VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Small-scale and artesanal miners in Bolivar State's La Paragua were left in the lurch, Tuesday, after a visit by Basic Industries & Mines (Mibam) Minister Rodolfo Sanz was cancelled for a second time. Union leaders now say they are losing patience ... the situation is now reaching boiling point with the miners already organizing a peaceful protest to demand answers from central government.

Nevertheless a special National Assembly (AN) Commission for Social Development and the AN Mining Committee is scheduled to visit El Callao today, Wednesday.

Mining Minister Sanz had originally also planned to meet with transnational Crystallex executives during his visit, but that meeting was put off late last night by Mibam officials until next Tuesday (July 15) when his office says he will also meet the mining unions to deliver proposals for compliance with a mining conversion policy announced two years ago but not yet been fulfilled.

Sanz, who is also president of the giant heavy industry conglomerate, the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG), had originally agreed to meet the miners in El Callao last Friday ... that meeting was postponed until yesterday (Tuesday) but has again been postponed for a week without further explanation.

In contention is approval of 17 separate compensation payments to miners and the future of more than 10,000 miners who are currently out of work pending a resolution to a current impasse on several giant industrial scale mining projects in southeastern Bolivar State.

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