The news is sketchy, but a journalist who has been a proponent for mining investment in rural Peru has been beaten, kidnapped and tied up in the square of a remote village in northern Peru.
The man in question, Duber Mauriola, runs a local radio station. A group of eight policemen tried to intervene yesterday but were turned back by a mob armed with sticks, stones and machetes.
In April, about 1,000 people marched with shotguns, machetes and sticks, to protest the development of Rio Blanco, a copper deposit owned by Monterrico Minerals (MNA-L) that is near Peru’s border with Ecuador.
A spokesperson for Monterrico says the kidnapping has nothing to do with them however police say that the people responsible are locals fearing contamination from the Rio Blanco mine.
Supporters of Mauriola are now being held responsible for a second kidnapping that has taken place. A woman, Josefa Adrianzen, who worked on environmental issues for the town of Huancabamba and who wanted exploration to stop, has also been kidnapped.
Monterrico is working on a bankable feasibility study for Rio Blanco, due for completion within the first half of 2005. The project has an indicated resource of 161 million tonnes grading 0.98% copper at a cutoff grade of 0.7% copper.
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