VENEZUELA - GOLD AND ECOCIDE

With the enthusiastic complicity of the State and the
participation of Canadian, US, British and S African
transnational mining companies, Venezuela is seeing
the setting up of a project promoting the immediate
exploitation of a rich gold reserve which, according
to its promoters and beneficiaries, will turn out to be
the discovery of the famous El Dorado - sought after
so remorselessly in the 16th century by Europeans in
these lands. We are talking of between 8 and 12
thousand tons of probable reserves which would
represent 10% of world stock with a current market
value of 140 thousand million dollars. And if that
were not all we are supposedly speaking of a high
quality mineral with extraction of 8, 12 or even 16
grams of gold for every ton of processed material,
which compares very favourably with the production
from S African seams which give an average of 4
grams per ton. So it is not strange that people have
noticed a certain 'gold fever' which has been fed with
the notion that the richness will prove a solution to
the grave economic difficulties that the country
experienced during the 1980s.

Before 1991 gold extraction on a wide scale was
under the jurisdiction of the State which showed
little  interest since oil was more profitable and it
maintained only modest production from the old
seams of El Callao which never went over 12 tons
p.a. and allowed for small scale mining by crafts
people to extract a small tonnage of alluvium gold.
But since then, inspired by the neo-liberal economic
programme a process was set up to give out big
contracts for gold exploitation which, up until 1994
had contracted out 436 sites over a surface of
1,283,882 hectares, nearly 12,839 Kms2 with a
projected figure of 30,000 km2 (an area nearly the
size of Belgium or Catalunya and slightly bigger than
the Venezuelan Andean region). Official and private
voices speak of production figures for the year 2000
of between 40 and 60 tons, turning the country into
one of the major world producers and giving jobs to
some 120,000 people and a national revenue of 250
million dollars p.a. Activity at the first major mine
will begin in 1996 (Las Cristinas in the state of
Bolivar and run by the Canadian company Placer
Dome) and will yield 300,000 ounces of gold p.a.
i.e. 9,331 tons.

But this promised bonanza poses an enormous
ecological problem: gold mining is only possible to
the South of the Orinoco river in the vast region of
Guayana, which, like the rest of the Amazon river
basin has unique biodiversity characteristics whose
preservation is vital and where human intervention
must be measured against the highest standards in
order not to upset the balance of this the greatest
example of natural complexity in the world and
which makes Venezuela the fourth country in the
world with regard to bio diversity. Guayana is made
up of 44% of Venezuelan territory but with only
5.5% of its population which is mainly concentrated
in a small area near Orinocco, the rest of the area
having remained relatively free from the predatory
intervention of the State and capitalism. The mining
potential of Guayana (gold, diamonds, bauxite, iron,
radioactive materials, titanium etc.) has been known
about and exploited for some time but the areas
where these activities have taken place, the methods
used to pursue them and their impact on the
ecosystem has scarcely affected this vast area
(although the environmental disasters caused by
small mines, state technocrats and landowners has
already caused some damage in certain areas).

Now with the new dreams of gold the danger has
grown and what we are currently seeing confirms
this fear. We are now seeing the same process of
handing out contracts which, as one might expect of
the Venezuelan State has been accompanied by all
sorts of vice and corruption whose greatest
perpetrators have been the successive presidents of
the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana and the
Energy ministers (especially the current Erwin
Arrieta, also general secretary of OPEC) accused of
being, either directly or through front men, the main
receivers of mining permits which they then sell on
to the TNCs in exchange for handsome commissions.
These corrupt handouts even include areas which
have been specifically excluded by legislation which
set up the Canaima National Park (where one can
see those extraordinary geographic formations
known as 'tepui' and the highest waterfall in the
world the Cherun Meru or Salto Angel) where 18
contracts have been signed giving away about 5,000
hectares in the North of the Park. Other natural
sanctuaries have been affected such as the Southern
Protected Zone of the State of Bolivar, from whence
spring the biggest rivers in the country and the Forest
Reserve of Imateca which suffers 40% of the mining
activities in the region despite the promises of the
bureaucracy which claims to protect it. With regard
to the Amazon State mining activity is proceeding
apace in order to render obsolete any attempt to put
a brake on its activities which in reality is becoming
more and more a *fait accompli*


