2009-06-28 17:36:17 - As Crystallex International disappears off Venezuela gold-mining radar it must be said that the Toronto-based mining corporation has had more than its fair share of troubles on a home front as well as in its troubled efforts to finalize details on a contract to mine gold at the giant Las Cristinas gold resource in south-eastern Venezuela that now appears to be drifting further over the horizon.

VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes:
I must admit that my first attraction to covering what had undoubtedly become the Las Cristinas soap opera was sparked by Vancouver-based Placer Dome's dismissal of a Caracas-based executive some 13-14 years ago which had all the hallmarks of heavy-handedness from Head Office. Of course some will say that it was part of the brutality of senior management decision-making but it was an early indication of the fact that the Canadians were more interested in making huge profits and to hell with humanities.

What then developed was a journalistically attractive David and Goliath scenario in which small-time Crystallex International/Marc Oppenheimer appeared out of apparent nowhere to challenge Goliath/Placer Dome, claiming primary legal rights

to Las Cristinas that it had bought from the original holder's legacy from an original concession award way back in time. The legal twists and turns, of course, were fodder for speculation among a growing horde of internet-bound Crystallex shareholders whose knowledge of Venezuela's culture and Venezuela's legal system were basically ZERO!

...and so it apparently continued as the information highway exploded through the nineties...

Email, WWW etc., brought about a revolution in communications but, sadly, as we are witnessing around the world, no significant revolution in humanities ... perhaps best expressed in the words of one frustrated Crystallex internauter who screamed "Screw the natives ... GIMME THE GOLD!"

The advent of Google Translate, regrettably, put a technical tool in the hands of often illiterate or at least dyslectic masses who were then able to make equal pidgin hash out of Venezuelan-Spanish as they already do in their own language. Added to the cauldron is the fact that a thousand people will already have a thousand ways of understanding any given text -- the Bible is but one example -- and, as far as Crystallex International / Las Cristinas was concerned the signpost was already set to Disasterville.

Add to the mix that Venezuela was already in a state of flux way back in 1996. Seven years previously the nation had been thrown into turmoil in 'El Caracazo' food riots (1989) that followed the imposition of International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions on then-President Carlos Andres Perez who had inherited an already bankrupted administration from perpetually inebriated Jaime Lusinchi and his politically supremely powerful bed-mate Blanca Ibanez. In 1992, an army revolt headed by Hugo Chavez Frias was near-successful in a February coup d'etat which led to Perez' impeachment the following year, his imprisonment of multi-$ million corruption charges. No less then eighteen corrupted Venezuelan banks collapsed in the aftermath and octogenarian Rafael Caldera was left to sweep up the economic mess with an administration that was no better than preceding administrations although it succeeded in borrowing its way out of immediate bankruptcy with international loans repayable in 10, 15 or 20 years under the responsibility of a succeeding administration ... which just happened to be Chavez' after his democratic election victory in December 1998 and the handing over of reins of power in February 1999. At that time inflation was already sustained in three figures and Venezuela's revenue source, oil, was at bargain basement international prices.

Rightly or wrongly, Chavez' politics for Venezuela since then have been in response to the corrupt legacy of what went before!

The fact that he has physically survived ten+ years is itself a miracle since the corruption that has pervaded Venezuela for the greater part of century (if not more) does not die easily and the added factor of United States' neo-colonial arrogance in some imagined degree of sovereignty over Venezuela and the Venezuelan people must also be included as well as the incredible war-mongering lunacy of George Bush's two-term dictatorship over Washington D.C. and the rest of the world.

Throwing off the shackles of centuries of Spanish colonialism had all but exhausted the life of the Liberator Simon Bolivar who died in Santa Marta with his dream of a unified South America unfulfilled. Throwing off the shackles of USA colonialism in a modern world is a daunting task which President Chavez had set himself despite the furore of corrupt officials, wealthy domestic and foreign business interests and the undercurrents foreign diplomacy that beset him. His political methodology to reinstate Venezuela's natural national sovereignty is undoubtedly fraught with a myriad of mistakes for which history will undoubtedly hold him to account, but his motivation is based on what he believes Venezuela's future should be!

Crystallex' trajectory in the David versus Goliath stakes labored through the nineties including an obviously corrupt decision in the Supreme Court (TSJ) which went against what the then-Chief Justice Cecilia Sosa Gomez had maintained was a clear-cut decision in the Canadian company's favor. Placer Dome decided to write off its investment at Las Cristinas and pulled out of the MINCA joint venture in a curious US$50 deal with Vannessa ventures which promptly had any prospect of Las Cristinas success when the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) rescinded the Minca contract leaving Vanessa to look these last ten years for an international arbitration ruling that few observers consider anything more than frivolous in context.

