Political Settlements and the Governance of Covid-19:

Mining, Risk, and Territorial Control in Peru

Gisselle Vila Benites, Anthony Bebbington

Journal of Latin American Geography, Volume 19, Number 3, July 2020, pp.
215-223 (Article)

Published by University of Texas Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2020.0081

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/760941

[ Access provided at 27 Aug 2020 19:36 GMT from University of Rochester ]

 Political Settlements and the
Governance of Covid-19: Mining, Risk,
and Territorial Control in Peru
Gisselle Vila Benites
University of Melbourne
Anthony Bebbington
Clark University

abstract
Peru’s response to Covid-19 has favored large-scale mining interests while constraining live-
lihood possibilities for artisanal and small-scale miners. Large-scale mining has been offered
opportunities to reinforce its role in territorial governance and been freed of certain regulatory
requirements. In this essay we identify a significant risk that the response to Covid-19 facilitates
authoritarian forms of government as a legitimate form of rule.

Keywords: political settlements, mining, artisanal and small-scale mining, Peru

O n March 15, 2020, the President of were effectively suspended (MINEM, 2020).
Peru declared a national state of emer- These diverging approaches lead to the main
gency restricting most economic activities in questions asked in this paper: how is the cur-
response to Covid-19. The next day, the presi- rent political settlement affecting national re-
dent of the National Confederation of Private sponses to Covid-19, and how, in due course,
Business Associations (CONFIEP) ques- might the pandemic influence the nature of
tioned this measure: “It cannot be expect- this political settlement?
ed that mining camps will stop for 15 days”
(Gestión, 2020, para. 1)1. The following day, political settlements and mining in
the Ministry of Energy and Mines met with peru
representatives of the mining sector, resulting The interactions between large-scale mining
in the exemption of mining from the state of companies, small-scale miners and the
emergency. This exchange revealed the politi- national government are part of the fabric
cal leverage of the mining sector as well as the of Peru’s political settlement. Political settle-
government’s limited room for maneuvering. ments reflect the balance of power among
Yet, while the government offered formal contending elites and excluded factions in
large-scale mining operations a lifeline, small- society, leading to a particular set of institu-
scale mining was not exempted and, in addi- tions that distribute economic opportunities
tion, all formalization processes in the sector in line with this balance (Di John & Putzel,

JOURNAL OF LATIN AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY 19(3), 215–223

 Journal of Latin American Geography

2009). Settlements are also accommodations We argue that the Peruvian political settle-
of contending territorial projects that reflect ment, which is based on the macroeconomic
different, sometimes opposed, perspec- and fiscal importance of mineral resources,
tives on the legitimate organization of space is protecting the continuation of large-scale
(Bebbington et al., 2018). At the same time, mining operations even at the risk of Covid-
settlements help fix narratives regarding 19 contagion. The government needs to
social order and development. Peru’s politi- sustain fiscal revenue in order to finance
cal settlement both builds and is supported emergency and medium-term responses to
by the idea that Peru is “a mining country” Covid-19, while mining elites do not want
whose development depends on the promo- to compromise their business in the face of
tion and defense of resource extraction. global recession. This response produces
These narratives of social order and devel- uneven geographies of risk in mining terri-
opment help stabilize ideas regarding what tories, underpinned by unique character-
constitutes acceptable and manageable risk izations of the Andes and the Amazon as,
(Muller-Mahn & Everts, 2013). High magni- respectively, isolated and unruly spaces. In
tude events, however, can recalibrate these large-scale mining camps, sustaining oper-
ideas and their intersections with strategies ations increases the exposure of wage
of territorial control. So, even if narratives of miners and communities to Covid-19 and
development in Peru have always balanced strengthens the hands of mining compa-
mining productivity with tolerable risk nies in controlling the governance of these
thresholds (as in “acceptable” levels of pollu- spaces. In regions that depend on small-
tion, or “appropriate” management of tailings scale mining, the government’s response
ponds near human settlements), they have creates pockets of economic vulnerability
been complicated by Covid-19 and the chal- by limiting local populations’ authorized
lenges it raises both for the mining economy options for economic subsistence under the
and for human life and death. Contention state of emergency, with consequent risks of
surrounding appropriate ways of respond- repression or infection. Across all territories,
ing to Covid-19 embodies efforts to protect the possibility of authoritarian practices has
mining interests through a politics of scale increased.
in which contending actors seek to redis-
tribute governance authority and capacity responding to covid-19
among the territories of the mining camp, The initial fifteen-day State of Emergency
regions, and the nation-state. Resulting was subsequently extended and, at the
efforts to produce distinct governable spaces time of this writing, most restrictions have
of risk (see Watts, 2004) have the potential continued through May. Given the implica-
to expand the authority of mining compa- tions for formal and informal employment,
nies while not necessarily reducing risk for the government responded with a USD 28
different types of mining labor and the local billion emergency package, equivalent to
population. 12 percent of GDP (WEF & BBC, 2020).

