In the mining sector PERU
Communist Party of Peru (M-L)
On the international situation
In the international context of the political and economic crisis of capitalism, the contradictions among the imperialist countries for the new redivision of the world, markets and spheres of influence, are taking increasingly acute forms. In that sense the contention to systematically exploit and plunder the peoples is once again becoming more aggressive politically, economically, ideologically and militarily. This is so not only for the inter-imperialist contention, but also for the increasing struggle and resistance of the peoples attacked by imperialist greed. These processes are taking place in the context of the revival of the popular movement, which is ready to undertake processes of national and social liberation led by their proletarian vanguards.
The contradiction among imperialist countries and the struggle for spheres of influence are creating instruments for contention over financial domination of the world market. On the one hand, U.S. imperialism and the members of NATO, with their instruments, the World Bank, IMF, World Trade Organization, UN and other agencies of neo-colonial subjugation, and on the other hand Chinese and Russian imperialism and the members of BRICS, which recently established other instruments of domination of finance capital called the New Development Bank and Reserve Fund. Even though it has another name, it has not changed the essence of domination by finance capital. La essence of imperialism has not changed, nor have the characterization and fundamental contradictions of our epoch pointed out by Lenin. While it is true that the formation of economic alliances among imperialist countries, in one way, manifestations of power, leading to military invasions and pushing the peoples into war, the imperialist countries are at the stage of internal decomposition and corrosion. An example of this are the various demonstrations and strikes taking place in the imperialist countries, such as the U.S., China, Germany and France, among others. This shows the correctness and relevance of the Marxist-Leninist theses on imperialism and proletarian revolutions.
Some opportunist groups claim that within the inter-imperialist contradictions there is a good imperialism with which we can ally and a bad imperialism that we must fight, trying to embellish imperialism thus denying the revolution, the historic task of the working class and peoples for their class emancipation and denying that both imperialist camps are the backbone of capitalism on a world scale. Lenin said that “finance capital strives for domination, not freedom “, so that imperialist countries, their aggression and the capitalist system must be fought at the same time as one fights opportunism, revisionism, reformism, Trotskyism and social democracy in their various shades, which in practice support the domination of capitalism in its stage of imperialist decomposition.
The development of these instruments of domination promotes the granting of credits and loans that reinforce the economic and political dependence of the borrower, in order to ensure maximum profit by exploiting and ruining most of the population. This leads us to point out some elements that show the increasing dependence of our country, regarding the presence and interests of BRICS in Peru.
The political situation, economic dependence and the presence of BRICS in Peru
Currently the peoples of Peru are at a stage of struggle and resistance against the imperialist offensive and penetration. An example of this is the organization of the popular movement to oppose the mining concessions, labor flexibility, the privatization and pollution of the water, the pollution of the environment, to reject the Free Trade Agreements, to reject the import of genetically modified seeds; to defend national and food sovereignty, among others. All these struggles are also directed against the deepening of neoliberalism, by the counter-reforms made during the period of Alberto Fujimori, Alejandro Toledo and Alan Garcia. There is no difference between these and the current government of Ollanta Humala. We have a country in which there not the least regulation of the voracious appetite of the transnationals, of imperialism and its allies, the parasitic bourgeoisie.
The failure of denationalization, the sale of the country and the Free Trade Agreements
In the period of the application of neoliberalism in Peru, state enterprises, port and airport concessions and our territory have been privatized and auctioned off, highways have been built allegedly to develop and connect towns largely neglected by the state. But the truth is that they were built to facilitate imperialist penetration and plunder, through tax evasion and fraud, the payment of taxes for works that widen the highways and access roads to mining areas, supposedly being built in the public interest.
Recently, under the pretext of reviving the economy, as Peru was one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America with 7.6% growth in 2006, 9% in 2007, 9.84% in 2008, 1% in 2009, 8.8% in 2010, 6.8% in 2011, 6.3% in 2012 and 5.02% in 2013, there has been a slowing down due to the effects of the international crisis and the struggle of the peoples against mining extraction, which have led to paralyzing the major mining projects. The so- called economic revival that the State is leading is in no way aimed at benefiting the people. On the contrary, it is to facilitate the looting of our country, easing the minimum requirements for the establishment of large-scale mining projects, known as the “environmental package.” These followed along the line of the last message to the nation by the President of the Republic on July 28, in which he stated the “need” to promote mining mega-projects: Constancia, Las Bambas, the expansion of Cerro Verde. The expansion of the Toromocho was granted as a concession to the Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), at the source of the Mantaro and Rimac rivers that supply water to more than 10 million people in Lima. The mining project Tia Maria was presented by the government as a center of copper mining but in the particular case of Toromocho, what is being done is to extract radioactive material and gold. An example of this is the leader Aida Gamarra of the village of Morococha displaced by this project, who has been hospitalized due to contamination by radioactive material, who had lived and worked near this mining center.
This sector is dominated by Chinese transnationals, which control 33% of the total investment; in these projects they use the police and military to impose them, as well as in the mining projects of US and Canadian imperialism.
