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URGENT: UK Solidarity with murdered Bolivian miners

Over the last two days dozens of miners have been killed or injured defending the Huanuni mine against privatisation, and on Tuesday a general strike has been called. In solidarity with this the BSC has called a picket of UK firm
Grant Thornton on Tuesday 10/10/06 at 12pm to protest at their role in sparking these events.

Hi,

Apologies, this is going to be quite long. I'm forwarding a message from the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign about the events over the last couple of days in Bolivia.

I realise that Bolivia is a "country far away that we know very little about" but the events of Thursday and Friday in which miners have been killed defending their jobs and their mine against being sold into the private sector were directly precipitated by a UK based company, Grant Thornton, and we have an opportunity to take effective solidarity action that may save lives in Bolivia and aid their struggle against the icy winds of market forces.

It lists two things we can do straight off

i) there is an emergency picket of Grant Thornton on Tuesday 12 noon in London (see below for details)

ii) there is a model letter that can be emailed and/or faxed to the company to help put pressure on them to withdraw their claim over publicly owned assetts (again see below)

If you are able to do either of these things it would be greatly appreciated and if you know people who they think would be interested or can help please do forward this to them.

www.boliviasc.org.uk

URGENT ACTION:
Solidarity for Huanuni miners killed opposing privatisation by force

People may be aware that there has been fighting between workers of the state owned Huanuni mines and members of the mining cooperatives since Thursday.

This situation was sparked when, last week, a UK based company Grant Thornton attempted to sell a stake in the publicly owned mine, a stake it clearly does not have. Negotiations between the new prospective ‘owners’ and the government finished on Wednesday with the government stating clearly that the mines are wholly in public hands.

The cooperatives did not take the news well and tried to seize the mine by force. A thousand unionized miners defended the mine and a pitched battle has been taking place over Thursday and Friday with dozens killed and injured and, until today, the police refusing to intervene against the cooperativists.

For more information see:
Bolivia: struggle for future of mines sees workers killed and injured

http://socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/news/bolivia04.htm

The Bolivia Solidarity Campaign wants to express its solidarity with those miners who, at the cost of their own lives, have defended the mines against privatisation and we have called a picket on Tuesday of Grant Thornton House, the UK HQ of the company that sparked the whole affair.

This picket coincides with the call in Bolivia by the COB for a general strike.

Picket details
Grant Thornton House, Melton Street, Euston Square, London NW1 2EP.
Tuesday 10/10/06 at 12pm

If you can make this please, please do as international solidarity is vital, particularly for us in the UK who have the opportunity to pressure Grant Thornton to withdraw their illegitimate claim over the Huanuni mine.

If you are not able to make the picket (and we understand it’s unavoidably short notice) we’d like to ask you to send a fax to Grant Thornton UK LLP
on the number 0870 991 2412 (FAO Malcolm Sheirson)
or an email to

Malcolm.Shierson@gtuk.com

We enclose a model letter (below) which we’d like to encourage you to adapt to suit your own tastes. If you are able to send them an email or fax, please do copy us in (bcc) so we know what they have received, thank you.

In the last two days the single email we sent prompted the company to contact the Bolivian embassy expressing its desire to help bring this conflict to an end. This shows that such a simple act of solidarity can make a difference; however, we think that Grant Thornton’s vision of a happy outcome to these events and ours are probably quite different and we need to keep up the pressure to support the miners.

Other ideas for those who cannot make the picket include writing to the press and passing a motion at your union (or other organisation) expressing solidarity with the miners and opposing the actions of Grant Thornton. If you pass these messages of support on to us we will ensure that they get to the right people in Bolivia.

MODEL LETTER TO GRANT THORNTON

Dear Malcolm,

I’m writing about the Huanuni Mine, in Bolivia, part of which used to be part of the assets of the company RBG Resources.

Cooperative members (FEDCOMIN) who visited London a couple of weeks ago, insist that you, as the liquidator of RBG, have sold rights to the Huanuni Mine to them.

