wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Push comes to shove

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Note #8230 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04222
May 12, 2004

Push comes to shove

Miners employed by U.S. firm assault, threaten Peruvian activists

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LA OROYA, Peru > Members of a Presbyterian Church (USA)-supported citizens'
group in this mountainous community are facing renewed threats and physical
assaults as they press a St. Louis area-based mining company to abide by
agreements it has made with the Peruvian government to clean up its
operations.

	Movement for the Health of La Oroya (MOSAO) members were attacked and
pummeled with rocks on April 14 by five busloads of Doe Run smelter employees
outside the National Congress in Lima, where the group was invited to testify
by the Congressional Environment and Ecology Commission. The commission was
hearing a Doe run request for a fourth delay, this one of five years
duration, in the effective date of a 1997 agreement it made with the
government to reduce its emissions of lead into La Oroya's air and water.

	Health officials say 100 percent of La Oroya's children suffer from
lead poisoning, with levels far exceeding allowable levels under Peruvian
law.

	"Doe Run is for the fourth time attempting to avoid responsibility
and delay necessary actions which would reduce chronic industrial lead
poisoning in the children of La Oroya," said the Rev. Elinor Stock of
Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery's Joining Hands Against Hunger (JHAH) group,
which supports MOSAO.

	JHAH is an international partnership project sponsored by the
Presbyterian Hunger Program.

	"The situation in La Oroya is quickly becoming more violent," said
the Rev. Hunter Farrell, a PC(USA) missionary in Peru who works with MOSAO.
"We are deeply concerned about this situation and have requested official
police protection for MOSAO members. We are also calling on the Doe Run
Company to intervene, because we believe that Doe Run has the power to stop
this senseless violence. The problems of La Oroya are long-standing and
complex, and they require careful study, considered reflection and open
communication by all parties," he said.

	Peru's minister of energy and mining, Jaime Quijandria, said last
week that the smelter must comply with its original agreement, which calls
for modernization and pollution abatement.

	Doe Run Peru has invested just $40.3 million of the $174 million
required to implement the pollution-control agreement, despite a large
increase in lead prices since last year.

	The Ministry of Energy & Mining office recently appointed a
MOSAO-recommended "coordinating committee" to study mining- and
smelting-related issues in Peru. Two Doe Run officials, but no citizens'
representatives, were named to the committee.

	In addition to the April 14 attack in Lima, Farrell said, MOSAO
members have been threatened with death if they continue to press Doe Run to
clean up its La Oroya operations. Two other MOSAO members have been labeled
"troublemakers" and gangsters" in leaflets distributed by Doe Run workers.
Newspaper ads have leveled similar charges.

	Farrell asked all Presbyterians for their prayers.

	"Pray with us against violence and fear," he said, "and for a
reasonable and lawful approach to solving La Oroya's problems that respects
the dignity of all of La Oroya's people."

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