VHeadline correspondent in Bolivar State: Small-scale artesanal miners who have blocked the highway connecting Venezuela with Brazily at Las Claritas have reached a provisional accord with government officials to remove their barriers across Interstate 10 at Kilometer 88 in southeastern Bolivar State.Officials from the Ministry of Mining & Basic Industries (Mibam), National Guard (GN), the Venezuela Army's Territorial Operations Command TO5 as well as State troopers and representatives of the Public Defender's Office succeeded in reaching a verbal agreement to assure the gold miners that they would not be removed by force from their traditional workplaces.
Tough weekend negotiations came after the impoverished gold miners reacted strongly against an order handed down by a Santa Elena de Uairen court which at first was seen as ordering miners in Sifontes community to vacate the zone within 24 hours.
A Public Defender who rushed to the scene attempted to defuse the situation saying that the court order was not a general exclusion order but had been issued to specific individuals in the Relave Blanco area of the Sifontes community.
Quickly thereafter Julio Cwsar Fuentes Manzulli, commander of the Bolivar State Police arrived on the scene and said that in the name of the Bolivar State Governor's Office he had ordered Army Territorial Operations Command TO5 and National Guard (GN) troops to take custody of the controversial Las Cristinas project since high-level government officials have again threatened to intervent the trans-national Canadian Crystallex International Corporation (KRY) operations if it "persists in its attitude of supposed persecution" against small-scale gold miners, again recalling the case of Carlos Chancellor who was deprived of his liberty, presumably on orders of Crystallex and with the cooperation of the same official organizations that helped reach the provisional accord to remove the massive barricade across Interstate 10 at Las Claritas.
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