In the Lima Fog

I’m in Lima. The buzz and chaos in the city, caused by the official and alternative conference were immediately obvious on arriving last night.

The airport, hotels and roads are full. As my driver from the airport pointed out, half the roads are shut off for security reasons and the other half, were dug up in advance of the summit, but “in true Peruvian style, haven’t quite been repaired just yet”. There were frantic road works going on as we drove through the city at midnight.

Reading the papers this morning, the main topics of interest related to the summit are the road blocks and inconvenience of the security measures, the 6,000 police that have been transferred into the city and the public holiday that’s been declared during the official summit.

But its great also see that civil society groups are already achieving some of their aims by publicising some of their concerns. The summit doesn’t start till tomorrow, but the demands and themes of the alternative summit are in the press.

La Primera newspaper for example, carries an articles setting out the accusations against some of the companies which are to be judged in the People's Tribunal, including Majaz, a mining company which is accused of not respecting community’s right to consultation and operating illegally in various location. Guarango, a Progressio Partner organisation supported the community in Piura to publicise their problems and their community referendum in which an enormous majority voted against the mine last year in September. You can see some of the videos they produced on You Tube