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Category: Lateinamerika

About a thousand peasants from Cotabambas occupy mines. Photo: Ángela Ponce

Peasants in the department of Apurímac, Cotabambas region, are fighting a fierce battle for the return of their land taken from them by the Chinese imperialist mining company MMG in the Las Bambas and Chalcobamba mines. In total, about a thousand peasants are employed in the two mines. More than 50 people were injured, including peasants, police and security forces, most of them wounded. The crowds attacked a radioSTATION and during a demonstration two peasants were shot dead by carabineros.

The peasants occupied the land that belonged to them on 14 April. Since then they have been subjected to repression by the police and the army of the reactionary government of Pedro Castillo, as well as by private security forces hired by the mining company. The more than 500 peasant families of Cotabambas were evicted from their land 10 years ago and the mining company MMG has not paid the peasants any of the money owed to date.

More than 676 police officers from the Apurimac region have been deployed, 200 military personnel and others have been called to the region. The communities of Challhuahuacho and Coyllurqui, where the two mines are located, are in a state of emergency. On 3 April, amid the clashes, the facilities of the regional radio station Cotabambas and the antennas located on the site were attacked with bombs and peasant fighters set fire to them.

A radio antenna is set on fire by peasant fighters. Photo: Radio Surfhuy

THE COMMUNITIES OF CHALLHUAHUACHO AND COYLLURQUI IN TURMOIL!

The families of Huancuire are resisting eviction. Photo: GEC

The community of Challhuahuacho has been in turmoil since the families occupied the land of the mining company. The peasants of this village have been demonstrating and resisting the brutal repression by the police. During the state of emergency declared by Castillo, police patrol the streets under curfew from 7.30pm and the police station is under increased surveillance.

Another 500 peasants who had taken over the Chalcobamba mine in the municipality of Coyllurqui in Huancuire, also in Cotabambas, resisted the eviction with stones and slingshots and set fire to the hill behind the mine site.

Shack set on fire at Las Bambas mine. Photo: GEC

THE OPPORTUNIST GOVERNMENT CANNOT HOLD BACK THE ANGER OF THE MASSES

The government of counterrevolutionary opportunist Pedro Castillo asked for a "dialogue" with the peasants on 27 April and was rejected by the families. For while the families were initially waiting for the Minister of Energy and Mines, they were brutally attacked by the police.

The representative of the local anti-mining organisation Fuera bamba then said: "Yesterday Las Bambas declared war on us and attacked us. They massacred us because they took us by surprise. There is no dialogue between the communities. We are wounded by the government's betrayal. I can't do anything anymore, I can't control the community, which is determined to do everything to recover its land," said Edison Vargas, president of Fuera Bamba.

A group of community members took up positions on four sides to surround the mine. In the Manantiales, Bocamina, Yaveropampa, Bravo 50 and Takiruta Alta sectors. "We sleep on the hills, vigilant, we will not move, we will give our lives if necessary," said the representative of the masses.

The masses were attacked several times with tear gas by the police and did not give up their occupation.

PEDRO CASTILLO: EXECUTIONER OF THE PERUVIAN PEOPLE

Since the beginning of his government, the Rondeiro* Pedro Castillo has carried out the worst tasks of Peruvian reaction against the people in the service of US imperialism. In October, his government called for military intervention against a peasant uprising against the mining monopolies and big landowners. In March 2022, the Peruvian Constitutional Court, with his consent, ordered the release of the genocidal ex-president Fujimori. A month later, he again imposed a state of emergency to suppress a large general strike by Peruvian workers, peasants and employees against the rising prices of fuel and basic foodstuffs.

And the most heinous of his crimes was that immediately after taking office as president in 2021, on 11 September 2021, he had the leader of the Peruvian Communist Party and the Peruvian Revolution, Gonzalo, assassinated by the Peruvian Navy on the orders of the CIA (at the behest of Yankee imperialism) and with the active collaboration of the traitors of the revisionist and capitulationist right opportunist line (ROL), led by the rat "Miriam". The ROL supported the Rondero Pedro Castillo, so that months later he carried out the cowardly assassination of Chairman Gonzalo. The ROL has collaborated in the assassination of Chairman Gonzalo before and has always tried - and is now trying harder - to speak on his behalf in order to disprove the all-powerful Gonzalo Thought, to discredit him and thus liquidate the People's War and deal a fatal blow to the Peruvian revolution and Maoism. So far, the traitors to Chairman Gonzalo have not succeeded.

Notes:

*The Rondas Campesinas were a counter-revolutionary group that patrolled the countryside and were particularly active in the 1980s when they played a role in the struggle against the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP).