In recent weeks, attacks have been launched in the Peruvian media against European organisations which – supposedly – want to frustrate Peru’s bid to attract foreign investment into the country’s mining sector.  These organisations have been described as ‘anti-mining’.  Some of these belong to the PEP, the European network of Peruvian solidarity organisations to which the Peru Support Group also belongs.

This is not the first time that persons and organisations with links to powerful mining lobby organisations seek to identify the ‘enemy without’.  In many of the mobilisations that have taken place in recent years, mining companies and extractive industries more generally have sought to identify external sources of funding as a sort of conspiracy against Peru’s legitimate attempts to develop its economy.  In the past, during the Fujimori government, there were attempts at the highest levels to tarnish the PSG as ‘ambassadors of terrorism’.  As has become increasingly the case in the post 9/11 world, it is only too common to denigrate all sorts of criticism as ‘apology for terrorism’.

At several points in recent years the PSG has raised its voice in criticism at the way in which mining investment in Peru has repeatedly trumped all other considerations, not least the interests of people living in the immediate surrounds of mining projects.  Readers of the PSG Update will recall Tambogrande, Rio Blanco, Tia Maria, Cerro Quilish, Espinar, Conga … and the list goes on.

It is not because we oppose mining.  To oppose mining as such would be absurd in a country in which mining goes back to far pre-Columbian times.  What we oppose is that mining takes precedence over all else, and that government – under constant pressure from the industry – fails to stand up for the principle that mining needs to be part of a pattern of wider development that brings – and is seen to bring – benefits to the society in which it takes place.

In response to international pressures, as well as domestic ones, there have been improvements in aspects of public policy in recent years.  The idea of consultation with affected communities has – at least in principle – been accepted in the country’s legislation.  There are state organisations – notably within the Defensoría del  Pueblo and in the Prime Minister’s Office – whose job it is to listen to the complaints of those who do not want mining operations on their land.  And, as of 2008, there is an Environment Ministry with a role to play in the approval (or not) of environmental impact assessments (EIAs); the Ministry of Energy and Mines is no longer ‘judge and jury’ in this regard.

However, these advances are relative, and there are constant attempts by companies to find new ways round regulatory constraints.  Mining firms often regard these new rules as simply red tape, designed to frustrate their plans. And despite all the pledges on which it was elected in 2011, the Humala government has shown itself consistently in the thrall of the mining industry and its political lobbyists.

With international prices for Peru’s key mining products – notably copper and gold – no longer rising as if the sky was the limit, perhaps there will be a more propitious climate for a truly national debate on the role of mining (and other extractives) in the economy in which all stakeholders – companies, government, communities etc. – can come together to strike a lasting consensus that reflects the interests of all those involved.  This is not ‘anti-mining’, but working to find ways in which all can benefit, not just the firms involved.