Wave of protests and beating squadsGlobal lithium hunger escalates in Argentina Von Roland Peters, Buenos Aires06/25/2023 10:03 am
In February, Governor Gerardo Morales was highly enthusiastic: "Unstoppable development" is progressing, he says in the extreme north-west of Argentina: the signed investment by a Chinese company in a tax-free zone near its provincial capital, San Salvador de Jujuy, will become part of a "cluster for development of the lithium industry in the region". But a few months later, the far north of Argentina is in turmoil.
In the past week, the seething conflict between business interests and residents has escalated. A constitutional reform in Jujuy Province drove thousands of people onto the streets for days. Social movements, indigenous communities and trade unions also vented anger against state forces who used rubber bullets, batons and tear gas. The demonstrators set up roadblocks and responded with a shower of stones.
It's about central questions for the future, also for the Global North and its transition to electromobility: Who is allowed to dig for the raw materials on whose land around 1200 kilometers northwest of the capital Buenos Aires? What rights do the people who live on it and from it up to now have? What resistance is allowed?
"The complete institutional structure of the constitutional amendments facilitates the limitless mining of lithium, with no controls, no environmental protection and no regard for indigenous peoples," said a Jujuy lawmaker. At the same time, Argentina's inflation of over 100 percent is eating up salaries. It is a socio-political poison cocktail that generates anger.
Provincial governor Gerardo Morales, not known for his social warmth, could also become Argentina's next vice president in the elections in a few months - and he continued to incite the anger verbally. Morales insulted the demonstrators, repeatedly describing them as puppets of an allegedly mafia-like Peronist national government; President Alberto Fernández and his deputy Cristina Kirchner ruled there as "putschists" like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, he tones.
"There's a hunt going on"
The Andean province of Jujuy borders Bolivia to the north and Chile to the west, which together with Argentina belong to the South American Lithium Triangle. Here is by far the largest known reserve of the raw material in the world, and potentially the second largest in Argentina alone. Lithium is extracted here from salt flats and salt lakes in sparsely populated areas of the provinces of Jujuy, Salta and Catamarca. According to the current status, "the white gold" is essential for high-performance batteries and thus the transition to electromobility. The resistance in Argentina also has an international dimension.
The town of Pumamarca, a popular tourist destination in the Andean Cordillera, is a center of the protests in Jujuy. Groups from around 50 indigenous communities blocked the highway there this week. They are afraid that the land on which they live could be taken away from them for raw material extraction as a result of the constitutional change. On Tuesday, 170 people were injured and 68 arrested in Jujuy, the peak of the protests so far. Participants reported of police officers in San Salvador infiltrating meetings and inciting violence, of beating squads, of violent house searches without a warrant. There is a video recording of one.
A black-clad, unmarked armed commando kicks in a door. Screams can be heard in the house, shortly afterwards the uniformed men come out again, they jump on a white pickup and drive away; a woman shouts curses at them. "There's a hunt going on," said a leading activist. "They've replaced the Falcon with the Hilux." An accusation in Argentina can hardly be much more serious. The helpers of the last military dictatorship often kidnapped opponents of the regime in the infamous Ford Falcon model cars. 30,000 people disappeared, were tortured, killed. Hilux is Toyota's model, which can be seen in the video.
The United Nations criticized the violence of the police on Wednesday, pointing out, among other things, that some demonstrators had suffered serious head injuries and called for an investigation into the incidents. The Human Rights Commission of the OAS and Amnesty International also sharply criticized the procedure. The UN called for the "deep-lying reasons for the protests" to be addressed in dialogue. One of them is: the internationally so coveted lithium.
hope for a better future
So far there are three industrial lithium production sites in Argentina, two of them in Jujuy. One of them - after a US$1 billion investment - went live this month and will export to China this year. At the same time, billions of dollars of foreign investment are flowing into Argentina, 29 projects for lithium production are at least in advanced exploration, six of them are already under construction and thus on the way to regular operation. In the country and in politics, it feeds the longing for an end to the perceived permanent crisis, economic recovery, if possible through a domestic value chain including battery production.
In the coming years, Argentina could become the second largest lithium producer after Australia, with an annual export value in the tens of billions. Already in the year after next it could be over 6 billion dollars, an increase in total exports of around 10 percent. That means more than just jobs: the government levies export duties on many exports and uses it to finance the national budget, including social programs, with a poverty rate of currently around 40 percent. The companies currently pay 4.5 percent export duty on lithium; which could increase once the industrial sector is more established. About 30 percent is charged on soy.
The largest lithium investors come from Australia, China and the USA, but the Saxon joint venture Deutsche E-Metalle also has a foot in the door. In Chile and Bolivia, the other two countries in the lithium triangle, decisions on this are a matter for the government. In Argentina, companies are also queuing up because the provinces themselves, far from the center of national politics, decide on the use of raw materials. Just like in Jujuy. The province has an 8.5 percent interest in the lithium projects and has access rights to 5 percent of the production.
explosive contradiction
A total of 85 percent of the area on which indigenous people live is declared public land. However, it is the national government, not the province, that determines the rights of their communities. This in turn issues the licenses for the raw materials in the soil, and the one with lithium is mostly seen by indigenous people as the land of their ancestors . According to the Argentine media, around 300 communities are opposed to mining on their land. An explosive contradiction that Jujuy's provincial policy would have eliminated in a coup d'état with abolished rights for indigenous people and severe restrictions on the right to demonstrate.
Because of the violent protests, Morales initially suspended two of the amended articles and announced talks. That hardly calmed the situation, because there were changes in dozens of paragraphs. The conflict could become the legacy of Morales' departure, which finally catapulted him onto the national stage. In October he is scheduled to become vice president to the middle-class Horacio Larreta, currently mayor of the capital Buenos Aires. The two should bring the opposition electoral alliance to power.
Larreta is the most promising candidate to succeed the unpopular Peronist President Alberto Fernández. The mayor is conservative but presents himself as a modernizer with a social conscience, while Morales has shown how he could push through the expected cuts in state support programs for the population: with rubber truncheons and tear gas in the streets. When Larreta presented him as his runner-up on Friday, he commended Morales "remain steadfast" and in such situations "he doesn't lose his pulse".
Well-known opposition politicians and the governors of the other provinces with lithium projects had publicly backed Morales, while President Fernández condemned "state violence and repression" and threatened to intervene if human rights were not respected. The Ministry of Justice in Buenos Aires is now examining the legality of the constitutional changes in distant Jujuy. This should only delay the social conflict over lithium. Especially when Larreta and Morales move into the presidential palace. And your chances are good.
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