Federal, state police evict 1,000 miners from the historic Cananea copper mine in dispute with Grupo Mexico
El Semanario
Federal and Sonora state police last night evacuated about 1,000 miners holding the Cananea mine in a fiery dispute with owner Minera Mexico, a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico.
According to a report by Sonora radio station 98.5, workers associated with the Mine Workers Union of Mexico were evicted at about midnight Sunday from Section 65 of the historic open-pit copper mine. There were clashes between the two parties, and several fires were set on the premises, it said.
The mine is now controlled by police, and a meeting is expected later today with representatives of Grupo Mexico.
Miners have been on strike for almost three years at Cananea, the site of a strike in June 1906 that, although settled, was a key event in the general unrest that emerged during the final years of the regime of President Porfirio Díaz and that prefigured the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
On Feb. 11, 2010, a Mexican Federal Court ruled in favor of SCC in its request to evict the miners. On April 21, Mexico's Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from the union.
Subsequently, Southern Copper Corp. said it was ready to resume operations at the mine and to strike a new labor agreement.
Xavier Garcia de Quevedo, chief operating officer and president of Minera Mexico, said that the resumption of operations and a possible investment of $3.8 billion would boost the mine's production of copper from 180,000 tons to 460,000 tons annually and of molybdenum to 5,400 tons annually.
Until this weekend, union members had spoken in favor of resolving the conflict through dialogue.
