The Peruvian National Office for Dialogue and Sustainability reported that the country has seen a total of 169 social conflicts in November 2016 alone. The government intervened in 50 cases while it took what was describes as "preventative action" in another 119 cases.
Fifty-two percent of the cases are related to "socio-environmental issues"; the majority of them is related to oil and mining operations and projects in the country. 40.3 percent of the cases where the government took "preventative action" were related to with extractive mining activities, and another 13.4 percent with hydrocarbon extraction activities.
The most controversial and publicized cases are related to social conflicts that emerged due to the lack of fulfilment of agreements assumed by previous governments to communities and companies.
The National Office of Dialogue and Sustainability stressed the need to create a unit to systematically manage and pursue cases where the State or institutions failed to honor agreements and obligations.
The office also stressed the need to better evaluate the viability of agreements before committing to them to avoid subsequent and avoidable disputes, and to find alternatives in cases where agreements are not feasible.
Peruvian Prime Minister Fernando Zavala stated that the government is paying attention to the conflicts. He underlined that all of these conflicts have their roots in agreements signed by previous governments and stressed that his government would try to get a handle on these problems.
Zavala's government "inherited" more than 200 of such conflicts from the previous government of Ollanta Humala. The test for the government of Zavala will be whether his administration merely scapegoats the former government or whether his government will really implement the much-needed changes and interventions.
