According to published information the order was effected by officials from the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) mining subsidiary CVG-Minerven. An group of security guards are posted at the gates to the property and all further operations at the mine are said to be paralyzed.d within the same five men who serve as guards to safeguard the facility.
Striking miner Edward Lopez says that a month ago, a group of workers had denounced a series of abuses against employees who had been thoroughly humiliated and forced to strip naked ... at which stage Mibam Minister Rodolfo Sanz ordered the newly-appointed president of CVG-Minerven to shut down Hecla. As a direct result Hecla summarily fired some 360 workers who claim they have not reveived their pay or redundancy benefits.
"We want the company (Hecla) to be taken into government control (nationalized) as quickly as possible, for a variety of reasons, including harrassment, but also because of the level of insecurity that exists at the mine. One worker fractured a leg when a roof fell in on him. Others have suffered hernias, lung complaints back problems and, besides, we were getting only a miserable Bs.F.390 per fortnight and we never received any production bonus although Hecla has been producing gold for almolst six years."
Hecla employee Rubi Chirinos is quoted as saying that the workers want to see Hecla in government hands and preferably managed by CVG-Minerven. They;re urging Mibam Minister Rodolfo Sanz to deal firmly with "the aggressiveness and brutality" of the guards and other employees against workers that has already been reported to Mibam take appropriate action. "This is a company that produces tonnes and tonnes of gold but the wages they pay the workers are very low ... they are robbing the nation because they say they get only 20 or 30 grammes per tonne and we know that, in reality, they are extracting upwards of a kilo of gold per tonne! "
Elected neighborhood representative Mary Lugo says "we are living in a state of anxiety since we do not know what will happen in this situation and it is affecting the workers and the whole community." She alleges that Hecla's Oscar Moreno Cruz constantly harasses the community and has withdrawn a school bus previously donates to the community ... she further urges the National Executive to take immediate action to guarantee the rights of the people ... some workers fear reprisals and, as a result, they do not want to identify themselves.
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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.
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