Word: crystallex
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...organize the miners into some 3,000 government-backed cooperatives, which would be given legal access to any gold-mine reserves the government might take away from idle concessionaires, foreign or Venezuelan. But many miners remain skeptical, especially since the cooperative funds are moving as slowly through Caracas as Crystallex's environmental permits. "We're always living with conflict and manipulation," says Humberto José Alonso, 37, an illegal miner for 18 years. "We hear promises from everyone, but we don't see results...
Thousands of miners staged a violent two-week demonstration last September in Las Claritas, Venezuela, close to the Brazilian border. They blocked the border highway, burned trucks and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at national-guard troops. Their main target was Crystallex, a Toronto-based company that since 2002 is said to have held the legal rights to Las Cristinas--the world's fifth largest gold mine, with 12.5 million oz. of proven reserves...
Another confrontation between a ruthless First World corporation and exploited Third World labor? No, this is the Venezuela of President Hugo Chávez, where any semblance of business as usual is usually unintentional. The miners, who are illegal squatters, were protesting because they say Crystallex is trying to bar them from doing their free-lance work at Las Cristinas--despite the fact that Crystallex has yet to begin operating the mine and, as a result, has failed to create the 1,500 formal, well-paying mining jobs (more than $200 a month, with benefits) that had been promised. Crystallex points...
...there to push free trade. In another speech, in September, Chávez warned that in order to "recover the national power and sovereignty of our resources," Venezuela "will not give any more mining concessions to transnationals," and it may even revoke some. The day after that broadside, Crystallex's share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange plummeted 40%, to $1.50. Shares of other firms mining gold in Venezuela, like Idaho-based Hecla, also took hits--especially when Chávez promised to create a competing, state-owned company that would employ the illegal miners. Jonathan Goodman, CEO of Toronto-based mining...
...Venezuelan mines create more heated debate than Las Cristinas. Rights to the mine were a Dickensian legal muddle for most of the 20th century until Chávez granted Crystallex the concession in 2002 for a bargain $15 million. But company executives cannot open Las Cristinas because, among other reasons, the Chávez government has not granted the necessary environmental permits, which, so far, have been mired in bureaucratic review. One problem may be the chronic concern, as government officials have said privately, that foreign companies like Crystallex rarely create as many jobs as promised. For now, Crystallex complains it must...
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