Today, several NGOs and environmentalists criticised the La Rioja police force after it had violently repressed an anti-mining protest in Fatamina, La Rioja. Saturday’s crackdown left 16 injured after around 400 deployed officers had used rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters.

graffiti (Photo: Argentina Independent)

The newspaper Cadena 3 quoted an eyewitness saying that he saw how “one chief official fired five rubber bullets in the back of a woman.”

Five members of the Fatamina Assembly, which organises the protests against the planned open-pit mine in the region, were arrested. Carina Díaz Moreno, Judith Peralta, Daniel Herrera, Valeria Pozzo and Nelson Alfaro were released on Sunday.

Journalists complained that they had to identify themselves and provide special documentation in order to enter town on Saturday.

The Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), an environmental NGO, stated that the violence shows how “these types of large-scale mining projects produce growing conflict – in particular the Famatina Project, which is planned to be developed by private companies and the government of La Rioja, ignoring and repressing the community’s opinion.”

Canadian gold-mining company Osisko planned to begin exploring in the Andean foothills surrounding the town in January 2012. The project was put on hold after residents of Famatina blocked access to the planned mining site for several months.

Residents of the town of Famatina, in La Rioja, protested this weekend over a government resolution that allows for the prospecting of minerals on the Famatina mountain.

Resolution 271 by the provincial Secretariat of Environment was published in the official bulletin last Tuesday, though it is dated 27th August. It approves the environmental impact assessment submitted by companies EMSE and Minería El Portal S.A., allowing them to begin prospecting activities on the mountain. Prospecting is the first stage of the mining process, which consists on searching for mineral deposits, in this case gold.

Minería El Portal is a subsidiary of Canadian company Osisko Mining, which attempted to set up operations in Famatina, but decided to suspend its plans earlier this year after strong opposition by the local community.

The Famatina Assembly gathered at the town square on Saturday to protest the authorisation. A spokesperson for the assembly, Carina Díaz Moreno, said that “this is yet another attack by [La Rioja governor Luis] Beder Herrera, but the people are standing firm and remain conscious, we will not let them push us around and we’ll decide what measures to take next,” reported Río Negro newspaper.

Another assembly member, Jesús Filomeno Ocampo, stated that the governor’s decision goes against a judicial resolution, which constitutes enough reason to start an impeachment process. He refers to a July ruling by judge Daniel Flores which suspended the agreement between state-owned mining company EMSE and Osisko until an inventory of the glaciers in the region is undertaken, as per the national glaciers’ law.

The assembly decided to reinforce the roadblock they are keeping at Alto Carrizal from the beginning of the year and called for a new and larger meeting for next Friday at 8pm, to decide on “stronger actions” against mega-mining.

When the church bell rings in Famatina, it is not summoning the town’s 7,000 residents for prayer. For several months, the chimes have been used as an early warning system; a call to arms for the sleepy town in La Rioja province that has taken centre stage in the debate over big mining in Argentina.

Alto Carrizal roadblock in Famatina (Photo: Marc Rogers)

Since 2nd January, residents in Famatina have maintained a permanent roadblock at Alto Carrizal, a few kilometres from the town’s central square. The purpose is to cut off the only access road to the Andean foothills that surround the town, where Canadian gold mining company Osisko was due to begin exploring at the start of the year.

“At the start there were 800 people there day and night,” says Carolina Suffich, a teacher and spokesperson for the Famatina Assembly driving the anti-mining protest. Suffich has been leading the fight against the arrival of mining since 2005, when she found out another Canadian company, Barrick Gold, had been prospecting near the town. “Back then, we never thought it would have all these repercussions,” she adds.

On 30th January, Osisko announced that it would suspend operations until it obtains a ‘social licence’, meaning broad support for the project in the local community. But the roadblock remains in place, and protestors say they are ready to fight until Osisko cancels its operations in Famatina entirely, just as Barrick did in 2007.

“The people are much more aware now than when we drove Barrick away,” says Carina Díaz Moreno, another leader in the assembly. “We know that even if we are just one or two at the roadblock, if something happens we can ring the church bell and the town will be there.”