In 1992 the government of Alberto Fujimori, beginning the privatization of the strategic economic sectors of the country, negotiated the sale of the mining company Hierro Peru
S.A. (Peru Iron Inc.) and granted the pier of San Juan de Marcona to the national Chinese company Shougang Corporation, based in Beijing. This news was received with great enthusiasm by some trade union cliques and opportunist parties, which claimed that this company and the Chinese Communist Party were led by communists and that this would lead to the benefit of the Peruvian working class. The character of the Chinese enterprises was revealed when the operations of the company Shougang Hierro Peru S.A. began. They laid off a large number of workers, made the contracts conditional on not recognizing the right to unionize, at the risk of layoffs and the imposition of a long list of abuses such as payment below the average wage compared to other mining companies. Currently this company sends 84% of all the minerals extracted from Peruvian soil to the Chinese market and less than 5% of the minerals supply the domestic market. This has affected the high cost of steel production, serving as a justification for the new owners of Siderurgica de Peru (Peru Steel), the Brazilian corporation Gerdau, to stop producing steel and import it from its other sources, mainly from Brazil, leaving the workers of the steelworks in Chimbote unemployed and affecting the region, which had been energized by the existence of this industrial center.
In 1996, the government of Alberto Fujimori held an auction of state bonds in Peru Steel – Siderperu, from which the consortium Sider Corp. benefited, buying up almost 97% of the shares of the company. This consortium was made up of GS Industries Inc, a US company, Wiese Financial Investments and Stanton Funding Co. But the crisis of 2001 caused the bankruptcy of GS Industries, so in 2006 the Brazilian transnational Gerdau acquired 86.66% of the shares of the steel company.
Since 2012 Horno Alto, which smelted iron, was paralyzed, stagnating production and instead becoming distributors of steel imported from Brazil to supply the Peruvian market. This process was part of the plans to sabotage production that imperialism and its transnational corporations carried out in order to destroy local production and strengthen their chains of domination.
Since the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China came into force in 2010, the Peruvian textile and clothing industries were hurt with the import of underpriced garments for the domestic market. Because of this, it is estimated that about 30,000 jobs were lost in this productive and commercial sphere, causing a high rate of closing of small and medium=sized textile enterprises. The main centers of textile imports are from China and India that have low production costs. The Peruvian government is resuming the negotiations for signing the FTA with India, an act that will end up destroying national production.
In the agricultural and livestock sector
Recently, the Congress of the Republic attempted to pass a bill that would allow the import of genetically modified seeds for production on a small scale. This was despite the fact that these were disallowed in 2012, under the regulations of Act No. 29811, which postponed the import of these seeds, after a process of struggle by the rural communities in defense of national production, when the 10-year moratorium of imports of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) was established.
The struggles undertaken by the working class, peasantry, youth and peoples
The struggles of the working class, peasants, working people and youth have raised their level of political organization and participation, opposing the new wave of legal and political measures that seek to limit the rights won through great struggles, such as the right to labor stability, health care, free and scientific education and legal security, while the land of peasants has been granted as concessions to the imperialist transnationals. In all regions of the country the class struggle is intensifying and is marked by new forms of clashes and the creativity of the peoples to confront the dictatorship of capital and imperialist plunder; they are coming together in order to put an end to aggression and exploitation.
In the health care sector the indefinite strike of the health care workers has been developing in defense of their labor rights and against the privatization of health care, as well as in the struggles of nurses, midwives and staff in this sector, who have been on a national strike for more than 120 days, which government does not want to resolve. On the contrary, it is promoting the privatization of health care through concessions to private companies, thus showing that this pseudo-nationalist government cares more about the extraction of minerals than about the life and health of the Peruvians.
In the peasant movement, the imperialist offensive and submission of the government in office makes them implement the mining projects as such Canaris, Conga, Toromocho, Rio Blanco, Tia Maria, Lagunas del Sur, etc. and oil projects that were rejected and fought by the peoples since they violating their right to property, polluting the water, life and farmlands. Recently the government has implemented a legislative package that removes the minimal restrictions to mining extraction in our country, and in response to the resistance of the peoples, they have implemented fascist measures to criminalize the organization and repress the protest of the popular movement. Thus the government is showing its propensity to militarize the country in order to strengthen its dependency, showing the degree of decomposition of the state of the parasitic bourgeoisie of our country.
Position of the PCP (M-L) towards this scenario
1. We propose to develop tactics to organize, mobilize and politicize the working class, peasants, students and popular sectors. We oppose the imperialist penetration, exploitation and plunder, fighting capitalism and the parasitic bourgeoisie, the opportunism that prettifies and supports the concessions of communal territories and the privatization carried out by the government. We fight to annul the laws that take away the rights won by the working class: the law of reforms to the educational system, the law of “service”, the “health care reform” and for the restoration of the rights of state workers, we fight for the annulment of the FTA, for the cancellation of mining concessions and for the repeal of the law of “Prior Consultation” of Ollanta Humala, who does not respect the decision of the people for the defense of national sovereignty.
2. It is necessary to regain the leadership of the trade union federations, to remove the revisionists and opportunists from the leadership, and to raise the banners of the principles of class-struggle unionism. It is necessary to forge the anti-fascist and anti-imperialist united front, based on the worker-peasant alliance.
3. In the process of clarifying the political scene, we must identify and fight the class enemies who confuse and divert the working class, the peasantry and the people from their struggles, and we also need to identify who our friends are who struggle to organize and make the revolution, to put an end to the dictatorship of capital over labor, to the imperialist exploitation and plunder and to establish socialism, as the transition to a classless, communist society.
Central Committee of the PCP (M-L)