From the Sasa article-

"We make our living from the mine. Our children were born here, and we aren't going to let them take us away from where we have worked. President Hugo Chávez has said the land belongs to those who work it,"

70,000 miners recognised by the government operate, and 70 percent of them are supportive of agreements to relocate

the government appears to be bending to the demands of the miners, who have served as political and electoral support in the area. But the signals have been mixed.

(Chavez) announced that the state would not grant any more concessions to foreign corporations and would review those already issued because the government would create "a national mining company" to work in partnership with the small mining operations and work in the Las Cristinas area.

What I am reading here is that 70,000 miners have been working in the Bolívar state and appx 49,000 of them are willing to relocate to areas and jobs that do not ruin the enviroment and watershed through indepedent mining activity. That leaves 21,000 whom are not so willing to change and probably see this as an opportunity to increase their personal wealth as they then would inherit a larger slice of the LC.

Crystallex' efficent technological mining is seen as a threat by the 21,000. Vast amounts of gold would be mined with a mere fraction of those 21,000 who refuse to change their way of living.

Expanded part- IMHO

Venezuela seems to be operating in a power vacuum, so it seems that people make decisions and then "let's wait and see what happens". Not being direct is the way Venezuelan government does business. Every once in awhile someone comes along (Ortega and Chancellor are a good examples) to grab the headlines, but lookout if anyone gets too big for their britches!

Looking back over what has transpired, I am thinking the Ortega story is similar to Chancellor story. The Ortega drama- Her decision to use the enviromental issues to her advantage, possibly to stop the the process of wealth, power, corruption and the exploitation of LC gold for certian induviduals within the Venezuelan Government while saving the forest perserve for the people. She must be a true socialist and secretly veiws Chavez as opportunistic fraud. Too bad she looks like she was hit by a bus.

Meanwhile and continuing, the state is not able to deal with the enviromental issues caused by the artisinal miners, while the CVG or Sanz are unable to sell modern "clean" mining (by Kry) to backward assed induviduals who vote. All, while President Chavez is talking up "small mining operations" and reviewing current agreements (implying they will be amended or cancelled). The miners are then made promises that continue up to the election (including the cheques scheme). Now that the elections are over it all has become apparent, the pandering exposed. The Chavez party failed and the number one reason is- Chavez ran out of oil money.

It is very easy for someone like Chancellor to make the argument that things are not going right but impossible for him to lay the blame on the true reason (Chavez) so Crystallex again becomes the scapegoat.

The failure of the Chavez plan to spread the oil wealth to the masses makes Chancellors position popular with the miners. Even a peon could see that nothing much improved for Venezuelan citizens during the oil boom. Chancellors plan is a move back towards rugged induvidualisim, away from socialisim, disguised as an attack against capitolisim. Chancellor possibly (as Ortega) belives the Venezuelan Government cannot be trusted with the wealth in the ground, the Government has a good plan (Crystallex) to mine the gold, the gold will then be gone, the people will not have worked and will still be poor when it is all over- Because the corrupt Government (Chavez) will have squandered all the gold revenue. So he (Chancellor) wants to delay this from happening and pushes a plan to put the wealth directly into miners hands. How does he do it? He blames Crystallex.