Open Pit Debate

Hands off Famatina! reads a graffiti in town (Photo: Jorge Santander)

While the Osisko project remains in limbo, the ripple effect of Famatina’s resistance against these global mining giants has reached far beyond the hills of La Rioja.  Today, the slogans ‘Famatina no se toca!’ (Hands off Famatina!) and “El agua vale mas que el oro” (Water is worth more than gold), which appear on walls, flags and banners all around the town, have become the mantra of a growing social movement against open-pit mining running all along the mineral-rich Andean mountain range.

When the ratio of metal to rock in the mountain is low, open pit mines rely on economies of scale. Millions of tonnes of rock are excavated with dynamite every day, with the ore then ground down and treated with water and chemicals to separate the targeted minerals and metals. As the valuable product is sent for refining, a large quantity of waste material – a slurry known as tailings – is stored in artificial lakes or treated and discharged into the local water system.

Some of the dangers associated with this production process include the leaking of untreated tailings into local water supplies, acid drainage from excavated rocks, and a reduction in air quality in the area surrounding the mine. These dangers can persist for decades after the mine shuts down.

Faced with these concerns, local environmental groups and neighbourhood assemblies all along Argentina’s 5,000km of cordillera are alarmed at the advance of open pit mining. According to the National Mining Secretariat, the number of mining projects in the country increased from 18 in 2002 to 614 in 2011, with a record of over one million cubic metres of land under exploration last year.

The national government says this expansion is driving economic growth in the country, aiding development, particularly in the arid Western provinces, which have traditionally lagged behind the fertile pampas and port cities. It highlights that the sector employed 517,000 people in 2011.

Mining professionals argue that the fears of pollution are relatively overblown, and that other commercial activities, such as large-scale agriculture, are equally likely to deplete water supplies. Statistics from the mining secretariat in the heavily-mined San Juan province, for example, show that mining accounts for only 1% of commercial water usage (compared to 90% for the agricultural sector) but over 70% of its exports.

However, local communities say they see little or none of the economic benefits of large-scale mining projects, despite being most exposed to their environmental side-effects. Argentina’s biggest open pit mines are run by foreign companies that are only required to pay the local province royalties of up to 3% of the value of material extracted, after deducting operational costs. Meanwhile, the mining sector receives generous tax benefits that are guaranteed by law for 30 years.

The Alumbrera Precedent

Today’s social movement against new mining projects is largely based on the experience of Catamarca province, home to Argentina’s biggest metal mine for nearly two decades.

The Alumbrera mine in Catamarca (Photo: Alejandro Olivera)

In 1994, Minera Alumbrera, a consortium of mining companies led by Swiss-based Xstrata, began installations for Argentina’s first open pit mine, Bajo La Alumbrera, promising jobs and economic progress in the region.

However, after 15 years of round-the-clock extraction, Bajo La Alumbrera has not only failed to live up to expectations of development – the provincial capital has the highest poverty rate in Argentina’s north-west region – but is now held up as the model case for the damaging environmental and social impact of open-pit mining.

Some 40km southeast of the Bajo la Alumbrera pit, the 18,000 residents in the town of Andalgalá have witnessed first-hand how the initial enthusiasm over the new project gradually turned to disappointment and concern over pollution and its implications for crops, wildlife, and local health.

“This activity has already caused a lot of harm in terms of illnesses in the community,” says Sergio Martínez, former environment secretary in Andalgalá and activist with the local Asamblea El Algarrobo, who says medical professionals in the town have reported an alarming rise in various types of cancer and respiratory diseases since the mine began operating.

The Asamblea el Algarrobo is now fighting to prevent Minera Alumbrera from opening a new open pit mine, called Agua Rica, just 25km north of Andalgalá’s central plaza. “We don’t want a mega mining project like Agua Rica, which is bigger than Alumbrera and much closer to our population. That is what drives us to defend the land that we are a part of,” adds Martínez.

