LIMA (Reuters) -Informal miners in Peru suspended talks with the government and may resume protests due to disagreements in negotiations, one of the protest leaders said on Friday. CONFEMIN union leader, Maximo Franco Bequer, told reporters the government refused to alter an August 17 deadline for miners to move explosives into formal “powder magazines.”
He said 20,000 miners who cannot meet the deadline would be excluded from a government program to formalize their work. The miners, located in the Cusco region, had suspended their two-week-long protest on July 15 that had blocked a major copper transit route used by mining firms MMG, Glencore and Hudbay.
Informal miners in Peru operate with temporary permits under a program created over a decade ago that the government has been trying to end. The miners say the stricter regulations to formalize their work and operate legally are too onerous and would likely leave them without employment.
The union expects to meet in the coming hours to decide on new protests.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Natalia Siniawski; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Hogue)
