Crystallex International

Welcome to the Crystallex HUB on AGORACOM "Crystallex International Corporation is a Canadian-based gold producer with operations and exploration properties in Venezuela."

over 12 years ago

TOWN OF TRAGEDIES

Domingo, 15 of January of 2012

News article on massacre in mine of the Paragua.

PHOTO WILLIAM URDANETA

The prohibition of the artisan mining in 2006 ended the work of hundreds of people who subsisted of the operation of gold to survive. The Government promised new opportunities of use to the miners, but the projects never were executed and the population returned to the mines. The little control in the policies of protection and defense turned to the Paragua into a territory without law. Armed groups took the zone to take control of the mineral, originating episodes like happened Sunday eight of January in the mine New Racket. The death of seven people, according to the official part, is added to the list of tragedies that east town lives on the municipality Narrowness.

Special shipments
Maisdulin Younis/Natalie Garci'a
myounis@correodelcaroni.com This electronic direction this prote'ge'e against Spam bots. It needs to activate Javascript to visualize it

All the miners who were arriving at the town from the mines were confiscated by the uniformed ones. Photo Wilmer González

Plenty of desperation thousands of miners fled from the Paragua Stop, in the municipality Narrowness. Back they were his desires to take control of “the gilded one”. More than deception, the people were the alive face of the fear and the lost grief of having it almost everything.

The tired eyes revealed nights of insomnia awaiting the moment to leave the place towards the town of the Paragua, and of there to their site of origin. Each story demonstrated the moments of horror lived today ago one week, when two sectors of the band the 24 faced shots as if a war it was.

The fact happened in the indigenous sector Manaima, in the mine the Cochanera, also well-known like New Racket, to almost four hours of navigation of the Paragua, unique access route. They count who lived the bloody facts that from the 5:00 of afternoon of Sunday all were surprised by an intense shooting “of high caliber”.

The miners who were in the camping left running to the mount, who were in the different cuts (where the gold removes) entered themselves in the forest or they threw themselves to the ground.

Criminal invoices
Many indicate that the conflict saw come, because for 4 months the maleantes, also known as the Negritos - in his majority Colombian they came committing irregularities with the miners and owners of machines. The mine already had even been scene of homicides and shootings, but no similar to this one.

“All we worked when they got to kill to three of the Negritos. First they hurt to that it managed to escape with the other two. We thought that or everything was in calm, or were customary to those attacks, but hours later the loss of life began”, counted a miner who by fear asked to leave his identity in the anonymity.

The description of the fact seems to emulate to a film of the Distant West. Fifty men carrying arms of high caliber, with shippers filled with distinguished bullets and taking, appeared themselves in the site arranged to everything and with the aim of eliminating the 24.

“Era even lead (…) all ran from a side to another one. They went away to mountains and until they were sent to the river. The shooting lasted more than one hour without stopping, was a war”, remembered a spectator while it shook.

Total anarchy
The miners explain who the band of the Negritos arrived at the originating Paragua of kilometer 88, led by a nicknamed man the Juancho Black, the organization who directs is known him as the union and back in the mines Sifontes - South al of the state is in charge to protect to those who pays to them by the escort. Also it receives vaccines and it makes raids in the deposits to berth.

Apparently who were in the Paragua Stop they exceeded in the “rules” imposed by Juancho and after many complaints this one commanded to end the “undisciplined ones”.

The excesses of the Negritos of the Paragua arrived at the point to clear the machines to them to the miners, to seize of the campings and inclusively to abuse sexually the women who were there. Who refused was dead man.

Many in view of those actions went of the place, that remained preferred to coexist with the abuses, awaiting which the results in the mine gave the sufficient thing to maintain contentments to the 24.

This never was thus, and while more gold gave the Earth, the ambition of the delinquents, that did and undid, to the supposed shelter of the authorities grew more, because of the tens of testimonies picked up by this metropolitan newspaper, many notice that a military civil servant was the one that supposedly provided to the bullets and the grenades to the rowdies.

Broken hopes
Nevertheless, the authorities deny that the situation is so serious. In the official part dead ones of the shooting in the site are counted seven and four wounded, discards that there are more victims.

The orerators of deposits say the opposite. Many count to have seen at least seven died more. “Here many rare things are happening. The Government knows what is what it is happening and they leave those delinquents pass the arms for the mine. At the town 7 arrived dead but nobody speech of which they were in the mountain. I saw several, in that mountain is people who were buried, without counting those that were more inside”, related a witness.

“There dead members of the band fell and also innocent people. In the mountain still there are more deads, I VI (afternoon of Thursday) other five corpses. Gold is a zone by far and now the Government is wanted to empower of that”.

The racket, as it is called to him to the discovery of a new deposit, has been so great in the Paragua that many so left everything it with taking control rich of the gold, without knowledge which they would be with the anarchy panorama and almost slavery which they put under the 24.

Enrique Go'mez, native of Caracas, is one from which hopeful he arrived at the mine the 2 from January and left two days after the shooting, scared and wanting to forget what finished living.

“I come by far. I am family father who needs to take food to her house. They do not let to us do nothing, in this country there is no work and if we obtained we must leave running. We already want an answer of the government, by the good ones we are not going to obtain nothing (…)”.

Armed intervention
Although many lived moments on panic and true horror, without knowing if they would return alive to his houses, the anguish did not stop there. After knowing the news the six died - in a principle, okay an wounded died were activated the organisms of security among them the Armed Forces with his different components.

However, for many the remedy was worse than the disease. Since the military civil servants arrived at Cochanera without no tact, nor consideration. Little that many managed to save inclusively he was destroyed, burned or seized by some of the military.

