VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Was it yet another example of how Venezuelan government officials simply love to play the big arena for public approbation and then shy away from admitting failure when the inevitable ball bounces back in their faces?
Or was it a calculated play to con impoverished and unemployed mine workers into thinking that the central government is actually doing SOMETHING to relieve their plight?
God alone knows! For the Russians have packed their bags and gone home...
And on home base, Venezuela's Basic Industries & Mining (Mibam) Minister appears to have taken a powder, disappearaing off the face of the earth rather than give responsible answers to the questions he left hanging in the air last week over the future of Venezuela's mining industry and the giant Las Cristinas gold mine in particular.
Half-baked statements made to a local radio station in the Guayana region of southeastern Venezuela were picked up by the irresponsible international news and financial agencies and purveyed to the world as 'The Gospel according to Rodolfo Sanz,' claiming that -- although he didn't specifically name the companies involved -- he and Chavez were going to "nationalize" the already-nationalized mining industry and turn it over lock, stock and barrel to the Russians to exploit, apparently at break-neck speed to pour gold bullion already next year.
FIVE WHOLE DAYS LATER: Nothing!
Crystallex International (which has an exclusive contract to mine gold for the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation-CVG) at Las Cristinas fired off a question to the Ministry last Friday on the backs of wild international speculation by Crystallex shareholders that "we woz robbed" ... but nary a peep has been heard from Minister Sanz since then, although one would have thought he would have been eager to push the agenda if, in reality, it was a done deal to turf the whole caboodle over to multi-millionaire Russian oligarchs, or even a minority-Russian-owned Canadian mining company that is already operating a so-called 50/50 "socialist" partnership with the CVG's gold mining subsidiary CVG-Minerven.
The Agapov Group's Russoro Mining's president George Salamis is returning to his Vancouver (Canada) headquarters after attending a Venezuela-Russia Mining Forum, but all ears are on Caracas for an OFFICIAL statement since, basically, nobody wants to believe anything unless it is written in granite, etched with Chavez' blood ... and even then, endemic disbelief in anything Chavez or his minions say will inevitably set in.
What then is to be made of the current "wandering in the wilderness" with which Venezuela's foreign investors are undoubtedly faced?
What -- other than foot-in-mouth embarrassment -- is preventing Mibam Minister Rodolfo Sanz from coming clean? Either he can substantiate the facts as he claims them to be or he can't! Frankly, I believe it to be yet another foot-in-mouth only enhanced by Sanz' own edict muzzling his subordinates from themselves, collectively, putting their feet in their mouths as they are traditionally wont to do!
Other than that. it is a clear illustration of the state of extreme chaos that the Venezuelan government, under President Chavez, finds itself to be in today with only 12 days to go before the local and regional elections that will undoubtedly set multiple cats among flocks of pigeons as the President's red-shirted armies seek to prolong the agony of left-right divisions in Venezuela's political and economic future.
It's written on the walls that Chavez will face his political career's biggest setback when grassroots Venezuelans speak their rightful minds at the ballot box come Sunday week.
Do we then wait until after Monday, November 24, to get wind of the reality that nothing's changed in Venezuela's mining industry and that a "new order" at the Mining Ministry must inevitably countermand Sanz' incredible overtures to ex-Soviet high financiers?
Certainly there's nothing "socialist" or even "communist" in the Russian oligarchy's new-found friendship ... perhaps this is a lesson that's just being realized in Caracas and down in southeastern Bolivar State where political pounds of flesh are being weighed and bartered in an anti-socialist free-for-all that could indenture Venezuela's precious mining resources for many years to come.
Meanwhile, Crystallex executives have gone to ground ... as zip-lipped as Sanz' serfs muzzled by his gag order ... so all that's left is to "watch this space" ... the "fun" is yet to come!
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
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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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ReplyDeleteVenezuela
Like Ecuador, this country has the irony that it might see a major project that has been stalled moving ahead while all around them are in stasis. That said, the two mines (Brisas and Las Cristinas) might have been in production years ago and enjoying peak gold prices rather than being Johnny-come-latelys to the scene. In the meantime, Hugo Chavez has given himself the reputation of being fickle and radioactive towards miners. His latest love affair is the quasi-Russian Rusoro. Embrace the Bear if you dare...
Chavez may yet come to regret his latest infatuation. These two mines (one extracted from Gold Reserve and the other from Crystallex) might be developed as one complex due to their proximity but frankly who cares? Venezuela has shown its disinterest in mining except as a political football. No-one new will appear on the scene and what might have been will not be. Oil at the mid-$60s
level is good for Venezuela but not as good as at $150.
As long as bread and circuses keep the rabble from revolting, all is well, but when they actually need some gainful employment, which mining might have supplied, they will need to tone up their basket-weaving skills because mining will not be an option in creating jobs, or perish the thought, a diversified source of foreign earnings.
It makes zero sense for Venezuela to give this project to Rusoro (or anybody else for that matter) at this stage of the game... what have they to gain? Would not the country and its poor citizens desperate for jobs, be better served to let a Company who is ready to start the project tomorrow get on witht it, rather than to "start from scratch" with somebody new? I just don't get it. Hugo Chavez is systematically taking his country apart brick by brick with his Socialist agenda. With oil dipping below $60USD the writing is on the wall... wouldn't a real leader, with genuine concerns for his people do everything in his power to help them? Kick starting one of the largest gold mines in the world would be a good start in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Canadian and have been a shareholder of Crystallex International for what seems a lifetime (August '97). We've now reached a low point in this story, and by "we", I mean collectively. The shareholders of Crystallex and the people of Venezuela are both on the receiving end of Hugo Chavez's pointy stick and brother, it don't feel so good.
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