Peruvian casual miners stop talking to the government because they can’t agree on anything

Informal miners in Peru have stopped talking to the government and may start protesting again because of differences in the talks, a leader of the protests said on Friday.

Maximo Franco Bequer, head of the CONFEMIN union, told reporters that the government wouldn’t change the August 17 deadline for miners to move explosives into official “powder magazines.”

He said that 20,000 miners who can’t meet the deadline would be kicked out of a government scheme that would make their work official.

The miners in the Cusco area ended their two-week protest on July 15. The protest had blocked a major copper transit route that mining companies MMG (1208.HK), Glencore (GLEN.L), and Hudbay (HBM.TO) used.

In Peru, illegal miners use temporary passes to work under a program that was set up more than ten years ago and that the government has been trying to end. The miners say that the tighter rules that would be needed to legalize their work are too much to handle and will probably put them out of work.

In a few hours, the union plans to get together to decide on new protests.