The Burden of Proof

In the face of numerous accusations from local families, former employees, and environmental groups, Minera Alumbrera stands resolute, denying it is behind any health problems or pollution. The company’s 2010 sustainability report includes a reminder that “in its years of operations, Minera Alumbrera has not been fined or penalised for failing to observe its environmental obligations.”

However, since 1999, the company has been under investigation for environmental crimes, based on data published in its own environmental impact assessment report, which acknowledged the presence of chemicals and heavy metals in water above the levels permitted in the country’s hazardous waste law (No. 24,051).

Federal District Attorney in Tucumán, Antonio Gustavo Gómez began investigating the case in 2002, and found high levels of heavy metals in samples taken from the DP2 canal, where Minera Alumbrera discharges residual water from its filtration plant in Tucumán.

“Soon after the company found out that the case had been reactivated, it obtained an administrative resolution from the health ministry in Tucumán with indices of acceptable contamination far in excess of those detailed in law 24,051,” says Gómez, highlighting what he says is a clear case of the corruption that provides companies like Minera Alumbrera with the impunity to pollute as they choose.

Meanwhile, Gómez is also investigating the company on accusations of contraband and tax evasion, based on evidence that it was exporting many more minerals and precious stones than it declares. However, when a local prosecutor and gendarmerie went, on a judge’s orders, to search the mining site and take samples of the minerals that were being extracted, they were blocked by the company’s private security force.

“It makes you realise that the company is more powerful that the national gendarmerie with a search order,” says Gómez.

Gómez says this imbalance of power makes it difficult for average citizens to bring major companies like Minera Alumbrera to justice. “People see that the judge who should be resolving conflicts just stalls the case – that is what provokes these outbreaks of unrest in places like Famatina, Andalgalá, and Tinogasta.”

Polluted Politics

While the environmental cases against Minera Alumbrera remain frozen in the courts, those who have taken to the streets to interfere with its operations have come under intense pressure from politicians and the law.

Campsite at the Tinogasta roadblock (Photo: Marc Rogers)

This was most evident in Tinogasta, another town in Catamarca, where local residents have, since January, held a selective road block on the inter-national highway 60, a key route for tankers transporting supplies to and from Bajo La Alumbrera.

In front of news cameras, riot police used rubber bullets, batons, and dogs to disperse the group, which included women and children. Rattled but resolute after this repression, the group reformed the roadblock, only to find that 50 of its members had been charged with disturbing the peace and obstructing transport.

For the Tinogasta assembly, which in 2011 managed to suspend the installation of an open pit uranium mine just 7km from the town centre, the brutal response to a peaceful protest was evidence of the political influence that Minera Alumbrera has in the province.

“We talk about environmental pollution, but there is also the socio-political pollution that is exposed when the government comes to look after the interests of the company – circumventing laws and constitutions, vetoing environmental legislation,” says Darío Moreno, member of the Asamblea de Tinogasta, who was beaten and arrested along with two other activists in a second bout of police repression on 12th May. “In all these issues, the only aim is to protect the company’s interests and bank account.”

After seeing several politicians turn from outspoken critics of open pit mining to fervent supporters once elected, protestors in Catamarca and La Rioja have drawn the same conclusion: that their local governments, regardless of their political allegiances, are little more than business partners for international mining companies.

This is why activists have taken to blocking streets and highways, “the only place we can exercise real power,” according to Moreno. “We are up against the municipality, the provincial government, and the mine’s money, and with all those powers they haven’t been able to remove the roadblock… we are constructing an alternative power.”

A United Resistance

This activism has yielded some small victories: in May, the Federal Appeals Court in Tucumán ruled that selective roadblocks, such as that in Tinogasta, could not be considered criminal. In the province on Neuquen, the town of Loncopué achieved what those in Andalgalá have been demanding for years and held a public referendum on open pit mining in the area; 82% voted no.