216
 Jlag perspectives forum
This fund includes direct cash transfers to
support 3 million poor and extremely poor
households as well as 780,000 casual work-
ers. This response sought to offer livelihood
support and encourage compliance with the
quarantine. The deployment of the police,
the military, and army reservists to enforce
restrictions suggests that concerns for social
order also drove the package.
In 2011, gold mining in Madre de Dios
accounted for 68.4 percent of the region’s
GDP (INEI, 2019), rendering it not poor
in terms of government classifications.
Although this figure has since decreased due
to police and military-led interdiction oper-
ations to eradicate illegal mining, with six
districts of the region under state of emer-
gency for more than a year now, many fami-
lies complain that they have been excluded
from the official lists of beneficiaries of the
emergency package (Calloquispe, 2020a).
Moreover, central government efforts to
support mining formalization have also come
to a halt due to the government’s suspen-
sion of administrative procedures–a decision
aimed at preventing public servants’ expo-
sure to contagion (Perú, 2020).
Emergency measures also affect the
macro-economy. The quarantine has para-
lyzed at least 55 percent of the Peruvian
GDP (IPE, 2020). Peru is also affected by
the Covid-19 induced fall in the demand for
minerals. Large-scale mining has been the
principal contributor to the country’s fiscal
stabilization fund, created in 1999 to give the
government spending capacities in the face
of emergencies (Salas et al., 2018). This fund
underwrote the $28 billion stimulus plan, a
fact that mining interests have been keen to
note. It was not surprising, then, that mining
was quickly added to the list of essential
economic activities permitted under the state
of emergency.
The location of mining camps and the
control that companies exert over them have
been used as arguments in support of the
continuation of operations. The Institute
of Mining Engineers of Peru, one of the
most important source of technical advice
to large-scale mining, argued that mines
should remain open because: “Most mining
production units are found in remote and
isolated places, and even those closer to cities
present strict isolation systems to guarantee
the execution of operations” (IIMP, 2020,
para. 3). Peru’s Prime Minister echoed this
sentiment: “Mining activities are allowed
but obviously under some parameters. First,
they have to be enclosed, in total isolation.
Second, they must follow rigorous protocols
and be under constant supervision” (RTV,
2020). Yet the same decree that had the effect
of paralyzing small-scale mining formaliza-
tion processes is also preventing the effec-
tive inspection of large-scale mining. By early
May, eight mining companies had employees
or collaborators infected with Covid-19, a
total of 264 cases, with 216 of these associated
with Antamina Mining Company (Muqui
Informa, 2020). The company had to stop
operations following the identification of
seven cases and the protest of miners.
Under Covid-19, the enclave nature  of
large-scale mining in Andean territories has
been interpreted as an asset because it allows
continued operations in conditions of isola-
tion from broader society. This interpreta-
tion invisibilizes the fears of those who live
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 Journal of Latin American Geography
in and circulate through mining camps. In
Amazonian regions, policy creates livelihood
risk for small-scale miners by freezing their
operations without offering alternative forms
of economic relief, while also increasing the
risk of violent confrontations. In each type of
territory the uneven nature of state control
and its “selective absences” (Szablowski, 2007,
p. 27) create new risks for those who live
and work there. Meanwhile the government
attempts to compensate for its own lack of
capacity to respond to these risks by dele-
gating authority to companies or by giving
new powers to actors who might be predis-
posed to use physical force to install order
should protest emerge. We develop these two
thoughts below.
three areas of concern
an even stronger role for large-
scale mining operations in territorial
governance
The state of emergency has the potential to
enhance the territorial powers of mining
companies in two ways. First, the govern-
ment’s response to Covid-19 has weakened
its capacity to regulate economic activities.
With administrative procedures suspended,
the Assessment and Environmental Control
Agency (OEFA), the Supervisory Agency of
