Yanacocha
Yanacocha gold mine is located in the province and department of Cajamarca Region, about 800 kilometers northeast of Lima, Peru in the Northern highlands at 3,500 and 4,100 meters above sea level.
During Ramandi's 1859 expedition to Yanacocha, he noted mines "by the name of Carachugo, and they are in a porous quartz rock, their tunnels are very long..." In 1962 the Guggenheim Bros. ASARCO filed three claims following their discovery of the Michiquillay porphyry copper deposit in 1957.
[citation needed] After the fall of Fujimori in 2000, a number of videos Montesinos had taped of himself meeting with several domestic and foreign leaders and offering bribes and accepting them had emerged.
In the video Montesinos claimed to have found e-mails from Paris to Peru of French officials trying to influence the court to get a decision favorable to France.
He told Quiroga that if the decision went to Newmont, the United States would back Peru in its border dispute with Ecuador which had exploded into the Cenepa War a few years prior.
[citation needed] In July 1999, Montesinos was seen with the then departing CIA station chief "Don Arabian" on the third video, giving him a gift and thanking him for the help he gave Peru stating "[W]e hope that when you're back there [in Washington] you'll remember your friends".
On June 2, 2000, 151 kilograms of mercury were spilled when transported by a contracted truck from Yanococha to the Pacific coast, contaminating the town of Choropampa[12] and two neighboring villages.
[12] Local environmental activists have claimed that mining operations, which use large quantities of a dilute cyanide solution, have contaminated the water sources, leading to the disappearance of fish and frogs, illnesses among cattle, air pollution, and loss of medicinal plants.
Due to the process of dewatering taking place across at least six million tons of wetlands, water is not only removed from natural underground caches, but prevented from entering back in through rainfall.
This has affected the livelihoods of some women in Cajamarca as growing livestock and agricultural projects required these more open areas of nature to take place.
But the mediation talks failed to produce a settlement and eleven hundred campesinos, announced they would go ahead with their suit in Denver district court.
[25] The mercury spill had also led to two separate complaints to the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC)/Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
Starting in 2001 the CAO held a series of meetings with local stakeholders who raised concerns regarding the impacts of the mine, and made suggestions for transparent dialogue between the community and Yanacocha.
In February 2006 the CAO concluded its involvement and published an "Exit Report" which included a table summarizing progress made against the original concerns raised by the community in 2001.
[26] At the beginning of August 2006, protests broke out against the expansion of the company's Carachugo pit, building a dam (El Azufre) near the village of Combayo.
Residents of Combayo blocked the roads leading to the dam, protesting against possible contamination of water supplies and expressed their disappointment in sharing in social and economical benefits of the mining project.
At the end of August 2006, Carachugo II was closed for three days as local farmers blocked the entrance roads to the pit demanding clarification of the death of Isidro.
[27] On 2 November 2006, Edmundo Becerra Corina, an environmentalist and opponent of Yanacocha's gold mining project, was shot dead in Yanacanchilla, Cajamarca province.
In November 2006 two members of Grufides, Father Marco Arana and Mirtha Vasquez reported receiving several death threats and were followed and filmed both at work and at home.
[29][30] On 15 June 2007, several local farmers, including two minors, were injured and taken into custody by public and private police forces paid by Yanacocha in the village of Totoracocha.
From 2011 to 2017 the company used threats over phone call, destruction of property, home invasions, utilization of state police, and legal action to make Màxima give up her land.
