Over the past 30 years, Peru has experienced economic expansion, largely fueled by mineral extraction, economic neo-liberalism at the national level, and an explosion of protests. The governments presided over by Alberto Fujimori and Alan García, for example, opened Peru to foreign investment in the national mining industry, with demand stimulated by China's voracious hunger for Andean metals. At the same time, political competition increased once the Fujimori regime left power. From the national perspective, Peru appeared to enjoy economic prosperity, and its democracy was developing. Why then, asks Moisés Arce, in this theoretically sophisticated analysis, did Peru face a rising tide of regional (“subnational”) protests?
Arce's combination of social movement theory and political science provides an innovative approach to Peru's recent political history. His interpretation is accessible to non-political scientists, once they have successfully wrestled with the disciplinary jargon he uses. Key to the analysis is a database of protests and strikes for the period 1980 to 2005, which Arce compiled from reports of such conflicts covered in Peruvian newspapers and periodicals. Over the 25-year period, strikes became less frequent, but the number of protests increased.
Arce devotes separate chapters to three conflicts related to Peruvian mining that fueled subnational protests with national implications. One of these was centered in the Tambogrande region of Piura along Peru's northern coast, a rich agricultural zone irrigated by water from the Quiroz River. When the Canadian-owned Manhattan Minerals Company (MMC) moved in 2001 to open a large open-pit gold and copper mine there, with initial political support from the Fujimori government, local farmers used associations already in place, such as the San Lorenzo Valley and Tambogrande Defense Front, to oppose the mine. When, soon after, Fujimori was out of power, provincial politicians from Piura sided with the agricultural protesters. They even engineered a public referendum that resulted in a vote against MMC, arguing that the mine would cause irreparable harm to sustainable provincial agriculture, in return for only an estimated 17 years of mineral extraction. In the end, provincial protests defeated the mining interests, despite the national government's support of mining and that industry's crucial role in the Peruvian economy.
A second example of subnational protests triumphing over mining was the conflict around the Yanacocha gold mine in Cajamarca. Although inhabitants of the highlands near Yanacocha supported the mine, agricultural interests at lower elevations resisted, because of pollution caused by cyanide leaching and an infamous mercury spill. When the price of gold rose from $280 per ounce in 2000 to $1222 a decade later, farmers again drew on agricultural associations to organize protests and resistance. The national government supported mining, but the opposition adroitly framed the protests as a contest over water and environmental pollution. This forced the national government to devolve a greater share of the revenues it obtained from the gold mine to the local inhabitants.
Arce's third example involves the region of Bagua in the Peruvian Amazon. President Alan García was determined to open Bagua to economic exploitation and angrily condemned indigenous opposition to the despoliation of the region as an instance of “dog-in-the-manger” syndrome, lamenting that the native inhabitants of Bagua would try to impede Peruvian economic development. Local residents were, however, able to frame the protest movement in a different and more successful way: the development was not sustainable, the national government had not consulted with Bagua before proceeding, and mining trampled on indigenous rights and cultural identity.
In each of these cases, Arce determines that the regional protests succeeded against national and international interests because they managed to use pre-existing organizations effectively and framed the issues so as to win the propaganda war. Furthermore, the regional interests had little choice but to protest because the weak political parties made it impossible to achieve desired outcomes through democratic political competition. Although Peru seemed to enjoy a rising tide of political liberalism and democracy following the Fujimori regime, political outsiders and weak parties characterized the national government, making protests the most effective means to achieve local objectives. This means, Arce argues, that political conditions are more influential than economic factors in explaining Peruvian subnational protests against mining.
