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The Ministry of Mining has reported that the government intends to privatize lithium exploitation in one fifth of the country’s total salt flats area. It is an unacceptable concession to certain national and foreign private interests, which threatens the interest of Chile. It must be rejected outright.
Giving a fifth of the salt flats to private parties is all the more incomprehensible as it flagrantly contradicts the National Lithium Strategy itself recently announced by President Boric. The undersigned has decisively supported its content and implementation in the Salar de Atacama and protected salt flats, which cover the remaining four-fifths of its surface.
It contradicts the unanimous recommendations regarding the management of strategic natural resources, economic theory and UN resolutions on the matter, reaffirmed by the practice of the main producing countries.
It contradicts the patriotic considerations that exclude lithium from the dictatorship’s infamous mining concessions law, which has delivered most of the copper and other minerals free of charge. Likewise, the recommendations of President Bachelet’s National Lithium Commission.
All of them categorically recommend reserving the exploitation of strategic natural resources exclusively to state companies or companies completely controlled by them.
Hopefully President Boric will consider withdrawing this proposal, instead entrusting CODELCO and ENAMI with the exclusive responsibility of exploring and exploiting lithium, wherever it may be found.
That is the national mining policy that the country requires and demands of the people, the true owner of strategic natural resources. Political and social organizations should speak out strongly on this matter.
By Manuel Riesco