With the premise that “not all that shines is gold” the executive director of The Group of Formation and Intervention for the Sustainable Development (Grufides) of Peru, Mirtha Vasquez, denounced today the water contamination case of Cajamarca zone, by the miner Yanacocha, a US company that has capital even from the World Bank.

In the Latin-American Tribunal of Water (TLA) the activist said that Yanacocha Miner explodes the most important mine of gold of Latin-America and it’s the largest in the world in the process of getting gold with cyanide leaches, this is why the north town of Cajamarca in Peru contributes with the 7 per cent of the “Gross Internal Product”, however it is the second poorest town of Peru.

While the miner gets a production of 2.4 million of Ounces for year, the chronic undernourishment in kids has increased, the 77.4 per cent of the inhabitants live in poor conditions, and this causes high rates of infantile mortality.

In name of the farmer communities of Haumbocanacha Baja and Yanacanchilla Alta, that are part of the 32 towns that form Cajamarca, the Grifides representative denounced this case to the TLA and demanded to this ethic and moral tribunal to sanction the starvation of the Peruvian State that does nothing to protect its own people.

The Grifides representative asked for a recommendation to give at the Peruvian State, this recommendation would be to stop the exploration and exploitation of mines over the basin’s head, the application of control systems and mitigate the impact, also the investment for environment control and an indemnification to Cajamarca communities for this terrible contamination.

She denounced that Peruvian Government leaded before by Fujimori and now for a “democratic” Toledo have persecuted the farmer leaders who are considered by them as terrorists for being against a national or public interest like mining, even when it damages its own population.

She also said that since the beginning of operations the production of gold have been “in crescendo” (increasing), while the cost of gold production in Yanacocha is one of the lowest of the world.

Yanacocha, so-called “the diamond of the queen’s crown” for its world production and profitability, it’s seen as a company of social and environmental responsibility of the country, in spite of many complaint reports of contamination with substances as cyanide to the rivers of that Peruvian zone.

In an interview the director of Grufides considered regrettable the situation of the communities for 11 years of miner activity by Yanacocha company, “the situation is irreversible, because we are drinking contaminated water and its effects are accumulative”.

In a document signed by the Minister of Energy and Mines of Peru, Clodomiro Sánchez Mejia, the Peruvian Government says that the mining is essential for the development and international companies that operate in that nation have high standards as well as social and environmental responsibility.

Javier Velarde Zapater, director of Inner Affairs of Yanacocha Miner, makes in a second letter an invitation to the judges of the TLA to make a supervision of the mine, also, he says that Peru has public instances where “the denounced case” should have been discussed before going to the TLA.

06/LG/GT