New buddies of the highlands

Río Blanco mining project’s capital left to be purely British, became mostly Chinese.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

EL CARMEN DE LA FRONTERA, Peru – While Monterrico Metals continued preparing the environmental impact assessment for its Río Blanco mining project, its purchase by a Chinese corporation was announced. The deal was closed on February 2^nd, 2007. The London-based company kept much hermeticism to the local media, those didn’t hide their surprise about the transaction.

 

These days, the only public activity of the mining company was the opening of a school in Lucho Village, El Carmen de la Frontera District, where they proposed to “educate for the peace.” The guest to the protocolar act was a delegation with the Peru’s Catholic University which Conciliation Center, in the opinion of the zone’s Farmers Patrol, had advocated for the company instead of holding at an impartial point.

 

Outside the school, locals and police officers argued so hard. The first ones alleged that they never were asked to build the work. “Introduce us the leaders!,” one of the officers pushed. “We all are leaders!,” somebody answered within the crowd.

 

Back in London, who supported Monterrico were in shock because they ignored what role they were going to play in this new setup. The company had became part of Zijin, a Hong Kong-based mining corporation. The opposers to the Río Blanco Project, after the initial surprise, found the perfect reason to prove that the British company never was going to operate it by itself.

 

“We knew they ended selling,” then Piura-based consultant Luis Ginocchio opined. The purchase was not made directly. In fact, the chiefs of both companies never saw face-to-face, but there was the insinuation that Monterrico’s manager Richard Ralph knew about the negotiation since October 2006 when the company was offered for sale.

 

In the purchase, HSBC represented to Monterrico and BNP Paribas to Zijin. The deal was closed for around 200 million dollars through the Chinese consortium acquired the most shareholding of the British one. Zijin considered it like a round business due to January 2007 was a favorable month for the Monterrico stock in London, that strengthened after the operation.

 

Some British most conservative business possés did not see the purchase so good because Mr Ralph was a UK Ambassador to Peru. They added their fear that China seeks to hoard the world market of natural resources. They said that Chinese investments in the extractive sector had created troubles in some African nations, such governments were angry about its presence.

 

Since then, their American counterparts already showed disappointment about Chinese investments as much as the federal government blocked purchasing options in semiconductors and computer parts companies. In Latin America, Venezuela and Cuba, socialist trended (like China), said nothing either despite to repeat the speech opposed to foreigner capitals intervention into national investment projects.

 

The parties involved in the issue, while reacted after the news, accused each other to influence el Carmen de la Frontera farmers doing projects of diverse kind. The mining project promoters said the NGO’s tried to fundraise anyway, the opposers said the mining company was violating traditions and rights of the communities.

 

Following up that logics, the that time’s young leader Audilio García, who had participated in a FACTORTIERRA advocacy campaign about Río Blanco issue, denounced the mining company was contacting him through a friend to give him a job position. García refused. In the middle, the farmers reacted aggressively frustrated because they didn’t get to take Monterrico out of their communitarian territory.

 

With reports by Irina Mauricio. © 2007, 2021 Asociación Civil Factor Tierra. All Rights Reserved.