[News] Argentina: Labor, Environmentalists, and Indigenous Unite to Defeat Mining

[Anti-Imperialist News]

orinocotribune.com
<https://orinocotribune.com/argentina-labor-environmentalists-and-indigenous-unite-to-defeat-mining-canada-mining-corporations-again/>
Argentina:
Labor, Environmentalists, and Indigenous Unite to Defeat Mining (Canada
Mining Corporations Again)By Marisela Trevin – Dec 28, 2021

*A zoning law would have opened up the southern Argentinian province of
Chubut to large-scale mining by multinational corporations.*

*But the law was defeated in just five days by an alliance of
environmentalists, workers, youth, and indigenous people. Their fight
points the way forward for other movements around the world.*

The people of the southern Argentinian province of Chubut are celebrating
more than just the holidays this December. After a fierce struggle against
a recently enacted zoning law that would have opened the province up to
large-scale silver, copper, and lead mining by multinational corporations
like Canadian Pan American Silver, the governor was ultimately forced to
backtrack. The law in question, which was approved on December 15, was
repealed last Tuesday, just five days later.

>From the night of the approval until the afternoon of December 21, the
movement against the law spread rapidly throughout the province. In a
context of growing austerity, unemployment, and poverty, thousands took to
the streets to make their voices heard. Dozens of protesters were injured
and arrested in the brutal repression, and 16 government buildings were set
on fire or otherwise destroyed, including the provincial house of
government. Protesters were not only demanding the repeal of the law but
also Governor Mariano Arcioni’s resignation.

The governor, whose party, Chubut Somos Todos, is politically aligned with
the national government, had won the elections in 2017 campaigning against
multinational mining in Chubut. Since he took office, however, he has
seized every opportunity to relax mining regulations against the people’s
will, with the support of the national government, local business
associations, and union bureaucracies.

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The so-called Law on Sustainable Metal Mining and Industrial Development
for the Province of Chubut had been unexpectedly approved in an expedited
procedure the day before a mass protest was to be held against the bill.
Among the 14 legislators who voted for it were several who, like the
governor himself, had been voted in after opposing multinational mining.
This group also included legislator Sebastián López, who was expelled from
his party last year
<https://www.infobae.com/sociedad/policiales/2020/12/15/escandalo-en-chubut-por-una-camara-oculta-donde-un-diputado-provincial-pide-dinero-para-hacer-lobby-para-una-minera/>
for
having been caught on camera requesting a large sum of money to vote in
favor of large-scale mining in Chubut. One of the main proponents of the
bill was Carlos Eliceche, the president of the Committee for Economic
Development, Environment and Natural Resources and a legislator for Frente
de Todos, the national ruling party, who emphasized that the initiative was
put forward “at the request of President Alberto Fernández, to develop
mining and attract investments.”


*Who Would Have Benefited From The Law? *The national and local political
forces promoting these policies in Chubut and in other areas of the country
would have you believe that large-scale mining brings employment,
development, and progress. But metal mining employed only 9,638 people in
Argentina in 2020, just 0.2 percent of national private employment . In the
province of San Juan, the Veladero mine had only 1,296 employees and 2,500
contracted workers that same year. Gold and silver accounted for 73 percent
of the province’s exports in 2019, but employment in the provincial metal
mining sector was only 3 percent of total private employment in 2020, while
the mining companies’ contributions to the provincial coffers was only 2
percent of the total revenue.ing

The current legal framework for mining in Argentina was established during
the neoliberal offensive of the 1990s. Law 24,196 on Mining Investments
capped provincial royalties at 3 percent of the product’s value directly
out of the mine, which excludes costs and is far lower than the price of
sale. It also put in place provisions ensuring “fiscal stability” to
prevent tax increases, accelerated amortization of capital investments,
early VAT refunds for purchases or imports for exploration, import duty
exemptions on capital assets, spare parts and inputs, as well as other
provisions favorable to mining multinationals. More recently, in 2017,
Mauricio Macri’s government signed a Federal Mining Agreement establishing
a 1.5 percent income tax ceiling for the sector, and in 2019, under the
current administration, the Solidarity Law lowered the cap on withholding
taxes on mining exports from 12 percent to 8 percent.

While Alberto Fernández’s government and its right-wing opposition claim
that large-scale mining is needed to obtain the dollars required to pay the
country’s illegitimate foreign debt, the legal and tax regime in place
mostly ensures the transfer of earnings to multinational corporations’
headquarters abroad, while requirements to convert the dollars obtained
from exports are reduced or eliminated. It is undeniable, however, that the
national government’s push to increase large-scale mining in Argentina is
inextricably linked to its ongoing negotiations with the IMF on the
country’s foreign debt, which will not only mean greater austerity for the
people of Argentina, but will also increase extractivism and the plunder of
the country’s resources by multinational corporations. Far from promoting
“development,” these policies will only increase poverty and exacerbate
existing inequalities.

