Luis Quispe de la Cruz died on 17 August after falling 200 meters into a ravine during the clashes. Other officers were allegedly attacked with sticks and stones. The violence took place after the police arrived to enforce a court order to evict locals who took over the mine alleging that the cooperative had breached a compensation agreement struck weeks earlier to exploit it. The compensation agreement was aimed at quelling the unrest that erupted in May after locals accused the cooperative of operating in unauthorised areas – claims denied by the cooperative’s president, Marcelo Yupanqui.
  • Back in May 2013 the Morales government passed ‘law 367’, specifically aimed at stopping invasions of private and state-owned mines as part of efforts to restore investor confidence. The law followed the violent June 2012 clashes at the Colquiri mine, also in La Paz department, and other key mines like Mallku Khota in Potosí department.
  • The latest unrest comes as Bolivia’s key mining sector (along with the hydrocarbons sector) is already struggling with the fall in international commodity prices. Figures released on 10 August by the Instituto Boliviano de Comercio Exterior (IBCE), a private sector trade lobby, showed that mining exports totaled US$1.5bn in the first six months of 2015, a 23% fall compared to the same period last year. This result came despite a 7% increase in the volume of mineral exports, which failed to compensate for the fall in international prices.

Looking Ahead: The unrest once again ups the pressure on the government to tackle the problem of mine invasions. Carlos Soruco, the director of the administrative jurisdictional mining authority (Ajam), a dependency of the mining industry, yesterday told reporters that despite the introduction of ‘law 367’ there currently are currently at least 40 cases of mine invasions across the country.

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