Dear ICA/OE Colleagues,

In concert with what is happening in N. Dakota...

Below is an example of the work the Joining Hands Partnership Program with which I am working in Peru is doing there and also trying to connect the dots with communities in other countries and the US to address environmental and other issues related to resource extraction.  For years we have worked with residents of La Oroya, Peru, an Andean community contaminated by lead and other heavy metals caused by the US-owned smelter, based in St Louis and NYC.  Many of the materials (lead, gold, silver, copper, etc.) from this smelter are used by US consumers, but at the expense of the health and well-being of local communities and their environments.  The proposed Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement contains an Investment State Chapter that is in most free trade agreements that gives corporations greater rights than communities/states/nations and often frees them from liability, and allows them to sue communities, states and nations when their actions are challenged and profits (past/present/future) are threatened.

Specifically, the information below is about a violent incident related to mining in Cajamarca, Peru.  The Joining Hands Peru Partnership and other networks, such as Red Muqui have been monitoring and supporting Maxima Acuna as she and her family try to protect the land that is rightfully and legally theirs against the aggression of the Yanacocha Mine, owned by Newmont, a U.S. company.

Further below is a recent press release about the incident. 

What we do to the web, we do to ourselves...water is life...Local people shall rise again, to build the earth, the common earth...our common home...

Ellie Stock
elliestock@aol.com

Please see the attached press release from Red Muqui, a member organization of our Joining Hands Peru network Red Uniendo Manos Peru, regarding the attack by the security forces of the Yanacocha mining project on Máxima Acuña and her family. Newmont has a 51.35% investment in Yanacocha.
 
Please take action by following the hyperlinked petition below!
 
Tell Newmont: drop your lawsuit against Máxima!
2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Máxima Acuña de Chaupe has been hospitalized after being attacked, allegedly by security forces hired by Minera Yanacocha, a subsidiary of Denver-based Newmont Mining, according to information provided by the Chaupe family.
 
The attack took place on Máxima’s property in northern Peru that the mining company has been trying to obtain for its Conga gold mine project.
 
Máxima is concerned that the company’s security forces will continue to circle her home and intimidate her. And there is no indication that Newmont is backing off from its legal battle against her.
 
This harassment needs to stop!
 
Watch the Goldman Environmental Prize video on Máxima’s work here
 
Watch the trailer for a great documentary that looks at the conflict around the Yanacocha project. It´s called The Daughter of the Lake.
 



LATEST ATTACK ON MAXIMA ACUÑA PROVES HOW LAW No. 30230 AND REGULATORY PACKAGES FACILITATE THE VIOLATION OF RIGHTS 
 
The MUQUI NETWORK, addresses itself to national and international audiences to manifest the following:
 
1. We regret that once again, security personnel of the Yanacocha mining project has committed an act of violence against Maxima Acuña and her husband Jaime Chaupe on September 18th. In a public statement the company admits having entered the lands of the Chaupe Acuña family in order to remove "some crops located in an area of ​​200 square meters."
 
2. In a video released by the Yanacocha project itself, a group of about twenty members of the security force can be seen - wearing safety shields and carrying weapons - crossing the perimeter fence placed there by the mining company itself, in order to define its lands with respect to the property of the  Chaupe Acuña family.
 
3. In the recording there appears a disproportionate and larger than necessary security force of the mining company against the efforts of Maxima Acuña and her husband who, being alone, try to defend the land that they consider to be theirs. As a result the peasant couple ended up with severe injuries, which upon evaluation have been determined to be multi-contusions. On the basis of these facts the National Ombudsman Office has filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor.
 
4. We urge the Public Prosecutor to investigate in depth and with due speed and transparency what happened, and charge those who are responsible.
 
5. We join the invocation of the Ombudsman Office, and demand that the Peruvian State respect its international obligations by complying with the injunction issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) in favor of Maxima Acuña. The State must provide the necessary security to her and her family, in order to prevent the mining project Yanacocha and the company that provides its security services from continuing  to exercise violence against them, affecting their rights to personal integrity and health.
 
6. Let it be know to the public that the high-handed action exerted by the mining company and the company that provides security services is favored by Law No. 30230, a standard that is part of the regulatory packages approved between 2013-2015. This law, by way of its Articles 65, 66 and 67, amended Article 920 of the Civil Code regarding the extrajudicial defense of possession, which the mining company Yanacocha mentions in its statement to support its violent action.
 
7. RED MUQUI and GRUFIDES, at that time, denounced the danger of this policy by indicating that it enables "fast and immediate recovery of possession", without recourse to the judicial authority, and allowing the use of force, or exercising "vigilante justice". This is what has happened in this case. Maxima Acuña, despite having documents proving the legality of her possession to the land and even more, being legally justified, Yanacocha mining exercised the use of force, without any judicial mandate to sustain it.
 
8. Finally, the act of violence suffered by Maxima Acuña and her husband through the application of "possessory defense" is just one example of the multiple violations of rights that the regulatory packages (approved and promulgated between 2013 and 2015) can cause. Therefore we demand that the legislature repeal Laws No. 30230, No. 30327 and Supreme Decree No. 001-2015-EM, among other regulations, that we consider prejudicial to fundamental rights, and only causing more social conflict with their application.
 
 
Lima, September 19, 2016