The Cooperative members arrived to the Huanuni mine on Thursday armed with dynamite and guns claiming they have ownership and intending to seize the mine by force. The miners who work in the Huanuni mine, who are employed by COMIBOL, the state-run mining company, decided to stay put, and defend their workplace. As a result there are dozens of killed and injured on both sides.

I understand that RBG lost the Huanuni contract in 2002 as it could not fulfill its obligations, including meeting the agreed upon investment, and the Bolivian government has ruled that the Huanuni mine is entirely state owned.

An official statement from you as the liquidator of RBG to say that RBG has no rights to sell a stake in a mine it does not own would be extremely useful to stop anymore blood shed.

As far as the Bolivian Government is concerned the contract between RBG and Bolivia has ended therefore you have no right to sell or transfer the Huanuni mine to a third person/company.

Please clarify this situation as a matter of life and death.

Yours truly,

Jim Jay
Homepage: http://www.boliviasc.org.uk

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

Huanuni not quite so cut and dry

08.10.2006 18:39

While I appreciate the understanding of corporate abuse shown in this posting, it is important to understand that the situation in Huanuni is not quite as cut and dry as shown here. The mine was sold to Allied Deals Minera Huanuni (ADMH) in 2000 under the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada. Part of the mine was also owned by COMIBOL, the nationalized mining company, which Sancez de Losada (better known as Goni) couldn't completely destroy due to its inclusion in the Constitution. There were so many problems in this relationship, that, at the end of December in 2001 ADMH changed to RBG Resources PLC, an act which was not approved by COMIBOL, and which therefore broke the negotiated contract. Allied Deals/RBG did not make the investments it had promised to make, and on May 3, 2002, the West LB Bank in London intervened judicially due to the fraud and bancrupcy of the company. Grand Thornton UK LLP (GT) was put in charge of the liquidation of the company, and COMIBOL became the default adminstrator, for lack of another company, which, according to the national privatization laws in Bolivia, says must eventually buy the mine. However, COMIBOL did not take on RBG's former employees, and the fight that is going on now has more to do with the effects of past privatization, and the failure of past and present governments to settle the case than with the acts of Grand Thornton.

After the withdrawl of RBG, workers from the company formed cooperatives, which is to say, independent ventures which allowed them to mine independently and earn money based on whatever they were able to dig up. This is a very disadvantaged position in comparison to the salaried and unionized workers of COMIBOL. Thus, when there is talk of the cooperative miners wanting to buy and or "privatise" the portion of the mine formerly owned by RBG, it doesn't mean a large, transnational corporation, it signifies desperatly poor workers who would like salaries, instead of luck of the draw. Obviously, Grand Thornton has no business selling the company, but it is not solely their actions that provoked the violence of last week. The cause of violence was the anger of two groups of poor workers left to fight over the resources left to them. Of course the 1,000 COMIBOL workers don't want to give concession to the 4,000 cooperative workers, and of course the cooperative workers would rather have a salary. Of course both sides would rather have complete control of the mine.

The violence that left 16 dead and 81 wounded last thursday and friday was a battle of the poor against the poor, and COMIBOL has its responsibility as well as the cooperatives. The majority of the dead are cooperative members (un unionized), and workers for both sectors (unionized and cooperatives) cross family lines. Accounts of who started the violence are not clear, and strangely and suspiciously, the action of professional snipers has been confirmed as the cause of at least 7 deaths. This is not a cut and dry "stick it to the man" case, which makes it all the more tragic. Go ahead and scold Grand Thornton, btu consider this case as more the after effects of privatization than the direct confrontation with it. This is a case that needs to be resolved nationally, perhaps through the expansion of COMIBOL, perhaps though the re-nationalization of the mines, perhaps through the rewriting of the constitution, which is presently being battled out in Sucre, and hopefully though well run negotiations which will allow all parties to feed themselves and their families.

Thanks,

April

For Spanish readers, CEDLA is a good resource, as well as the website of the Bolivian Government (Abi.bo), and bolpress.com.

