La Paragua miners to receive $4,657 compensation to settle mining conversion dispute

Around ten thousand miners who protested irregularities in a conversion of their mining claims are to receive Bs.F. 10,000 (US$4,657) during the first week of July in compensation announced in April by Basic Industries & Mining (Mibam) Minister Rodolfo Sanz, who is to visit La Paragua this week to announce other measures. Miners representative Alfredo Villanueva says there is certain satisfaction although several had had to exert pressure to achieve the objective. "We had to travel to Caracas to speak face-to-face with deputy minister Rodolfo Vilchez otherwise we would have got nothing on any of the seventeen Mibam projects."