International arbitration appears now to be the only solution left for Crystallex International since the Venezuelan government is so obviously digging its heels in with a refusal to issue the necessary final permit to begin mining. Advance warning of what was about to happen came late last year when, despite tremendous political pressures from within the National Assembly (AN) and elsewhere, Venezuela's Environment Ministry (MinAmb) first re-negotiated a raft of pre-conditions and then refused to budge on issuance of the final permit. Qualified sources maintain that the permit had already been issued to the CVG but was recalled at the last moment by President Hugo Chavez himself when he was fully-briefed by Basic Industries & Mining (Mibam) Minister Rodolfo Sanz and became aware of the rat's nest of corruption that was seething just under the surface in gold-mining's Venezuelan management above and beyond the out-stretched hands of multiple administration officials all along the way ... unfortunately an endemic part of Venezuela's questionable culture.

So ... back to the drawing boards! Chavez had already been aware of the involvement of senior politician and former diplomat, Ambassador Enrique Tejera Paris with Crystallex' local subsidiary, Crystallex de Venezuela. That in itself was enough to send warning signals to the National Executive but Venezuela's intelligence services were already monitoring internet traffic where the wealth of years of disinformation, distortion and often pornographic crudities about Venezuela and senior government officials had already reached a crescendo.

Of course it is only miniscule tip of a massive iceberg of international crudities launched against Venezuela, the CVG and government officials, but Crystallex International itself was forced to complained to a shareholder (Robert Bonger of Evansville, Indiana) after allegations that insulting letters had been written to the CVG claiming to represent a large group of Crystallex shareholders. Autocratic Dutchman Bonger is no stranger to the use of disgusting invective on his supposedly secret Arborwood investor forum, among others, and had the audacity to claim that all he did was to send a polite letter to (CVG executive president and Mibam Minister) Sanz some 2-3 months previously.

Those who are aware of Bonger's track record of insulting verbosity may disbelieve.

Small wonder then that Venezuelan officials, like most journalists who have touched upon the poisoned chalice that is the Las Cristinas soap opera, have adopted a barge pole's distancing from anything to do with the Toronto-based company. Which is rather sad for the company and its management who no doubt have had honest intentions, throughout. Chairman & CEO Robert Fung insisted on completion of a sewerage and water treatment plant which was recently opened in Las Claritas and a local hospital which is scheduled for completion very soon too. Fung and his fellow executives have chosen to honor the letter of their contractual undertakings with the Venezuelan government despite what must increasingly have become obvious to them that their own chance would be to attempt to recoup what had already been invested in their efforts over the last 13-14 years -- of which 5 under the CVG mining contract.

They've invested $ millions not just in money but in their own interpretation of blood, sweat and tears -- yes the local unemployed miners have done so too in their own way -- but there's no option left but to either walk away like Placer Dome did more than a decade ago; accept a US$50 deal like Vannessa Ventures or press for an amicable resolution before imminent bankruptcy.

As far as actual gold-mining in Venezuela, most realists realize that Crystallex International if already off the radar!

Whoever will take over exploitation of the +25 million ounces of gold at Las Cristinas and further missions at Las Brisas del Cuyuni is in the lap of the gods. The Venezuelan government has already stated that the country's gold mining sector will be 100% Venezuelan government controlled -- and that's NOT up for negotiation. The 50/50 socialist VenRus CA joint venture set up last November (2008) appears to be in prime position to assimilate any new gold resources the government deigns to commit to it.

All the while, I guess, the Venezuelan government and independent reporters of the Las Cristinas debacle will continue to be the focus of screeds of internet abuse as the ignorant perpetrators of their own demise are forced to face the fact that through their own crudities they have stolen the investments out of the pockets of Crystallex investors who have had the decency to maintain a sense of decorum with a potentially profitable investment that they -- supposedly as adults -- decided to make!

Roy S. Carson
editor@vheadline.com

www.vheadline.com/carson

www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=81223

From: Glen Ingalls ingallsg@sbcglobal.net
To: Letters@VHeadline.com
Subject: Ongoing dialog on gold mining in Venezuela

I realize that there has been an ongoing assault recently on this news source by various interest groups i.e. blogs, boards etc. In view of this (as an unbiased observer) I would like to commend you on your steadfast and uncompromising reporting. Obviously you are not going to endear yourselves to the Crystallex crowd with any realistic portrayal of the current situation, but I hope that you don't allow the school yard bullies to silence your excellent coverage.
Glen Ingalls

www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=81223