* * *


The fatal impact represented by the mining 'boom' on
the indigenous population of Guayana is self-
evident. This group is made up of some 8,000 people
from Pemon, Yanomani, Piaroa, Guakibo, Yekwana
and another 17 ethnic groups (25% of the countries
aboriginal population and 80% of its auchtonomous
groups. For them, the occupants of history perfectly
integrated within this fragile environment, such
ecocide represents a direct genocidal attack which
dates back considerably but which has recently
become more acute due to the aggressive re-
emergence of those small mines (in Brazil called
'garimpeiros') who are the shock troops in the
territorial occupation and mineral exploitation
whose forthcoming benefactors will be more
powerful. It has been calculated that there are some
30,000 of these mines in the region and this
destructive activity ranges from the poisoning of
rivers and lands with mercury (in Curoni they are
mining 3,000 kg of this material p.a. which is highly
toxic and is used to separate gold from other
minerals) and including water contamination and
sediment disturbance (the river Curoni in 1982 had
an average content flow of 4,500 tons per day of
such water; in 1995 it has 10,500 per day) and
culminating in the murder and human rights
violations of large numbers of indigenous people.

With calculated hypocrisy the defenders of the TNC
mining establishment maintain they are unmasking
the crude damage caused by the 'garimpeiros' arguing
that they are promoting a 'more rational and
ecologically more sustainable' exploitation.
However, there has been no previous experience of
an open cast mining system in tropical areas where
its introduction has not produced irreparable damage
nor is there a single scientific work published which
confirms what the mining companies are saying. In
fact the technology that will be used by Cristalex,
Yellow Jack, Monarch or Placer Dome is the same
which is used outside the tropics and will not be
challenged by the complacent attitude towards
environmental protection which the State will
undoubtedly assume in order 'not to upset foreign
investors' which shows clearly, that which we have
no hesitation in qualifying as, the greatest threat to
the ecology of the region. That this is no
exaggeration was confirmed on the 19th August
when one and a half million litres of cyanide waste
were poured into the Omai and Esequibo rivers near
Guayana causing the worst ecological disaster in this
country as a result of the activities of a gold
subsidiary owned by TNCs in the US and Canada.
Moreover the demands for profit which would allow
these companies to operate put such pressure on the
State so that it not only cedes to demands for lower
taxes, export of profit but also all kinds of 'indirect
advantages' (cheap energy, communications, various
public works etc.) not to mention the secret demands
relating to the over exploitation of the workforce
where its history in S. Africa, Brazil or the
Dominican Republic is a grave portent of what can
be expected by the workforce. It will be in this way
that the supposed wonders of the golden illusion
will disappear in a puff of smoke without
compensation for the great economic, ecological,
social and cultural costs that it will inflict.

There has been a response to the situation,
emanating from ecological and pro Venezuelan
indigenous people's groups organised in 1995 and
forming the National Co-ordination against Mining
which by means of actions, documents and
declarations has attempted to bring attention to the
problem. Of course the lovers of power and the
wider media have attempted to minimise this voice of
dissent and imposed the agreement of the
'respectable' voice of the country which belongs to
the marvels of the mining companies and their
governmental cohorts. Despite this a level of
consciousness has been reached and some debate has
occurred relating to this issue between those who are
interested in the ecological and indigenous question
forcing Congress to deal with the issue which in turn
has frozen the process of contract signing since the
end of 1994 and so that the Procurator General ,
very recently, declared the whole process illegal. We
do not believe that this means that the government of
Rafael Caldera has decided to give up on the neo-
liberal policies for the gold mining industry but
rather that these are simply manoeuvres to distract
and pacify potential opponents and to simply moor a
business which promises to be so profitable for its
beneficiaries and so catastrophic for the Amazonian
Venezuelans. However, we must keep up our vigil
and not give up in our opposition to that which is
being prepared for us.

Note: To lend support to this campaign and to get
more up to date information write to:- Coordinadora
Nacional Contra la Mineria c/o GIDA; Apartado
Postal 47450; Caracas 1041-A; Venezuela.

(Colectivo Plum@ - Revista CORREO A;
Venezuela)
