MAC: Mines and Communities

Treason And Noncompliance In Cerro De Pasco, Peru

Published by MAC on 2007-01-11
Source: CONACAMI-PERU

Noncompliance in Cerro de Pasco

PRESS RELEASE CONACAMI-PERU

National Board of Directors, Lima

11th January 2007

We, the National Confederation of Peruvian Communities Affected by Mining, CONACAMI-PERU, direct this message towards the Provincial Municipal Government of Pasco, the community organizations of Pasco and national and international public opinion, to express our position towards the Municipal Ordinance N° 057-2006-HMPP, a norm by which the municipal lawmakers have illegitimately allowed the expansion of the open-pit mine alongside the city of Cerro de Pasco, to the benefit of the company Volcan S.A.

For such:

We denounce the noncompliance on the part of the company Volcan SA with regards to their economic and social commitments, and for the impacts generated and which they continue to generate against the ecosystem and the public health of Pasco, leaving irrecoverable environmental and social legacies without reasonable compensation to the affected communities. We reiterate the necessity of a popular consultation to approve the carrying out or expansion of any mining project, democratically letting the affected populations to take the decision of development which they desire.

We reject the imposition of the Municipal Ordinance N° 057-2006-HMPP, without previous discussion or debate over the possible benefits or compensations. News of this decision was printed on December 19, in the final days of term of the municipal government in the province of Pasco by a regional newspaper which has been bought out entirely, to prevent the population of Cerro de Pasco knowing fully of its content.

We criticizs the so-called "Plan L" (the expansion of the open-pit), the disappearance of some 12 hectares of urban land, including almost all of the neighborhood of Rockovich, the historic plaza of Chaupimarca or "Center of the City," the Comissary PNP, a church, the Jr. Libertad, and the El Baratillo marketplace.

We demand that our new mayor, Mr. Tito Valle, publicly repeal this treason against the people of Pasco, and that he makes as the first priority that the mining company Volcan complies with its economic and social undertakings, and then negotiates the compensation and benefits that any future expansion of the mining pit should bring to the city.

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