More than 600 mineworkers went back to work at the Colquiri zinc-tin mining complex in Bolivia on 8 October after a lengthy conflict between co-operative and salaried workers over access to mining areas. Work at the mine restarted early Monday despite new unrest over the weekend, in which the co-operative miners set off small sticks of dynamite to “celebrate,” an occasion that left some three dozen people injured, and was seen by employees of state mining company Comibol as a provocation, BN Americas reported. Military and police were deployed to the zone as a preventative measure against further clashes.
The Bolivian government will send a technical commission to visit Colquiri in order to allocate exploration areas to both Comibol and the co-operative workers. Comibol’s president, Hector Córdova, who had previously complained publicly about the undue influence of the co-operatives in the mining sector, resigned during the unrest. The organised part of the operation, controlled up to May by Glencore, produced 2,200 tonnes of tin-in-concentrate in 2011.