Investment of Energy and  Mining  of Perú
(OSINERGMIN), and the National Labor
Inspection Authority (SUNAFIL) have
essentially ceased overseeing mining oper-
ations, and any efforts to foster processes
of prior consultation with affected commu-
nities have been stalled.2 OEFA has even
suspended the collection of the audit tax, its
218
most important source of revenue for fund-
ing field inspections (OEFA, 2020). While
some companies are merely maintaining
basic operations, others have continued with
extraction and processing activities, and it is
in this context that Covid-19 has emerged
in several mining camps. When additional
mines resume full operations, past experi-
ence suggests that government will further
weaken environmental regulations and tax
obligations in order to stimulate the sector
(Durand, 2016).
Second, in an effort to guide the subna-
tional implementation of Covid-19 poli-
cies, the State has created space for mining
companies to enhance their roles in territo-
rial governance. By assuming state-like func-
tions, companies have already profoundly
reshaped lifeworlds in extractive regions. As
government invites the private sector to be
members of so-called “Covid-19 Regional
Commands” (see below) and partners
with them to deliver subnational Covid-19
responses, it widens opportunities for these
company powers to implement their own
territorial projects and to control regional
actors who may oppose them, as evidenced
in previous experiences of land-use planning
(Preciado et al., 2015).
unchecked use of force in regions with
mining operations
The Peruvian government has previously
imposed states of emergency over mining
territories, both to protect mining projects
of national relevance and to eradicate smaller
scale, unauthorized mining operations in
areas of the Amazon. The deployment of
military and police forces has at times led to
 Jlag perspectives forum
violent confrontations. While, to date, little
of this has happened under Covid-19, the
recent law exempting police and military
actors from criminal responsibility, should
the use of force lead to injury or death, raises
serious concerns (ONU, 2020). Experiences
during Peru’s internal conflict point to the
potential for human and civil rights abuse
when large numbers of reservists, police, and
soldiers are deployed without adequate or
responsible oversight. Invocations of war to
incite the collaboration of citizens not only
reflect authoritarian predispositions shared
by much of Peruvian society, but they also
create legitimating space for militarized inter-
ventions and abuses.
In some regions the government is explic-
itly delegating authority to military actors.
The Covid-19 National Command was
created under the authority of the Minis-
try of Health to coordinate the emergency
response and foster the creation of the
Regional Commands noted earlier. These
Commands bring together representatives
from public and private sectors, civil society,
and other actors. While not the case in all
regions, members of the military have been
chosen as leaders of Covid-19 commands
in Arequipa, Lambayeque, and Loreto, with
the disagreement of the National Associa-
tion of Regional Governments. The appoint-
ments have been justified on the grounds that
regional governments have been ineffective
in leading the emergency response. This
nonetheless constitutes a military fix to polit-
ical tensions that justifies increased military
control: on April 16, the armed forces were
officially integrated to the Covid-19 National
Command.
Finally, high gold prices and the absence
of alternatives to small-scale mining may also
lead to increased risk and violent encoun-
ters. As local jobs in Madre de Dios depend
on the mining economy, either illegal or
informal, freezing mining without offering
alternative incomes generates tensions. One
miner has been killed in a confrontation
with the military and the police for extract-
ing gold in a forbidden area under the quar-
antine (Calloquispe, 2020b). For their part,
Indigenous communities have sought to
abide by the quarantine, closing commu-
nity borders and applying careful vigilance
(Santos et al., 2020). The government has
responded poorly to their requests for assis-
tance in protecting their territories against
unwanted gold extractors, providing one
more illustration that military force is being
deployed to enforce the state of emergency
rather than protect rights. Indeed, while
Madre de Dios is constantly represented
as a violent frontier where illegal interests
thrive, national lawmaking suggests it might
be better understood as a territory that polit-
