Buenaventura, Compañía Minera Huampar, among others, all of which flourished under the umbrella of the 1950 Mining Code. At the time, a significant number of projects and prospects were in the hands of multinational corporations, but no major investments were carried out in the 1960s; foreign investors waited for further incentives from the state, in order to commit the funds required to commission new mines. But the wind blew in a different direction, dissatisfaction with the old-style growth model spread, ideas related to the dependency theory were widely circulated; all over the Americas, a growing sense of resource nationalism floated in the air. After attempts to entice the large multinational players to develop new projects failed, the military regime nationalised all foreign-owned large mining companies, save Southern Peru. Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation became Empresa Minera del Centro del Perú (Centromin Peru), Marcona Mining Company was suceded by Empresa Minera del Hierro del Peru (Hierro Peru). All non-producing mining assets were placed in the hands of a newly-created state holding: Empresa Minera del Peru (Minero Peru). By the early-1970s military regimes were in power in almost all South America, the US was looked at with various degrees of distrust. The military regime that took power in Peru solemnly declared to be neither capitalist nor communist, it called itself revolutionary government of the armed forces, promising a brand-new socialism, it pursued an aggressive policy of export substitution, in the footsteps the CEPAL model, but also made strenuous efforts to empower the workforce, through the so-called industrial community. The 1971 General Mining Law considered mining a national interest activity, divided into two broad fields: state and private, private could be local and/or foreign; metals and minerals trading was to be in the hands of a new state company: Minero Peru Comercial (Minpeco). The predominantly vitriolic nationalist rhetoric and the subsequent expropriation of large mining companies, kept foreign mining investment at bay, only the Cuajone copper mine, owned by Southern Peru, received the green light. But in the tense atmosphere of those years, the spectre of nationalisation was ever present. When Francisco Morales Bermudez ousted Juan Velasco (1975), the second phase of the Peruvian experiment began, declining copper prices and fishmeal exports signalled the end of the economic boom. The new administration gradually shifted towards more moderate right-wing policies; by the late second half of the 1970s social unrest and worsening economic conditions were common currency in the country, as the foreign debt soared, there was widespread consensus a change of course was badly needed. During the twelve years (1968-1979) of the military regime, the Cuajone copper mine was the only new large-scale operation inaugurated (1976), it would be the last new mine solely 128
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