by MARGARET BOLAND
Aymara protesters display a flag stained with blood after clashes with police during protests over a mining project southeast of Lima. PHOTO/Reuters/The Globe and Mail
Peru has showcased remarkable economic growth in the past decade, shedding its troubled financial history and significantly emerging in the international market. Many attribute the recent economic successes of Peru to a booming commodities market that has provided Peruvian mines with an influx of foreign investment and, consequently, a surge in mining exports.
However, Peru’s reliance on the mining sector to sustain economic performance and modernize the country has failed to generate mass economic improvements for the rural poor, many of whom are further marginalized by the focus now being fixed on the increase in mining exports and the failure to address widespread inequality. Although the environmental consequences of mining in Peru and the local protests that have followed are concerns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, these issues will not be addressed in this report (though this crucial topic certainly deserves further in-depth analysis). Instead, this article addresses the socioeconomic isolation that constrains rural peoples largely due to their proximity to mining projects and the failure of public and private initiatives to address the root of this disparity. Ultimately, the neoliberal economic model adopted by the Peruvian government, which relies on mineral exports, prevents the rural contingency of the population access to economic prosperity.
Council on Hemispheric Affairs for more