9th day of strikes, riots in apurimac

there are however, some related photos of peruvians getting beaten by police which was rather unsettling.


Tension in southern Peru after fighting that left 87 injured
DATED
22 11 2009

A remote area of southern Peru on Saturday was energized on Saturday, a day after a clash between police and civilians that left 87 injured, officials said. Continue reading the printed article

"The report I have is that there is a tense calm ... and if not restored the order declaring a state of emergency," he told The Associated Press Prime Minister Javier Velasquez.

Residents of Abancay-capital of the Apurimac region, 480 kilometers southeast of Lima, battled on Friday afternoon the police on the ninth day of protest against regional president, David Salazar, who accuse the unequally distributed budget for 2010 in order to promote to a neighboring town called Andahuaylas.

Abancay and Andahuaylas are two cities in the Apurimac region, founded the sixteenth century, that historically have competed for different reasons.

"Counts late Friday clash left 30 police injured and 57 civilians were also wounded, five of the latter civilians were shot," confirmed to the AP, the police chief of Apurimac, General Carlos Medel.

The police chief said the central government sent more than 200 police to the conflict zone to avoid possible disturbances.

On Saturday night there were skirmishes between youths who threw stones at houses in Abancay, RPP radio reported.

The Prime Minister said that large mining investments in Apurimac, most with foreign capital, "may affect" to continue the protests.

The regional president, who left the city of Abancay and is in Peru's capital, told the AP "that mining investments will not be harmed in any way because the places where the projects are operating away from the areas of protests" .

In Apurimac operates 24 mining projects and the most important are the chances of Southern Copper Corporation, Xstrata Copper's Las Bambas, Apurimac Ferrum Strike Resources Limited and Ares Hochschild Mining.

Official figures say that mining investments in Peru now exceed 20,000 million dollars.

According to the Ombudsman of Peru's social conflicts, there are 56 local and regional origin in the Andean country.