For English readers, AP and Reuters have addressed the issue topically (though with a lack of depth and subtlely), but look for an article on upsidedownworld.org, soon to be published.

April Howard
mail e-mail: silabaria@yahoo.com
Homepage: http://Upsidedownworld.org

The Poor Fighting For The Rich

10.10.2006 23:14

Dear April,

thank you for writing back. I'm afraid Grant Thornton has all its
finger prints on this. The purpose of our picket it is not to scold
Grant Thornton but to force this multinational to pull out of Bolivia
once and for all. RBG has no business whatsoever in Bolivia, if there
is a need for financial compensation it should be RBG to COMIBOL, as
the company was given with a stock of mineral and machinery (worth
millions of dollars, it is all gone), as well as the smelter of Vinto.
All this wealth belongs to the miners collectively, and the state, RBG
came with promises of investing and all that it did was looting.

The former RBG miners are the miners who forced the government to take
on the company (their union is the strongest in the country), as they
staged strikes and moved to start producing, this was during Sanchez
de Lozada gov. This right wing government was forced to sign an
agreement with the miners and allow COMIBOL to operate the mine.

These miners have benefited from a 30percent increase since they run
the company themselves, as well as the creation of job places. Their
union FSTMB, has been arguing since Sanchez de Lozada government that
the best way forward was to increase workplaces and for COMIBOL to
recover the ability to administrate the mines (there was an article
included during the 1985 privatisation law 21060, that prevented
COMIBOL administering its own mines.

The cooperatives are, although they sound a social organisation,
private companies. Those at the top benefit and those at the bottom
get the crumbs. Health and safety and work regulations are inexistent;
you will find children and women working in horrendous conditions. The
ore collected by these miners go ultimately to mineral companies
(multinationals) who avoid paying compensation for accidents, health
care, education, etc. on top of that because the miners suppose to be
self employed they refuse to pay taxes. They have managed to push
self-exploitation style to the poorest areas of the country. The
miners who work in these cooperatives are made to believe that they
owned but the gap between those who have shares and those who work for
them are wide to say the least. Also workers in the cooperatives are
not allowed to join a union. 4 miners were sacked for attempting
unionise.

Last April, we visit the Huanuni mine, precisely as we knew what was
going on. We were able to see that the working conditions and health
and safety were of high standards. The miners explained how they
organised and won battle after battle. We entered the mine and we
found the cooperativists at the end of one of the tunnels with
dynamites. We had to run out as they threatened to detonate. The
miners told us that this was an ongoing situation and they needed
help. This has been going on for a long time and the miners have been
asking for the government to do something. But, here in London, Grant
Thornton won't let it go. Shortly after the deaths, Grant Thornton
insists that it still has shares in Bolivia. We know that the
government has tried to settle with Grant Thornton once and for all.
The miners know that the only way forward is for COMIBOL to become the
only administrator of the mines in Bolivia, thus creating proper jobs,
paying taxes to build schools and hospitals, instead of making a small
group of people extremely rich while the rest work for simple
survival.

It was international support that made BECHTEL drop its demand over
compensation for ending the contract prematurely (in Cochabamba), thus
preventing it from profiteering from the poor. It will be
international support that will get Grant Thornton/RBG, to get out of
Bolivia, and to allow the state to take control of the mines. The
Bolivian gov has spent already a fortune on solicitors fees fighting
this case.

We are in contact with the Huanuni Miners and the FSTMB, and they have
asked for this action. However they were at a meeting and they will
send shortly a request for international help.

I hope you help us with the international letter writing campaign.

In solidarity

Amancay Colque

Amancay Colque
mail e-mail: amancay.colque@googlemail.com
Homepage: http://www.boliviasc.org.uk

UK Indymedia

URGENT: UK Solidarity with murdered Bolivian miners

Comments

Huanuni not quite so cut and dry

The Poor Fighting For The Rich

Global IMC Network