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In Peru while the mafias in power planned the announcement of the upcoming release of the former corrupt dictator Alberto Fujimori – jailed since 2007 for human rights abuses and embezzlement during his presidency and who was serving a sentence of 25 years imprisonment without possibility of release under Peruvian law – and paving the way with new deals between the parties for them to continue governing with impunity despite the charges against them; the Aymara people, continued its struggle for the defense of the land and their livelihoods of wich its water sources, accusing the Canadian mining company of Bear Creek mining Co. of causing their deterioration.
The recent uprising of the Aymara since the beginning of May (see: Aymara campesinos protect the land against canadian Bear Creek Mining Corp & the “progressives”) opposes territorial concessions from the government of the Popular Revolutionary American Alliance (APRA) to the Canadian mining company Bear Creek for its silver mine in Santa Ana in the region of Puno in southern Peru, where the Aymara only harvest the degradation of their land and their lives. The demands now spread against other mining projects in the region and against the mega hydroelectric project Inambari.
Last friday they stormed the Manco Capac tourist airport in the city of Juliaca, occupying for a while the runway, disrupting air travel and trying to take the control tower. The response that followed from the police backed by the army was brutal repression leaving dozens injured, many seriously, and the murders of five people. People then took it on to some nearby shops and cars while continuing to block roads and confront with the killers. The killings perpetrated by the police follow the deaths of four students earlier in the week during the student protests against the privatization and cuts to public university funding and a proposed public-private university project.
Video from the occupation of the airport
Video of clashes between police and students in the city of Hancayo
Saturday the government of Peru announced the withdrawal of the concession given to Bear Creek for the Santa Ana mine after beeing confronted to the a strong uprising of the Aymara bringing many weeks of disturbance.
To say that the Andean region is on fire right now is to say the least, there’s dozens or even hundreds of social conflicts from the student uprisings of Chile and Peru, to the struggle for land by indigenous Aymara and Mapuche, social and ecological demands from populations of the various countries in the area facing the savage exploitation and the social and natural degradation of the territory.