Peruvian police and protesters opposed to an irrigation project in the country's South clashed on Thursday, killing one man and injuring 18, as President Alan Garcia faces a new conflict over natural resources in the surging economy, according to Reuters. The country's human rights office said the skirmish occurred before dawn in the town of Espinar, 400 miles (650 km) south of Lima. Police fought with protesters who say the Majes-Siguas II irrigation project will leave Espinar without water, said Silvio Campana of the rights office, which tries to mediate conflicts. The man who died was a bystander. The project calls for a dam and water system capable of irrigating 95,000 acres (38,500 hectares) of agricultural land in the region of Arequipa. Peru's government has encouraged the growth of export-oriented agricultural farms and the petroleum industry to diversify the economy, which traditionally has been dependent on mining and is forecast to grow abut 7 percent a year. But dozens of conflicts over natural resources have weighed on Garcia, whose disapproval rating is near 60 percent. Last year, three dozen people died in a clash over land rights in the Amazon jungle where indigenous tribes oppose oil exploration. The government has issued a decree guaranteeing water supplies for residents of Espinar, but residents are upset that the government's investment agency awarded a concession on Monday for the project to a private consortium called Angostura-Siguas. "The province of Espinar has its own needs that have never been considered," said Nestor Cuti, who leads the group of protesters and wants Garcia's prime minister to open a dialogue to end the standoff over water. "With this concession were are condemned to have a lack of water for life," Cuti said. He said the government awarded the concession without hearing the complaints of Espinar residents. Water is a sensitive issue in Peru as desert covers its Pacific Ocean coast, where most of the population lives, and its Andean glaciers are melting because of climate change.
