Peru guerrilla group raids U.S. mining company

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Peru guerrilla group raids U.S. mining company
Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:18pm EDT

By Diego Ore

LIMA, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Suspected members of the Shining Path guerrilla group have raided a Peruvian mining camp of U.S.-based metals company Doe Run, government officials said on Wednesday, in the insurgency's third attack this month.

At least 30 armed members of the rebel group invaded the site where Doe Run is exploring for minerals in the coca-rich Huancavelica region of Peru's southern Andes in the early hours of Monday. They stole radios, food, medicine and, according to local media reports, dynamite.

At least 17 people have died in two assaults the Shining Path has carried out this month against the army. The attacks come as Peru prepares to host world leaders for the APEC summit in November.

In the first one, the group ambushed soldiers by placing explosives on a dirt road and then setting them off with detonator cord as a convoy of military trucks drove by.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2237849520081022?rpc=401&

[Judi Lynn]

1. The Doe Run company has been a vicious threat to the people in the area, owned by US citizen,

Ira Rennert:

Poisoned city fights to save its children

Families in a Peruvian valley choked by toxic gas from a smelter are taking on a US metals giant

Hugh O'Shaughnessy in La Oroya, Peru
Sunday August 12, 2007
The Observer



Children wearing masks play near the towering chimneys
of Peru's La Oroya refinery and metals processing
plant. Photograph: Reuters

At an altitude of 13,000ft the Andean air is clear. A plume of white smoke rises from the chimney at the La Oroya smelter, hard at work refining arsenic and metals such as lead, cadmium and copper. But today the company is not discharging any gases over this city in central Peru. 'It's a nice day, so the company won't be letting off any gases,' says Hugo Villa, a neurologist at the local hospital. 'They keep the worst emissions to overcast days or after dark.'

When the gases are released, they make this one of the most polluted places on the planet, with La Oroya ranking alongside Chernobyl for environmental devastation, according to a US think-tank, the Blacksmith Institute.

The company is a US corporation, Renco Doe Run. The gases are the product from the main smelter a mile or two down the valley. The high mountains around keep out the cleansing winds, meaning that airborne metals are concentrated in the valley. Neither humans nor nature can escape the company's outpourings of poisons. And, despite evidence that gases have been behind the premature deaths of workers and residents young and old, the business-oriented, pro-US government of President Alan Garcia is too afraid of foreign investors to do anything about it.

Now, however, the townspeople, once muted by their worries about losing their jobs with the valley's biggest employer, are turning their attention towards Ira Rennert, Renco's proprietor.

More:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147039,00.html



Ira Rennert's Hamptons home




PERU: Pollution Emergency Plan Instead of Real Action for La Oroya
By Milagros Salazar

LIMA, Aug 10 (Tierramérica) - Far from halting the source that is poisoning the Andean city of La Oroya, which is home to the Doe Run smelting complex, the Peruvian government ordered a contingency plan for the days when air pollution is worst, as if it were dealing with a natural disaster.

The Contingency Plan for States of Alert will be presented Aug. 10 by the government's national environmental council, CONAM, which approved it Jul. 18 to protect the 35,000 inhabitants of La Oroya from the sulphur dioxide, lead and cadmium emissions from the Doe Run smokestacks.

The plan is the result of two years of debates involving citizen groups, non-governmental organisations and the state agencies in charge of carrying it out, as well as representatives of the company, which will provide much of the financing.

La Oroya, 180 kilometres east of Lima, is one of the country's 13 most polluted cities, the government said in 2001. The New York-based Blacksmith Institute in 2006 included it in a list of the 10 worst cases in the world.
(snip)

Once a state of alert is ordered, it will be recommended that the most vulnerable -- children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses -- should not be outdoors between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm local time, the worst period of the day for exposure.

Doors and windows of homes, schools and hospitals should be closed, and food sold on the street should be covered.

The population in general should cover mouth and nose with scarves and handkerchiefs when outside. The idea of facemasks was ruled out because "people don't want images that further dramatise the situation," said Rojas.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38854







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Updated: 9:52 a.m. CT Feb 9, 2004
LA OROYA, Peru - Standing outside his adobe house overlooking the huge American-owned smelter in this small Andean town, Pablo Fabian watches children play beneath a smoke cloud containing toxic lead, sulfur dioxide, cadmium and arsenic.

His hands tremble when he talks about his own children. Two of them are lethargic and have trouble concentrating, symptoms of lead poisoning. Fabian blames the smelter and is determined to protect his newborn baby girl.
(snip)

Those findings led to a deal between Doe Run and Missouri’s government requiring the company to offer to buy 160 nearby homes. The buyout, which has yet to be completed, is one factor that may have helped drop the percentage of children with high levels of lead to 17 percent last year.

Leslie Warden, a leader in a Herculaneum activist group, visited last year to see Doe Run operations in Peru.

“They have defined a new low in my mind,” she said after her stay in La Oroya.
(snip/)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4145692 /


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

La Oroya is a city in Junín Region, Peru. It is located at around 11°31′60″S, 75°54′0″W, at an altitude of about 4000 m. It was named in 2006 in a list of the 10 most polluted places on earth by the Blacksmith Institute, a US-based environmental charity <1>. Studies carried out by the Director General of Environmental Health in Peru in 1999 showed that ninety-nine percent of children living in and around La Oroya have blood lead levels that exceed acceptable amounts. The drinking water of La Oroya has been shown to contain 50 per cent more lead than the levels recommended by the World Health Organisation. These studies have also shown high levels of contamination of the air with 85 times more arsenic, 41 times more cadmium and 13 times more lead than is safe <2>.

