| | Bolivia to nationalize mines following deadly clash by miners
The Associated Press
Published: October 15, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia President Evo Morales on Sunday announced plans to nationalize Bolivia's mines as part of an overhaul of the South American country's mining regulations after a violent clash earlier this month between rival miners' groups that killed 16 people.
Morales nationalized the South American nation's oil and gas reserves on May 1, giving international companies six months to cede majority control of their Bolivian operations to the state or leave the country.
"We started with hydrocarbons, and the next step are the minerals," Morales said while giving away tractors to local farmers in the town of Challapata, 120 miles south of the capital La Paz.
"There will be some surprises with tin, silver and gold. These minerals must pass to the Bolivian state under the social control of the Bolivian people. That is the next urgent step we must take."
Newly appointed Mining Minister Guillermo Dalence said Sunday the nationalization plan would be launched on October 31, the anniversary of the first nationalization of mines during a national revolution in 1952.
Morales' words were a stronger reiteration of a nationalization plan he put forth immediately following the deadly battle Oct. 5-6 between independent and state-employed miners over the right to work the Huanuni tin mine. Then Morales had said the state would only expropriate mines where foreign operators had not invested sufficiently.
In the first half of 2006, Bolivian mines exported minerals worth US$483 million (€385 million), according to the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Commerce. The metals, mostly zinc, silver, gold, and tin, together represented Bolivia's largest export after natural gas.
Morales' administration is continuing negotations with independent miners' cooperatives who stormed the Huanuni mine on October 5. State-employed miners counterattacked, and the rival bands exchanged gunfire and dynamite for two days before 700 riot police restored order.
Both groups see Huanuni's rich vein of tin as a source of steady employment in South America's poorest country.
The government has proposed expanding the operations of national mining company Comibol at Huanuni and other mines, and offering the independent miners salaried state jobs.
However, the independents have rejected the offer, demanding that their cooperatives be granted greater access to the Bolivia's mineral deposits.
Though nationalized in 1952, many of Bolivia's mines have since been privatized. While now under state control, the Huanuni mine was operated between 2000 and 2005 by the British firm Allied Deals, now known as RBG Resources.
Morales, a former coca-grower, was elected in December as Bolivia's first indigenous president. Besides nationalizing the petroleum industry, he has also called an assembly to rewrite the country's constitution and proposed a dramatic land reform bill that would redistribute unproductive land to Bolivia's poor.
International energy companies affected by the oil and gas nationalization, including Brazil's state-run Petrobras and the Spanish Argentine firm Repsol YPF, have until October 28 to sign new contracts with the Bolivian government.
The nationalization process has suffered some set backs in recent months, including the resignation of key energy officials and struggles by Bolivia's own state petroleum company to assume control of the country's oil and gas reserves, South America's second largest after Venezuela.
While some Bolivian lawmakers have proposed pushing the deadline back to allow negotiations to continue without pressure, Morales' administration remains committed to the current deadline.
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