ical and economic elites sideline and subject
to ordering by armed forces.
resource dependence: sticking to the
path
Representatives of the large-scale mining
sector have insisted that without their oper-
ations there will be no reactivation of the
economy nor funds to fight Covid-19. That
mining is the core of the national economy
is hardly a new narrative, but Covid-19 offers
it one more vehicle of expression. Yet the
outbreak has made clearer than ever the
fact that Peru’s elites have long abandoned
219
 Journal of Latin American Geography
investment in public healthcare services and
that mining booms have done nothing to
change this. Peru has one of the lowest levels
of healthcare investment in the Americas.
Mineral dependence has not fostered inclu-
sive development (Burchardt & Dietz, 2014)
nor built the public institutions necessary
for such inclusion, and this has much to do
with the asymmetries of power on which
the country’s political settlement is based
(Bebbington et al., 2018). The government’s
response to Covid-19 once again understands
social policy in terms of targeted monetary
transfers rather than identifying opportuni-
ties to build equity-enhancing institutions.
The narratives emanating from elite parties
to the political settlements only endorse this
approach.
Post-Covid-19 politics could look differ-
ent if social protest channels dissatisfaction
with this failure to use mining revenues to
invest in public health. Indeed, there is some
evidence that protest can lead to institu-
tional change, even if many of these changes
have been poorly implemented (Bebbing-
ton et al., 2018). However, as the political
settlement’s response to Covid-19 makes
clear, any such protest will have to confront
the narrative that, above all else, Peru needs
to expand its extractive frontier in order to
promote development understood as mone-
tary transfers rather than institutional trans-
formations. Protest would also have to take
on new expressions under social distancing.
final remarks
In this essay, we have examined how the
current political settlement in Peru is
responding to Covid-19. We argue that the
220
political settlement based on large-scale
mining, and the narratives of development
and order that this settlement helps foster,
are doing much to structure forms of Covid-
19 governance. These narratives emphasize
the need to prioritize large-scale mining as
a motor of development, the capacities of
mining companies in territorial governance,
and the legitimate role of force in establish-
ing social order. They recognize the value of
protecting life, but always in balance with
the need to protect productivity and taxable
profit. Meanwhile, they cast small-scale
mining territories as privileged, deviant, and
unruly, and therefore in need of authoritarian
order. These narratives, and the territories
that they prioritize and vilify, reflect who are,
and who are not, parties to the current polit-
ical settlement. These reflections may also
apply to other cases in Latin America (e.g.,
Colombia; see ARM, 2020).
In each of the instances explored—the
mining camp, the region, and the national
government—large-scale mining is being
offered opportunities to reinforce its role in
the governance of territories and livelihoods
through new instances of risk management.
Conversely, small-scale mining is sidelined
by the political settlement, leaving miner-
al-dependent households facing uncertainty
and precarious, violent, day-to-day struggles.
Across all governable spaces we identify a
significant risk that the response to Covid-
19 facilitates “authoritarian governmentality”
(Dean, qtd. in Watts, 2004, p. 53) as a legiti-
mate form of rule.
There is a real possibility that Covid-19
will end up reinforcing mineral-resource
dependence and the political settlement
 Jlag perspectives forum

that sustains it. Downstream of this crisis,
demands for increased investment in public
health and other social sectors will support
arguments for the expansion of large-scale
mining on the grounds that it is needed to
finance public action. The mining-centered
nature of Peru’s political settlement could,
however, change if societal indignation were
to demand not only increased public expen-
diture but also equity-enhancing institutions
that challenge the existing social and territo-
rial balance of power.
We live in hope.

notes
1 All translations from Spanish-language sources are by the authors.
2 SUNAFIL and OEFA have requested some information from companies. These actions do
not imply the physical presence of the agencies.

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