These high levels of pollution are most likely caused by the presence of large scale refinery and smelting operations, a majority of which are owned and operated by the Doe Run Company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US corporation, Renco Group Inc. Doe Run is a major employer in the city and has used this powerful position to mitigate effective opposition to its poisoning of the air and water. This has involved high level lobbying with the cities ex-mayor and union leaders, who have successfully forced the Peruvian government to drop plans for pollution reduction measures <3>.
(snip/)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Oroya

[Judi Lynn]

2. Thanks to U.S. owner, Ira Rennert, Doe Run is one of the 10 most polluted places ON EARTH. n/t

[Nambe]

3. No wonder Doe Run is screaming ¨Shining Path¨ The truth is inconvenient.

Since the capture of its leader Abimael Guzmán in 1992, the Shining Path has only been sporadically active.<8> Certain factions of the Shining Path now claim to fight in order to force the government to reach a peace treaty with the rebels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Path

[Judi Lynn]

4. (Doe Run) La Oroya: A Poisoned Town, A Billionaire's Profit

Posted September 30, 2008 | 01:49 PM (EST)
La Oroya: A Poisoned Town, A Billionaire's Profit

La Oroya, Peru is one of the most polluted places on the planet. Situated high in the Andes, scouring acid rain has made it a moonscape. According to one recent study, 97% of the children suffer from lead poisoning. The average child in La Oroya has twice the arsenic and six times the cadmium in his blood than the average American child.

Sagaponack, Long Island has pristine beaches and some of the most beautiful homes on the planet. Even by the opulent standards of the Hamptons, one mansion stands out. Perhaps palace is a better word; Fair Field dwarfs its neighbors and mocks nature with narcissistic grandeur. It's over 100,000 feet, has 29 bedrooms, three dining rooms, multiple libraries, bowling alleys, squash and basketball courts, a $150,000 hot tub.

What do these two places, separated by 3,000 miles, have in common? They are both owned by a man named Ira Rennert.

Rennert is an industrialist in the natural resources business. He controls the Doe Run Company, which claims to be the largest company of its kind in the western hemisphere, and US Magnesium. The EPA just announced last week that they want to declare US Mag's Utah plant a Superfund site, because of 'largely uncontrolled' releases of PCBs and Dioxin. Rennert bought the metal processing plant in La Oroya, Peru in 1997.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-obrien/la-oroya-a-poisoned-town_b_130448.html

Please see linked video. It's completely eye-opening. You most likely won't be seeing this information in any commercial U.S. tv programs.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Super 10 minute video: House of Lead: A story of greed" - La Oroya, Peru - You Tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpwu8DOmzoU

Gives previous pollution information on the U.S. owner, Ira Rennert, labeled "America's worst private polluter."

[Judi Lynn]

6. Surprise! The Doe Run owner loves him some Republican politicians.

Here's a quickie look at his contributions from the Huffington Report:
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Rennert&fname=Ira

[David__77]

7. I predict Shining Path will reemerge in the next couple years.

It's one of the most interesting rebel groups to have ever existed. Their downfall was their organizational practice of total reliance on the leadership of a single man as the "guarantee of victory," Abimael Guzman. After his capture, there's been nothing but disarray. Nonetheless, Peru has not solved the contradictions that gave rise to the group's previous success in the first place, despite Fujimori's attempts. It will be very interesting to see what unfolds.

[honestduel]

8. Peru for the Peruvians

Didn't we once say "America for the Americans?"

[Judi Lynn]

9. Churches unite over La Oroya pollution

Churches unite over La Oroya pollution
National Catholic Reporter, July 20, 2007 by Barbara Fraser

In a country where ecumenism is still tentative, one issue that brings churches together is protection of the environment.

The threat to people's lives and health because of pollution in La Oroya is "a fundamental reason for unity," said the Rev. Rafael Goto, an evangelical minister and president of the National Evangelical Council of Peru. "The value of human life is one of the key elements of ecumenical encounter."

Goto was a member of an ecumenical delegation that traveled to the United States in June to pressure the U.S. owners of Doe Run Peru to move faster to clean up La Oroya.

The threat to people's lives and health because of pollution in La Oroya is "a fundamental reason for unity," said the Rev. Rafael Goto, an evangelical minister and president of the National Evangelical Council of Peru. "The value of human life is one of the key elements of ecumenical encounter."

~snip~
The goal was "not only to knock on Ira Rennert's door, but to touch his heart, to offer him the opportunity for an ecological conversion, a conversion of social responsibility," Archbishop Pedro Barreto of the Catholic diocese of Huancayo, Peru, said before the trip. "From our faith, we want to support him so that the company can become a leader in the change we seek for our region."

Rennert refused to see the delegation. Nevertheless, Barreto called the ecumenical delegation "unprecedented" and said he considered the trip "very positive."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_/ai_n20510800

[BlueCollar]

10. I lived in La Oroya back in the early sixties

when the company was Cerro de Pasco Corporation. I also remember that there were many instances of labor unrest and we even were evacuated from the town after the miners went on strike. Of course I was very young then so the memories are a little vague.

At the time it was the largest non-ferrous metal mining operation in the world. Mining for Lead, Copper, Zinc and Copper were all conducted throughout the area and La Oroya was the smelter for all of the materials which were then hauled by rail down to the coast.