Bolivia and Bulgaria: miners block roads
Jul 5 2007 20:39
Quote:
LA PAZ, July 4 (Reuters) - Several thousand striking miners from Bolivia's biggest tin mine continued a road block protest for a second day on Wednesday, rejecting government offers to discuss their demands, local media and union leaders said.The strike, which has brought the Huanuni mine to a virtual standstill, is the latest unrest to hit the mine. Late last year, at least 16 people died in clashes between rival miners fighting for control of its mineral riches.
Following the bloodshed, leftist President Evo Morales passed a decree giving full control of the site to state mining company Comibol. The strikers want that decree to be turned into a law, as well as increased investment in the mine and tough action against looters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N04266205.htm
Quote:
Bulgaria's Protesting Miners to Block Main Road Again5 July 2007, Thursday
The protesting miners from the Maritza Iztok mines will try to block again the road connecting the towns of Russe and Svilengrad on Thursday, despite the yesterday's clashes with the police.
Police have already arrived at the place of the protest to wait for the minors, the local leader of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) said.
It is possible that the miners go on effective strike within two weeks, the chairman of the national striking committee of CITUB Valentin Nikiforov said.
After the Wednesday clashes, trade unionists say that three miners suffered injuries from tear gas and another two policemen were seriously hurt, when 600 protesting workers clashed with police some 6 kilometres away from the place where the protest had to take place.
The miners were travelling in their working busses when the police stopped them and forced the men to get out.
The workers protest for a fourht day in a row, demanding a removal of the income tax imposed on the social expenditures and a change in the order for labour categories.
The miners have vowed to block the road every day for an hour in the morning until the government answers their pleas.
Jul 5 2007 20:50
#2
Apparently there are a fair few things going on in Bolivia right now. I can pm you a brief summary of my (french) source to help you get background for this if you like David. Otherwise I'll knock something together myself.
Jul 5 2007 21:27
#3
I don't wanna clog up the news section with cut and pastes from labourstart. I'll see if there's anything I can manage a rough translation of on Bolivia imc.
Jul 5 2007 22:31
#4
David - we do that half the time - well cuts and pastes with rewrites and the odd bit from elsewhere.
miners about to strike in Mexico as well:
Jul 5 2007 23:08
#5
catch wrote:
David - we do that half the time - well cuts and pastes with rewrites and the odd bit from elsewhere.
Libcom news is 100% original 
for real though no one should be copying and pasting, that's just asking for trouble.
Jul 5 2007 23:11
#6
Yeah you shouldn't just copy and paste. But you can use the information and rephrase everything, and cut anything irrelevant out, as long as it's not AP/Reuters etc. I think.
Jul 5 2007 23:14
#7
might be an idea to remove the agency names in case they google. I've also stopped linking to stories I might use in the forums. I pmd david some (legit) stuff for this, but just a few lines translated from a french lefty site.
Sadly the commie blog I was lifting from has ground to a halt, going to email him and tell him to get his act together.
Jul 7 2007 02:03
#8
It doesn't look like I'm going to be able to get anything done on this in a timely fashion. Next time!
Jul 7 2007 12:06
#9
Ok then, I'll give it a go.
edit: done
Jul 18 2007 15:57
#10
There's another take to the story at Prensa del Frente.
http://www.prensadefrente.org/pdfb2/index.php/new/2007/04/27/p2805
Excerpts from an interview with a representative of the cooperative miners along with a brief history of the mining industry in Bolivia and the role of the cooperative works in keeping it alive and an analysis that concludes with a much needed reminder that nationalization of the means of production is not the same as socialization.
Jul 24 2007 11:58
#11
For any Spanish speakers here are a couple of interesting articles on the situation in Latin America;
1. a letter to us by a correspondent in Peru about the struggle there: http://es.internationalism.org/ccionline/2007/peru_luchas.htm
2. an article by our section in Venezuela about a very interesting student movement there (we are in the process of translating this article and it will be on our website pretty soon)
http://libcom.org/node/add/news