Protest against 'Megamineria" at the Obelisco in downtown Buenos Aires on 13th July, 2012 (Photo: Patricio Murphy)

Buoyed by these developments, on 14th July, local assemblies from around the country are due to meet to create another selective road block at Cerro Negro, where the national highways 40 and 60 meet near the provincial border between La Rioja and Catamarca. The aim now is to completely cut supplies to Bajo la Alumbrera and make the anti-mining movement more visible on a national scale.

Back in Famatina, the town remains on alert despite Osisko’s decision to put the project on hold. Here, the municipal government supports the anti-mining protest, but this has soured relations with the governor Luis Beder Herrera and left Famatina under intense political and financial pressure.

As vice-governor, Beder Herrera championed the anti-mining cause, securing a law (no. 8,137) banning open-pit mining in the province and forcing then governor Ángel Maza to resign in March 2007 after denouncing corrupt dealings with mining firms. However, one year later, Beder Herrera, as governor, officially repealed the law, and is now a fervent supporter of mining in the area.

Since the protest against Osisko began, funds normally distributed by the provincial government have been cut. To cover basic services, town officials have agreed to a wage cut and the municipality has opened a bank account to receive donations.

“We are paying a high price as a town and as a government, but we are not about to give up. This reinforces our stance – we know the public is with us, and we are with them,” says Ariel Luna, secretary of government in the town municipality.

Activists like Suffich and Díaz Moreno share the same determination, though both acknowledge that the seven-year struggle against the mining lobby has taken its toll. “We have had to give up many things, including family and work,” says Díaz Moreno. “Like it or not, we are the figureheads in this fight, and we have to stay strong and keep going because before we were an assembly, but now we are a whole town fighting.”

Protestors hold up signs against large-scale mining along Av. de Mayo. (Photo: Natasha Ali)

Last Thursday, Macarena Villalobos joined thousands walking in an anti-mining march in Buenos Aires.

Holding her four-month old daughter to her chest, her dark eyes lit up as she explained why she was there.

“As a member of the Partido Obrero, I’m here against mega-mining,” she said. “We’re here against what [the government] is doing in negotiations for significant mining projects and the destruction of the provinces where the mines are.”

Villalobos is not the only one expressing concern about government mining policies.

Over the past few months, mining – specifically, the large-scale type referred to as “mega-mining” – has entered the public consciousness in a big way.

As foreign interests try to set up shop, protests have erupted in several Argentine provinces. From Jujuy to La Rioja, people are fighting to keep mining companies away from their air, land and water.

Writer Javier Rodríguez Pardo also marched at Thursday’s protest. His book ‘They Come for Gold, They Come for It All: Mining Invasions 500 Years Later’, focuses on mining communties and companies like Barrick Gold and Meridian Gold in Argentina.

In an interview afterward, Rodríguez Pardo said people need to talk about the kind of country they want – and whether they want international companies taking resources beyond the borders, leaving behind open pits.

AUDIO: Anti-mining protestors speak to The Indy during a march in Buenos Aires on 23rd February

“We have problems,” he said. “We have opened the doors and the avenues with admiration, with the ‘progressive’ governments in our region. But at the same time, we feel a great pain. These governments, while talking about human rights, they’re allowing transnational corporations to destroy our territories and take the common goods.”

The Environment: An Ongoing Concern

Over the last decade, mining interests in Argentina have soared. In a paper from the University of Dundee’s Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, writers argue that “legal and policy measures ensured the stability of the legal regime of the mining sector” after the 2001 economic and political crisis.

Protesting against the implementation of the anti-terrorist law curbing social protest. (Photo: Patricio Murphy)

“With a more favourable international climate and domestic exchange rate, investment in the sector after 2002 has even soared, paving the way to what has been called as the ‘second wave’ of mining investment in the country,” the paper said, noting that Argentina first opened its doors extensively to international mining interests in the 1990s.

As such, protests movements against government and mining companies have sprouted up all over the country, too.

Andalgalá is one area where the anti-mining community has been fighting for years.

