Since October 17, the Armed Forces have carried out evictions of miners from allegedly illegal camps. However, those affected claim to have permission and pay taxes to the CVM
Mail from Caroní / Text: Jhoalys Siverio
With the deployment of a large military contingent, war tanks and overflights with combat planes, militarization has been maintained in Tumeremo, Sifontes municipality of Bolívar state, since Friday, October 28. The inhabitants took to the streets on Saturday October 29 to reject these actions.
This operation is added to the evictions from mining camps that the Venezuelan Armed Forces (FANB) have applied since October 17, as it was in the Imataca sector, where they also burned the church of that town. This meant the displacement of about a thousand miners, 200 of them fled to the mountains, about 10 hours from Imataca.
Inhabitants of Tumeremo stated that the miners from other areas “are practically in prison, without food”, because they fear leaving the sector and that there will be a military ambush. The same argument was given by those from Imataca who took refuge in the mountains.
What they want is to clear the mines to hand them over to others. No one stands up for us, the mayor has not even spoken. The other is that they take people prisoner and they don’t say anything, nobody knows about them. In El Dorado and kilometer 88 there are also protests”
With this militarization, more than tranquility, fear increases among the residents, who denounce human rights violations and arbitrary raids, as well as arbitrary arrests of some 30 people.
The FANB hides behind the fact that the actions are part of Operation Autana, with which they carried out other evictions in Tumeremo in mid-August. They also argue that the evictions are from illegal camps and describe them as “terrorist armed groups.”
The affected miners, for their part, maintain that they are legal and pay taxes to the Venezuelan Mining Corporation (CVM) for extraction.
The NGO Fundaredes denounced that the events recorded in Tumeremo show abuse of power, with the overflight of FANB combat planes and the entry of war tanks into this population, “in order to displace artisanal miners from these areas. gold mining, violating their fundamental rights.”
shopkeepers in protest
Just as they did in rejection of the eviction of miners from the Imataca sector, the merchants again called for a “zero hour” as a form of peaceful protest to reject the militarization and abuses by the military forces.
“We want to make it public knowledge that in the face of militarization, the presence of military force in our town, we have seen ourselves in the moral obligation to raise our voice of protest in the face of yet another outrage by the FANB, who in a hostile, arrogant and contrary manner to the spirit of peace of our Constitution, they have broken into the social peace of our people with the presence of war tanks, armored vehicles, combat planes, as if we were a battlefield of the Second World War”, denounced merchants from Tumeremo it’s a statement.
“Without giving details, without giving more information, just bursting in before the astonished gaze of mothers, fathers, the elderly, boys, girls, good people who only want to work in peace,” they added.
According to the publications of ZODI Bolívar on its social networks, until now these evictions are expected to continue, with explosives to eliminate what they maintain are “illegal camps of armed terrorist groups.”
For the people of Tumeremo this means more abuses and human rights violations.
“What they want is to clear the mines to hand them over to others. No one stands up for us, the mayor has not even spoken. The other is that they take people prisoner and they don’t say anything, nobody knows about them. In El Dorado and kilometer 88 there are also protests. As the militarization is concentrated in Tumeremo, here they want to force merchants to open their businesses”, denounced a resident of the area.
The inhabitants, miners and merchants not only took to the streets to express their rejection against the military outrages, the Christian mining population of Tumeremo also gathered to pray “for peace and protection towards communities with a gold tradition” , and ask for the cessation of the abuses.
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