This is what the National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI) states, which has the support of the other grassroots organizations which participated last week in the National Meeting of Andean and Amazon Peoples, in preparation to the 4th Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities from Abya Yala.

One of Conacami´s representatives, Feliciana Amado, stated that it seems that the government of her country does not care about the quality of water which is consumed mainly by the native peoples.

The polluting impacts of mining exploitation are changing the lives of thousands of Peruvian people: “The rivers don´t have fish anymore. The people from the countryside used to fish directly in order to get food. That biodiversity was free. People could hunt and eat there”, complained Amado in an interview with the National Radio Coordination.

Peruvian rural families lived in “harmony” with nature and those resources were their livelihoods, but with the entering into office of Alberto Fujimori in 1990, transnational corporations “arrived to evict us”, said Amado.

Along the same lines were the statements of the organizations which participated in the National Andean and Amazon Meeting. In their statement they demand the immediate repeal of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, which has already been declared unconstitutional by Peruvian tribunals.

According to them, the Executive Branch has given way to the “pressures” coming from the mining and oil transnational companies, and has even fired the Energy and Mines Ministry officials who opposed the concessions.

Another struggle carried out by the communities is related to water. The groups that signed the statement, published by Adital news agency, are demanding the repeal of the Water Resources Act, which, according to them, “paves the way” for the privatization of the vital resource.