Not only would large-scale mining fail to produce any real economic
benefits for the people of Chubut, but it would also have dire
environmental consequences. A report
<https://cenpat.conicet.gov.ar/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/2021/02/Informe-Mesa-Tecnica.pdf>
published
in February of this year by the National Scientific and Technical Research
Council of Argentina (CONICET) requesting the withdrawal of the zoning bill
in Chubut stated that “large-scale mining introduces a new risk factor for
already vulnerable resources.” The Chubut River, which is used to supply
water to 50 percent of the province’s population, has low water flow
compared to that of other rivers in the Patagonia, with significant
seasonal and annual variations. According to the CONICET, it is concerning
that the main proven groundwater reserves in Chubut are located in the
districts in which large-scale mining operations would take place under the
proposed law. Tailings dams, used to store by-products of mining
operations, “pose a risk of pollution resulting from overflows or breaks
and the leakage of materials, like heavy metals, into nearby aquifers.”

The main beneficiaries would undoubtedly have been multinational mining
companies like Yamana Gold or Pan American Silver. The latter owns 100
percent of the Navidad mining project in the area covered by the repealed
zoning law. The Navidad project, which is currently suspended under a
legislative ban, is located on one of the largest undeveloped silver
deposits in the world. Pan American Silver acquired Navidad from Aquiline
Resources in 2009, despite provincial legislation banning open-pit metal
mining and the use of cyanide in processing, as well as mass social
opposition to mining in the area. Since then, the company has dedicated
itself to influencing the legislature to amend the law in favor of the
project.

Of course, the actual and potential beneficiaries of these mining projects
also include local facilitators of these multinationals, both within and
outside of the legislature. Despite having suspended the Navidad mine’s
development in 2012, Pan American Silver has continued to spend money on
the project. From 2013 to 2019, the company spent $30 million, including $6
million in 2019 alone, allegedly on “community activities” and “upkeep and
maintenance.” But no information on the $6 million is provided on the
company’s mandatory transparency reports submitted to the Canadian
government.


*A Decades-Long Struggle *The mass movement that ultimately defeated the
zoning law did not just emerge spontaneously over the past couple of weeks.
In fact, the province of Chubut is largely considered the cradle of social
opposition to multinational mining in Argentina. In 2002 widespread local
opposition to a mining project owned by Meridian Gold led to a mining ban
approved by 81 percent of the population in a referendum. In 2014
environmental groups presented a draft initiative to strengthen the
existing open-pit mining ban in force since 2003. But the bill failed to
pass in an ominous legislative session, in which the bill was completely
distorted and one legislator
<https://www.infobae.com/2014/11/26/1611265-chubut-un-legislador-fue-fotografiado-cuando-recibia-instrucciones-del-gerente-una-minera-celular/>
was
photographed reading a text message sent by a director of Yamana Gold
coaching him on his speech.

Nevertheless, the struggle has continued, and 20 years after the emergence
of the original movement, the resistance has spread to the entire territory
of Chubut. This time, old environmental assembly members came together with
the local youth, indigenous Mapuche-Tehuelche communities, workers,
students, and entire families, to resist the new offensive.

The main state workers’ unions, which found themselves in the uncomfortable
position of having to oppose their own government, called for
“environmental strikes.” Private unions like those of the food industry and
dock and fisheries workers, who also oppose governor Arcioni’s fisheries
bill, joined in the mass movement. The engine officers’ union (SICONARA),
sailors’ union (SOMU), and dockworkers’ union (SUPA) declared a strike for
an indefinite period starting on December 18. They blocked the highway in
the city of Puerto Madryn, with the support of the workers of the food
workers’ union STIA.

The province’s political establishment was profoundly shaken, so much so
that legislators, mayors, and members of the provincial judiciary began to
distance themselves from Governor Arcioni. Finally, the governor presented
a bill to repeal the zoning law, which was voted on in a virtual session,
due to safety concerns, and was approved unanimously on December 21.

The convergence around this cause in Chubut between the environmental
movement, unions, and communities of the indigenous Mapuche-Tehuelche
people has powerfully demonstrated the potential of this kind of social
alliance to defeat the extractivist designs of the ruling class and its
state. It charts the way forward for similar movements in Latin America and
around the world.

*Featured image: Community protesting the mining project in Argentina’s
Chubut. File photo*

(Popular Resistance.org
<https://popularresistance.org/labor-unions-environmentalists-and-indigenous-people-unite-to-defeat-mining-interests-in-argentina/>
)


<https://orinocotribune.com/author/yullma/>
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