Located in Catamarca, the city is close to the copper-and-gold Bajo de La Alumbrera mine. It is the oldest and largest open pit mine in Argentina, and some residents accuse it of contaminating ground water and negatively affecting air quality.

More recently, reports from Catamarca say about two dozen people were injured around Tinogasta in clashes on February 10th, adding to a list of other incidents in the province. Protestors were holding up a truck on its way to the Alumbrera mine, one which a government representative said was carrying explosives.

As well, the Canadian Osisko Mining Corporation announced on 31st August that they had entered “a binding agreement” with the La Rioja state mining corporation, Energía y Minerales Sociedad Del Estado, to explore for gold. People in the province of La Rioja started protesting the potential mine on Famatina mountain, citing environmental concerns. On 30th January, the company announced a hold on exploration in that region.

“In the days immediately following the signing of the agreement, groups from Famatina and elsewhere in Argentina commenced organised protests against what has misleadingly been called the ‘Famatina mega-mine project,’” the company stated in a press release. “In fact, the development of a mine is still highly hypothetical, since very little is known about the amount, quality and location of the mineral resources that may exist in the properties within the Famatina Project.”

In addition, joined by governors of other provinces, Jujuy governor Eduardo Fellner announced the founding of a federal mining organisation on 15th February, in an attempt to bring all interested parties to the table.

As mining is governed in each province separately, the organisation could bring various provincial organisations and contacts together to deal with mining on a national scale.

“We seek solutions to the environmental impact,” Fellner said. “Tourism generates an impact and no one would ban it. We have to handle it, drive it and improve it.”

Rodríguez Pardo says the move allows government to control the narrative.

“The idea is this: to have their one discourse, their one action,” he said. “In all the provinces, they are distributing the same flyers in favour of mining, the same books in favour of mining. The same policies in schools and colleges. The same policies in our media. This is what they do, the federation that was created.”

Next Steps

Rodríguez Pardo noted that while most anti-mining protests have been outside of the capital, environmental organisations are trying to change that.

Av. de Mayo is filled with protestors. (Photo: Patricio Murphy)

Buenos Aires resident Liliana Cubilla was at last Thursday’s protest. A member of the Dario Santillan political movement, she said she was at the march to meet people and connect with those who want to keep mega-mines out of the country.

“To help [the provinces' residents] and give them a little more force – and so they’re not suppressed” she said.

Getting ready to start the march last Thursday, protestors were lighting fireworks in the street. As the sky boomed with light and smoke, Villalobos – who moved to Argentina seven years ago to raise a family – lifts her baby’s pink and white hat to make sure she is still napping.

“The government has the intention of negotiating these mines,” she said. “The mines, with all their exploitation – and that’s my government. This is the problem. The government attacks the inhabitants, contaminates the land and makes demands – even more than the mega-mining companies.”

This protest will not be the last in the capital, say demonstrators.

On 1st March, local organisations are planning a demonstration starting in the Plaza Lavalle in Buenos Aires at 6pm.

Find out what locals think about the impact of mining in Argentina here.

Mega-mining has been a hot topic in Argentina in recent months. Between the announcement of a national mining organisation and protests in La Rioja, Catamarca, and Buenos Aires, local media have kept busy writing endless stories about the industry and its relationship with human rights and the environment.

The Argentina Independent hit the streets to find out what people in Buenos Aires think about mining in the country and how they feel about the mega-mining operations.

Eugenio Fernández, 30, PC technician/anti-mining campaigner, Temperley

You don’t have to be a mining engineer to realise that millions of litres of water with cyanide and toxic substances will result in contamination. These types of operations [mega-mines] are not sustainable nor are they good for the environment; in fact it’s totally the opposite and that’s already been proven all over the world.

The local population don’t earn anything, nothing. They talk about how it brings in lots of jobs but mining only creates jobs during the initial stage, when they need people for the construction of the buildings. They employ a lot of people to get the site up and running, to make it look pretty but once it’s operational the amount of people working there drops by a huge amount.

We want her [Cristina Fernández de Kirchner] to stop misinforming people with engineers, professors and technician who lie with false data. We want her to stop treating us like we’re stupid and we want her to respect local populations’ right to make their own decisions.

