Venezuela: Government ban on gold mining
Thousands of people who must continue live in poverty, begging for
any miserable job to support their families...

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2008-06-04 21:17:48 - Community leaders in Las Claritas in
southeastern Bolivar State say that if the government is to ban gold
mining, it must tell the people what they must otherwise do to
survive.


VHeadline Venezuela News reports:

El Diario de Guayana reporter Isidro Casanova writes that small-scale
and artesanal miners in Las Claritas and Kilometer 88 believe that a
state of economic emergency declared a couple of months ago is now
entering a critical stage since Environment Minister Yuribi Ortega de
Carrizales announced a ban on mining in the Imataca Rainforest
Reserve.

In consequence, local
community councils and indigenous representatives have issued an
invitation to Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz to visit the affected
villages and to personally experience "existing realities" ... they
have issued documents in support of the startup of the Las Cristinas
and Brisas del Cuyuni projects arguing that the companies concerned
(Crystallex International and Gold Reserve) have complied with all
relevant conditions and that the government must therefore give them
permission to start ... not to prohibit them.

"We have over 10 years of frustration, we were useful to President
Hugo Chavez in the recall referendum against him and he has always
supported us ... we must now go forward with the same backing."

Although the Ministry of Environment has announced that the permits
have been denied for the Las Cristinas and Las Brisas projects, the
local organizations contend that "these projects are necessary for
the consolidation of all twenty communities that make up the parish,
because they could create more than five thousand jobs and the people
we can get out of our (economic and social) plight ... we are six
indigenous communities and fifteen 'Creoles' ... thanks to the two
companies, we have been solving some problems, but the general
aspiration we have is to start these projects."

Las Claritas and Kilometer 88 were founded in the heat of the gold
rush, especially in Las Cristinas. Thousands of miners concentrated
in Las Cristinas and in 1982 when the Luis Herrera Campins government
lifted exchange controls and gold could be traded in dollars and with
volumes of money circulating, people were constructing houses and
shops ... the two towns grew at the same rate as the exploitation of
gold, pushing prices ever higher.

Sources say that the Minister of Environment's decision to deny
permits to projects Las Cristinas and Las Brisas was handed down
without measuring any of the consequences. "If, prior to the
decision, she had taken into account that life in Las Claritas and
Kilometer 88,is exclusively bound to gold mining, she should have
seen the negativity in the decision and, along with it that there is
no alternative for thousands of people who must continue live in
poverty, begging for any miserable job to support their families."