THE GHOST OF OLD MINE
Rock from the 70’s pounds our van’s speakers while our driver struggles to escape the riots. We watch the burning tires blocking the main highways in the middle of the night as we wonder if we would make it safely to our destination. We had spent the last 36 hours on buses, borders and terminals of the harsh Andean Altiplano, Bolivia welcomes us in unexpected way.
In the past years, Bolivia has developed one of the most successful Latin American economies. According to Trading Economics, the country is expected to have a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth of 5% in the next 4 years. This growth has allowed the country to increase investment in health, education and poverty alleviation programs, and keeps showing a solid and constant economic tendency. This reality can be seen on the streets near the government headquarters, but mostly on the faces of the now empowered Bolivians that have been given a new voice and representation. Evo Morales’ leadership has changed the Bolivians' perspective of what is in their power to demand. Miners, farmers and peasants saw for the first time the face of a president that would sit by their side and chat as if he was one of them.
The Incident in which Bolivian interior minister was kidnapped and beaten to death by miners on Aug 2016 was still cloudy.. He had planned a meeting with the mineworkers of Panduro (100 miles from La Paz) to peace out the protests of the moment. But what is really happening in the Bolivian mines of La Paz. We put newspapers aside and went looking for a perspective of reality looked from a different angle. Quime is a peculiar place nestled in the midst of the Bolivian highlands, is not what we would call a Trip Advisor destination. From the look on the face of the señor who owned the last corner store open at this hour, foreigners were not customary. Unlike most little Andean towns, the buildings here can reach up to 6 floors, posh cars parade through the narrow streets and people simply seem to have a different disposition. Why? Over 7 mines are located in a radius of less than 60 miles. We took all of our gear and left the squeaky beds of our hotel to meet our contact. He picked us up in a desayuno spot where we had some coca tea to get ourselves ready for the day. Our car broke down a few times due to a 15,000ft elevation, but our moral remained intact.
To our surprise, we found in the mines a tranquility that was not reflected in the capital’s surroundings. Most people didn’t even know about the whole situation. We walked around the mines freely as we shared smiles with the workers. At times they would even explain the extraction process and pose for our cameras. Despite the raw reality of South American poverty with kids shovelling mineral leftovers, old-fashioned equipment and badly treated installations, complaining was not part of the miners’ speech. From what we learned about the mining industry from the past half-century, Bolivians have come a long way, but there is still much more to be done.
The biggest episode of hyperinflation in Bolivia started back in April 1984, when in a period of 17 months, prices of basic food products increased by up to 625 times (source: IMF). Bolivia was facing the consequences of the generalized Latin American economic crisis and the drop of the mineral prices on the world market. COMIBOL, CorporacÃon Minera de Bolivia, had no choice but to lay off thousands of miners but unfortunately money was not available to compensate everyone. COMIBOL then decided to give away some mines, of different sizes and types of production to the workers as a way of compensation. These new groups of people would now form cooperatives under the government’s demand. In order to benefit of tax deductions and other advantages, these people had to fulfill certain requisites, which is what they were able to do at first. Following the rise of mineral prices decades later, the few cooperative members that made it through the economic crisis were highly benefited. The now wealthy owners of these mines needed more workforce to answer to this new demand from the international market. At this point, cooperative members had widely violated the agreement with the government, hiring people instead of making them associated owners. Technically, they started functioning as businesses but still benefited from their cooperative title. Morales had promised the people to fight for their rights, so the government decided to intervene in favour of the wide number of miners exploited by these cooperatives. The government did not only demand rightful benefits for the working mass through the creation of syndicates but also the reevaluation of their status. Facing the threat of cut-off earnings, owners instigated the rise of the workers against the government by lying to the miners about the actual intentions of the authorities and manipulating their actions. These actions, protests and confrontations lead to the incarceration, torture and murder of a minister that, like his president, had approached the miners for a chat.
The more freedom given to the business, the more prisons needed for those affected by them (…) Eduardo Galeano
Bolivians have learned to be proud of who they are and their work is a major part of their identity. There is not a drop of submission in their behavior. However, we did feel the natural cycle of capitalism transpiring from the people in charge of the mines. We realized that most miners knew very little of the reality of the Bolivian mining industry, which made their manipulation by the contractors even easier. It’s a harsh scenario for the actors of the new economy in Bolivia.