Community leaders in Las Claritas in southeastern Bolivar State say that if the government is to ban gold mining, it must tell the people what they must otherwise do to survive.

El Diario de Guayana reporter Isidro Casanova writes that small-scale and artesanal miners in Las Claritas and Kilometer 88 believe that a state of economic emergency declared a couple of months ago is now entering a critical stage since Environment Minister Yuribi Ortega de Carrizales announced a ban on mining in the Imataca Rainforest Reserve.

In consequence, local community councils and indigenous representatives have issued an invitation to Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz to visit the affected villages and to personally experience "existing realities" ... they have issued documents in support of the startup of the Las Cristinas and Brisas del Cuyuni projects arguing that the companies concerned (Crystallex International and Gold Reserve) have complied with all relevant conditions and that the government must therefore give them permission to start ... not to prohibit them.

"We have over 10 years of frustration, we were useful to President Hugo Chavez in the recall referendum against him and he has always supported us ... we must now go forward with the same backing."

Although the Ministry of Environment has announced that the permits have been denied for the Las Cristinas and Las Brisas projects, the local organizations contend that "these projects are necessary for the consolidation of all twenty communities that make up the parish, because they could create more than five thousand jobs and the people we can get out of our (economic and social) plight ... we are six indigenous communities and fifteen 'Creoles' ... thanks to the two companies, we have been solving some problems, but the general aspiration we have is to start these projects."

Las Claritas and Kilometer 88 were founded in the heat of the gold rush, especially in Las Cristinas. Thousands of miners concentrated in Las Cristinas and in 1982 when the Luis Herrera Campins government lifted exchange controls and gold could be traded in dollars and with volumes of money circulating, people were constructing houses and shops ... the two towns grew at the same rate as the exploitation of gold, pushing prices ever higher.

Sources say that the Minister of Environment's decision to deny permits to projects Las Cristinas and Las Brisas was handed down without measuring any of the consequences. "If, prior to the decision, she had taken into account that life in Las Claritas and Kilometer 88,is exclusively bound to gold mining, she should have seen the negativity in the decision and, along with it that there is no alternative for thousands of people who must continue live in poverty, begging for any miserable job to support their families."