At least 10,000 people in northern Peru joined protests on Thursday against a US$4.8 billion open-pit gold mining project they fear will damage their water supply.
Hundreds entered the Conga mine’s grounds and some threw rocks at a building storing PVC pipes, breaking windows, video showed.
The owners of what is Peru’s biggest mining investment, whose majority stakeholder is US-based Newmont Mining Corp, said in a statement that the building was set ablaze.
They complained that police stood idly by and that Cajamarca Regional President Gregorio Santos led the trespassing protesters. The mine is located in the northern highland state of Cajamarca.
The protests have been slowly mounting since the middle of last month, despite the efforts by Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s government to mediate the conflict. Local residents complain he has reneged on campaign promises to protect their water.
“Humala, you’ve sold out the country,” the protesters shouted. Many gathered in the central square of the 350,000-resident regional capital, also called Cajamarca, in support of the strike.
Peruvian Deputy Interior Minister Alberto Otarola said in Lima that police in Cajamarca had not reported the incident.
Humala’s four-month-old government backs Conga, an extension of the Yanacocha gold mine, Latin America’s largest. Mining started at Yanacocha in 1993, but its productivity is tailing off.
The 2,000 hectare Conga mine is to begin producing gold and copper in 2015.
Although the mine passed an environmental impact statement last year, protesters complain that the regulatory process is fundamentally flawed because the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines is in charge and, unlike the Peruvian Ministry of Environment, is considered by some to be beholden to the industry.
Peruvian Cabinet chief Salomon Lerner told reporters on Thursday that the government wanted to “resolve all doubts” about the Conga project. That includes, he said, “enriching” environmental impact and hydrology studies.
The project would displace four small lakes more than 3,500m above sea level with man-made reservoirs that mine officials say will actually increase water supplies for farmers.
However, protesters soured by their experience with the Yanacocha mine are skeptical of such promises.
Santos said on Wednesday that many Cajamarca City residents are upset because the authorities had to upgrade their water treatment plant to deal with the mining runoff.
Peru is the world’s second-largest producer of copper and sixth-largest gold producer. Mining is the motor of the Peruvian economy, accounting for 61 percent of exports.
Work at the mine, which employs 6,800 people, was halted as a precautionary measure on Wednesday, said Omar Jabara, a Newmont spokesman based at the company’s Denver headquarters.
Protest leader Milton Sanchez said the protest was set to continue yesterday.
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