Juan Alberto Madelaire Reyes, 51, Electrician, San Cristóbal

It’s criminal taking these natural resources that are not renewable, and it’s also harming the environment. Not only do they destroy the environment and rob the natural resources but they also destroy the regions’ economies.

With the destruction of the environment – mountains, hillsides, plateaus – mega-mining is criminal, almost genocide. But it has the full support of the government; this is a cipayo [South American term that refers to politicians who work for the governments of other countries] government. It sells its own land and it doesn’t care about anything.

They are giving away resources that aren’t renewable and are worth a fortune to mining companies from Canada, England, North America, well, from lots of countries really. Absolutely nothing is left here.

Anyone who has any conscience or heart will support them [the people striking in the North]. They are destroying everything around them, they’re destroying their environment, their economy, they’re taking their water and lots of people are dying.

Garcia Soleda, 43, Housewife, Jujuy

I think it’s bad the way they’re exploiting the mines, that they are taking away Argentina’s natural resources. I think it’s bad that other companies come along and take what belongs to Argentina. The environment is very important nowadays with global warming everywhere so I don’t agree with what the mines are doing.

I support the people who are striking; in the North we always see them on the television and I support their protests against the way the mines are working. The people in the countryside suffer a lot, so do the animals, well the whole environment suffers; it really damages nature. And the people there hardly touch the money and I don’t agree with that either.

Eduardo Alberdo Fuentes, 61, Driver, San Cristóbal

I’m against the mining because they are destroying the land, emptying all the fruits of the earth that is ours and the government is supporting it. They are working with cyanide, which is damaging for the environment and the people and then they’re taking all of the materials – the precious metals – that we’ve got.

I support everyone who works but can’t make it to the end of the month. But those people who block the roads, that’s not good either. For me it would be more logical if they picketed at the door of president, the minister, the senator or the governor and blocked their exit and not those people who are trying to work. I understand if you block my road because you’re having an argument with the government, but why do I have to pay? I support people who strike just as long as they don’t bother other people.

Paula Lifschitz, 35, Artist and English teacher, Palermo

I don’t know how much money mines make but I doubt that it’s equal [to the ecological damage]. No, I’m sure they do a lot of damage; they make a lot of money but do a lot of damage.

And the money doesn’t stay in Argentine hands; they funnel money out like crazy so the benefits don’t weigh up with the cost to the locals.

I’m not a fan of the president, CFK [Cristina Fernández de Kirchner] – I don’t think she is very honest. A lot of people I know don’t like her and I don’t think she has done a lot of good. This article just came out about inflation in The Economist. About Argentina lying about their numbers and inflation; not being honest with the IMF. They [the people in power] are all dirty crooks. They’ll do anything they can to make money and steal money and funnel it off somewhere else.

Photos by Beatrice Murch

A Canadian mining company released a statement Monday declaring that they have halted plans to build a gold mine in the north-western province of La Rioja in response to local protests.

Canadian mining corporation Osisko, who had plans to mine gold from the Famatina mountain in the region, stated that it would not continue with the plan until it had local support.

The proposal was met with a series of protests, backed by environmental groups, including Green Peace. The protestors claim that mining Famatina mountain would need one million litres of water every day, and the use of cyanide to extract precious metals.

On 2^nd January, locals set up a barricade on the road leading to the site, which was still in place as of yesterday. Last Thursday, protestors demanded that the governor of La Rioja, Luis Beder Herrera, give into their demands to stop the project or resign. On Friday, protestors marched to the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires.

Osisko rejected claims that the Famatina project is a “mega-mining operation” and responded to the protestors. The company said it conducts environmentally responsible exploration, and that at this point, the project is merely hypothetical. In the press release, Osisko stated the project is currently “an exploration, not a mining project” and “there is no current plan, design or intent for any mining operations.”

The corporation also said if “there was no social license for exploration and development around the Famatina project area, no work would be conducted.”