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Catavi
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History of Bolivia
Mines in Bolivia
Tin mines in Bolivia
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Catavi is a tin mine in Bolivia, near the city of Llallagua in the province of Bustillos, Potosi Department. Along with the Siglo XX mine, it is part of a mining complex in the area.
History
It was acquired in the 1900s by Simon Iturri Patino, who was dubbed the "King of Tin." It was the site of continual labor strife, and many of its workers were active in the Union Federation of Bolivian Mine Workers (FSTMB).
The mine was nationalized following the "Bolivian National Revolution" of 1952, when the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) and its allies overthrew the military junta. Catavi and other mines were placed under the control of a new state agency, the Corporacion Minera de Bolivia (COMIBOL). The Catavi-Siglo XX complex became the largest component of COMIBOL, employing some 5,000 workers.
On June 24, 1967, government troops under the orders of General Rene Barrientos and a new military junta marched on the mine and committed the largest massacre of workers in Bolivian history. The massacre occurred on St John the Baptist's Day, an indigenous holiday.
Over the following decades, the tin deposits in the mine become exhausted. In 1987, as part of an economic restructuring deal with the IMF and World Bank, the government shut down production at Catavi.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Catavi
