Bolivia: Miners denounce illegal occupations that threaten labor and environmental rights.
“The FSTMB denounces land seizures due to the Government’s ‘complicity’ with cooperativists” 13 September 13 2025
At an expanded meeting held in Potosí, the Federation of Mining Workers of Bolivia (FSTMB) called for a “large national march” against the illegal occupation of mining plants, jukeo (theft of minerals), and the benefits the Government grants to the cooperative mining sector...
The most serious illegal occupations were reported in Andacaba, Reserva Tres Amigos, Amayapampa, and Porco in the department of Potosí...
They point to the responsibility of officials from the Bolivian Mining Corporation (Comibol), the National Service for the Registration and Control of the Commercialization of Minerals and Metals (Senarecom), the Administrative Mining Jurisdictional Authority (AJAM), and the Ministry of Mining—whom they accuse of a passive attitude in favor of cooperative miners and community groups who seize the working areas of their companies...
“Authorities who are completely biased toward the cooperative-sector mafia, where supposed companies operate clandestinely—a sector that does not contribute to the country, unlike us salaried miners, who pay taxes, royalties, fees, and other contributions,” states part of the declaration...
It was also reported that in the EMCOISA mine area, also in Oruro, illegal processing plants and mills are proliferating, operating without environmental studies...