From World War 4 Report:

Indigenous protesters march against Minas Conga mine in defense of their water and lands

On the morning of Sept. 7, as workers arrived by bus at the giant Yanacocha mine in Peru’s northern region of Cajamarca, agents of the National Police Criminal Investigation Directorate (DIRINCRI) arrived and arrested employee Jesús Elías Salcedo Becerra, 38, as suspected intellectual author of the Nov. 1, 2006 slaying of peasant ecologist Esmundo Becerra Cotrina, gunned down in a hail of 17 bullets while grazing his livestock at Yanacanchilla community, La Encañada district, Cajamarca province. National Police spokesman William Vásquez called the arrest a “preliminary detention,” saying that an investigation is underway …. Relatives of Becerra Cotrina arrived as Salcedo was being taken away, and fiercely beat him before being restrained by police and Yanacocha security. …

Yanacanchilla community leaders charge that Becerra Cotrina was targeted for opposing expansion of the mine onto local campesino lands. …

Local communities in Cajamarca continue to report grave ecological impacts from the giant Yanacocha gold and copper mine. Last month, communities that maintain a communal trout farm at La Raimina, in the Chaylluagón Canyon, found that some 30,000 fish had died overnight. The fishery is downstream from Laguna San Nicolás de Chaylluagón, where Yanacocha had begun building a dyke to impound waters for a new reservoir in preparation for a controversial expansion of the mine into new lands at Conga. The campesinos who maintain the fishery charged that the dyke had choked off the supply of water to Quebrada Chaylluagón, the creek that runs through the canyon and feeds their pond. (La Republica, Aug. 17)

Campesino leaders from Hualgayoc province on Sept. 6 held a public gathering in Cajamarca city where they read an open letter they had prepared for President Ollanta Humala demanding that he put a halt to Yanacocha’s preparatory work for the Conga project [Ed.: See our coverage of this issue], which has not been officially approved yet. Manuel Ramos, president of the Defense Front of El Tambo, a village in Hualgayoc, said, “We do not want reservoirs on our lagunas… We want projects approved by our local authorities and not by the central government, or the company which is trying to trick our communities… The project is unviable for us.” Community leaders pledged their readiness to resist the Conga project, many intoning: “It is better to die by bullets than for want of water.” (Celendín Libre, Sept. 6) …

Community leaders are also expressing concern about new mining projects being prepared for the region. Toronto-based Southern Legacy Minerals Inc last month filed a technical report with Lima for the company’s AntaKori Project, a massive copper, lead, zinc, silver and gold mine proposed for Hualgayoc province. (Andina, Aug. 27; NASDAQ, Aug. 20)

Attacks on campesino leaders also continue. Dante Sánchez Villegas, president of the Federation of Rondas Campesinas (peasant self-defense patrols) in Cutervo province, was shot in his own home in the provincial seat Aug. 27, after two gunmen broke down the door. He was hit in the leg, and the gunmen fled after firing. With a bullet lodged in his femur, he was transferred to a hospital in Chiclayo, Lambayeque region, the nearest large city. A motive has not been established, but Sánchez reported that he had been physically attacked by unknown assailants a week earlier. (Cutervo.com, Cajamarca, Aug. 28; RPP, Andina Radio, Cajamarca, Aug. 27)

Read the unabridged story here.