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Last Thursday, the president of the Federation of Copper Workers, Amador Pantoja, announced the end of the strike that, for two days, put the president’s government on alert Chilean Gabriel Boric. Pantoja was seen wearing a mask, the same defense that the children of the Quintero-Puchuncaví bay have used for years to avoid being intoxicated by the consequences of the work carried out by the Ventanas smelter, one of the divisions of the National Copper Corporation. (Codelco).
In the ‘Chilean Chernobyl‘, as these areas of Valparaiso, has lived for decades between diseases, fainting and nose bleeds. Just at the beginning of this month, the pollution it caused some 115 people, most of them minors, to become intoxicated.
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That’s the reality in those parts of Chiliwhich, forced by the State since 1958, left aside artisanal fishing and agriculture to make way for what they are now “four coal-fired thermoelectric plants and crude oil and copper refineries”. Tired of the situation and from time to time receiving the toxic embrace of a gray cloud, the citizens protested and pointed to Ventanas as one of the main culprits. In response, borik He maintained that they would close the foundry, and hence his workers organized a strike.
There are three reasons that explain the state’s abandonment of Quintero-Puchuncavi. “The first is that Codelco has a very good reputation -holds the Chilean political scientist Patricio Navia-. It is the company that Eduardo Frei and Salvador Allende nationalized and that, when democracy returned, produced almost 70% of the copper. Now it processes about 30%, but it is still very important”.
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The second thing is that in Chili there is a lot of demand for Codelco process the copper: there is a kind of popular clamor to industrialize the country, so exporting the raw material is frowned upon. “People do want refineries. But he also wants them to be clean, and for now both requests do not go hand in hand”. Finally, the law requires that it be Windows the one that refines the copper of the small mining companies; The latter are the ones that hire the most in the sector.
With a matter of real and symbolic dimensions, Boric would have kicked the ball to the other court. “To close Ventanas, the government would have to change the law and it does not have enough votes in Congress. What they did was buy time and avoid conflicts until the plebiscite of the new Constitution Navia maintains. The miners are guaranteed work for at least one more year and they think that this legislation has no future. Meanwhile, Boric will say that they tried, but that it was a matter of Congress”.
Could this be the first big victory of borik? For Navia, delaying the discussion until after the referendum on September 4 is a big step, but the real triumph will be winning that referendum. “As long as the new Constitution is not approved, he will not be able to advance his reform agenda. But if it happens, the situation will change radically”.
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Contaminated messages
Stéphanie Alenda, Research Director of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences of the Andrés Bello Universitysays that the way in which the Government is being managed is very erraticthat for his “inexperience in the government function, the feeling of ineffectiveness and mismanagement is being generated”. Yes borik promised there would be no moresacrifice zones” in the country (such as those of the ‘Chilean Chernobyl‘), it is not understood why the strike of the copper workers was not anticipated.
It was not the only miscalculation. Alenda recalls the appointment of theAdmiral Jorge Parga as head of National Defense of the troubled provinces of Arauco and Bio Bio, and his subsequent dismissal due to complaints that he was responsible for the death of the community member Yordan Llempi. There is also the controversy over the change in the name of the office of the first ladywhich was renamed Cabinet of Irina Karamanosin honor of the president’s partner, a decision that also had to be reversed.
“The data says that the president borik It is the worst evaluated in its first hundred days since 2014, with 54% disapproval. One of the explanations could be that the Government does not manage itself in a clear line, there are permanent zigzags, and that contaminates the perception”.
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What happens inside the government? For the specialist, there is a clash between two ways of thinking. “For example, him Socialist Party asks to extend the state of emergency in Araucanía and Bío Bío; and on the other side is the wide frontwho believes that it is an uncomfortable route for a management that is committed to structural changes, despite the fact that they collide with the need for pragmatism”.
It is true that there will be less uncertainty if Boric wins the plebiscite -today, according to “La Tercera”, only 11% “wants the new Magna Carta approved as proposed”-, but maintaining stability will not depend solely on him. Alenda recalls that his reforms are very expensive and that there could be gaps in a context of global crisis. To this should be added the setbacks themselves. She concludes: “If copper production is paralyzed again or agriculture is affected, the recessive trends in the world economy could accentuate the problems”. Then, the president will have to face much more serious problems and it will be more difficult for him to clear up the problems.
Source: Elcomercio
I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.