“I arrived at the mine after the shooting (Monday). Entering I saw how they were removing corpses, has been the greatest scare of my life. I am indignant (…) the military with will removed to kicks, would want to know why they did not have guáramo to look for a solution before she passed all this, they knew of the presence of the 24 in the mine”, said to Teresa Towers, unemployed for an originating year and of Maracay.

In spite of the testimonies, representatives of the Executive maintain that in the place there are no more passing away and than the situation completely he is standardized as soon as the Navy militarized the mining zone and leaves from the Paragua.

Until afternoon of Friday the place it followed in safekeeping and a commission of the Division of Homicides of the Body of Scientific researches, Penal and Criminologies (Cicpc) of Caracas followed in the mine. If there are no more corpses what made special commissions of the Cicpc in the place? It is the most repeated question in the town. Also they question how the arms enter the mine, if there are at least 3 fixed controls of the Navy, one terrestrial and two fluvial ones (in normal conditions), where the miners are reviewed and inclusively undressed in search of illicit.

The expectations on the future are many. The Paragua from 2006, when it initiated the mining reconversion, has lived and revivido tragedies. With these they add more than 20 died by facts related to the mines, in events that have been of public knowledge.

The fears are majors, because for an important number of inhabitants the Armed Forces are synonymous of “abuse” and not of order.

The sample of it is that of the twenty of deads 8 they were at the hands of the military, six of those crimes have been denominated the “massacre of the Paragua”. For that reason it is that the miners have inclusively more terror to the military ones that to the delinquents.

Mining policies

From 2005, the national Government has looked for to order the small mining on a large scale and, but with special zeal in the artisan operation.

The first strategy for it was the Mission To cheep, that it looked for to help economically and to give technical support to the miners. Second it was in 2006 and mining reconversion was called, this one tried that the orerators of deposits left their office and the tourism or agriculture was dedicated to.

These they followed the modification of the Regime of Commercialization of Gold and its Alloys to him in 2009, that forced the companies to most of sell their production to the Central bank of Venezuela.

Soon it was the Caura Plan, in 2010 that looked for the evacuation of the illegal zones and where it participated the National Armed Forces, the Ministry of Interior and Justice, the Ministry of the Atmosphere and the extinct Ministry of Basic Industries and Mining.

The last policy destined to the mineral extraction was the call nationalization of gold, established in Decree 8,413 of the 16 of September of the 2011 and in whose content the elimination of the mining on small scale settles down, as well as penalty of the activity with between 6 months and 6 years of jail for those who are catched exerting it. After the complaints, the 20 of December the Government declared that he prorogues the application of this law at least about 180 days more.

Chronology of the violence

From 2006 in the Paragua, before municipality Raul Leoni, the things have not returned to be the same. The history of the town changed for always after the murder of a fisherman and of a demonstrator in a protest in rejection to the old Theater of Operations Nº 5 (TO5), months later it happened the massacre. There am a summary of the most important facts that here they have dyed of blood and violence to this mining locality.

March 2006. Simón Manrique, of fishing office, was assassinated after presumably to disobey a voice of stop of bet civil servants of the Navy in the town and that they realised patrolling workings in the river.

After this homicide there was a wave of manifestations in the town. One of those demonstrators Jose González, also it was completed, but this time at the hands of a civil servant of the Army that shot against the brawl.

As a result of this thousand of people inflamed set afire soothes of to5 and demanded the exit of the military of the zone, something that never happened.

September 2006. The military of the Army execute the Tepuy Operation in which they pass away Bartholomew Nivaldo Sanchez, Romany the Pink Garci'as Rondón, Jose Rondón, Luis Giovanni Lima Rondón, Raimundo Gives Silva and Alves Elieziu Mud. For it helicopters of the Armed Forces and armament were used military. The military ones always denied to have attacked the miners in the sector of San Martin de Turumbán.

The fact shocked to all, just when the Government tried to start up the mining reconversion, that he tried to remove to the orerators from deposits of the activity and to help them to that they learned other offices like agriculture and the tourism.

A unique survivor, Felipe Lizardi, who walked wounded three days by the forest until arriving at the town, was key to discover the happened thing, still lives in the Paragua.

December 2006. The miners to those who he had promised to indemnification and being to them favored by the mining reconversion closed the access to the town and they faced to5, without obtaining that the organism was retired of the place, nor that the State paid to all the registered in the mines of this zone its equipment.

December 2007. The 10 military civil servants implied in the call “massacre of the Paragua” were condemned 15 and 18 years of jail.

That same year and before the sentence of the military ones were reclamations in the town by the absence of answers for the small mining.

February 2008. Miners of the Chiguao and Granzón are evacuated by military civil servants, in the middle of forts critics by violations to the human rights. Between the denunciations, the affected ones indicated how there were broken the equipment to them and they had left days them without eaten water nor, as well as the destruction of the cabins and the machines with C4.

May 2009. They order to repeat the judgment against the 10 accused military to participate in the massacre of the Paragua, and in spite of the attempts of the lawyers the sentence of 18 and 15 years stayed.

April 2010. National government implements the Caura Plan to evacuate the miners of the different zones from the organization. The total balance were 20 thousand people removed from the mines in the municipalities Sucre, Narrowness, Cheeping and Great Savannah.

November 2011. Resident natives of the ethnic group pemón of the Manaima sector, in the Paragua Stop, moor and retain 23 military civil servants who were found in a mine having exploded the deposit. The incident attracted the attention of the authorities and until the minister of Indigenous Towns, Nicia Maldonado, it went to the zone to solve the situation.

In the end there was an agreement with the natives, the civil servants of the Navy had prohibited the excesses towards the residents, as well as to bet itself within the deposits.