THE CHILEAN miners trapped in a collapsed mine shaft are starting to rebel against restrictions imposed by their government as they enter their second month below ground.
Family members said the 33 men had protested that the government was censoring letters and restricting information to them during a video conference at the weekend. The miners have also shown increasing independence in recent days as they rejected one food delivery of peaches and continued to drive vehicles around the mine tunnels 700m below ground, disregarding orders not to do so. They are also increasingly vehement in their demands for wine and cigarettes.
Family members said the miners were angry because they had not received much mail. “He totally cursed me out, they are not sending the letters to him,” said the son of trapped miner Victor Zamora. “He is going to blow up down there.” “It is a big problem that they are not getting the letters,” said the nephew of miner Jose Ojeda. “They are very angry.”
Luis Urzua, the leader of the miners, told rescue officials on Saturday that failure to deliver the letters was a major cause of discontent among the trapped men.
Government officials told family members that only letters with positive messages will be delivered. But rescue officials promised to streamline the postal service and create a central log for letters sent and received.
“They say they are not sick,” said one rescue leader, who asked not to be named. “They want to go back to their regular life. This is what we have been hearing over and over again from Nasa.”
Nasa officials who have gone to Chile to help support the trapped men said their behaviour was not unusual. They said that during one space mission, the astronauts refused to speak to Mission Control and switched the communications system off. – (Guardian service)