Source: Reuters
CHALA, Peru, April 6 (Reuters) - Peruvian President Alan Garcia said on Tuesday new laws to curb wildcat mining may be amended but insisted miners must first remove a roadblock on a main highway where six people died in a clash with police.
Garcia, a pro-business centrist, suggested the possible change as thousands of wildcat miners -- mainly unlicensed, small-scale operators -- blocked traffic on the Pan-American Highway leading to Chile in a protest against the laws.
Opposition parties also demanded that Congress modify or scrap the measures, intensifying pressure on Garcia and his ruling APRA party ahead of general elections due to be held next year.
"If the roadblock is ended, then the laws could be improved and made better ... maybe by lengthening the timelines," Garcia told reporters. "But nobody wants to negotiate with a pistol held to their head."
Garcia said the miners might be allowed more time to meet the new standards. [ID:n N06194262]
The wildcat operators are a key part of Peru's mining sector, producing 10 to 20 percent of the gold for the world's sixth largest producer. But they are also blamed for leaching toxic mercury into the environment.
After refusing on Monday to consider amending the laws, the Peruvian leader softened his tone as opposition leaders maneuvered to hold a vote in Congress this week to modify the new measures, which they said have caused too much conflict.
Four protesters and two bystanders were killed on Sunday when police tried to clear the miners' roadblock near Chala, 372 miles (600 km) south of the capital Lima. Twenty protesters and nine officers were injured in the clash, police said.
"The objective is to attend to the legislative demands of the miners ... to start to calm the waters and the tension that we are seeing right now," Yohny Lescano of the opposition Accion Popular party said of the move to modify the laws.
Garcia has backtracked before on controversial issues, including his government's management of natural resources.
Last year he asked legislators to repeal laws designed to lure billions of dollars in foreign investment to the Amazon basin after violent clashes between angry indigenous groups and police that left more than 30 people dead.
He had passed the laws by decree and initially refused to modify them.
The United Nations has accused his administration of failing to avert social unrest.
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday blamed police for the deaths on Sunday and demanded a swift investigation.
The highway blockade was briefly lifted for two hours on Monday night to let some trucks and buses through, but club-wielding miners later closed the road again.
Even as he showed more flexibility on Tuesday, Garcia insisted that wildcat miners must stop dredging rivers.
He said that Peru risked angering its neighbors, including South American economic powerhouse Brazil, if it continued to contaminate rivers in the Amazon Basin with mercury that would work its way into the food chain of the rainforest.
Peru is a leading exporter of zinc, copper and gold and a major importer of mercury, most of which ends up in the hands of wildcat miners who use it to isolate gold from clumps of mud and rock.