JLW
Diamond Member
- Sep 16, 2012
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Since Trump says the US will now run Venezuela, how will he deal with the Venezuelan insurgents who control much of its rare earth minerals and deposits.
Vast tracts of Venezuelan territory rich in critical and rare earth minerals are now controlled by Colombian guerrillas. “They have many armed people. They control everything, and nothing has changed. The only difference is that now most of the Indigenous people are there, with them,” said a young Indigenous Venezuelan we’ll call Carlos* for security reasons. He described how the National Liberation Army (ELN) seized areas rich in coltan, tin ore, and rare earth elements in the southwest of the country. The ELN now sits at the center of a new mining boom.
Most extraction occurs in the Venezuelan states of Amazonas and Bolívar. In Amazonas, mining is prohibited by decree. In Bolívar, it is concentrated in the government-declared Orinoco Mining Arc, established in 2016. While exact timelines are hard to confirm, there is general agreement that rudimentary extraction began around 15 years ago in Cedeño municipality, near a site called Morichalito, close to the Parguaza area….
By 2010, as the global race for critical minerals accelerated, buyers began to appear and local miners were displaced from their extraction sites. Carlos and Josué said that hundreds of armed ELN combatants began seizing the most productive mining sites in 2023, bringing new workers to the region.
When the guerrillas took control, Indigenous leaders were coerced, threatened, or bought off by irregular forces. Those unwilling to work under the guerrilla regime could only work at night, in hidden mining sites.
In Amazonas and northwestern Bolívar, where most critical mineral mines are located, the ELN’s José Daniel Pérez Carrero front and the Acacio Medina Segunda Marquetalia Front, a former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissident group, operated in alliance, dividing territory and mines while sharing drug-trafficking routes.
amazonunderworld.org
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Trump admits his invasion was about controlling Venezuelan oil resources but it is also about rare earth minerals that are abundant in Venezuela.
The question is how will Trump access these resources. How many troops will Trump commit to gain access to these minerals.
Maduro could not control these resources, so how will the US.
Vast tracts of Venezuelan territory rich in critical and rare earth minerals are now controlled by Colombian guerrillas. “They have many armed people. They control everything, and nothing has changed. The only difference is that now most of the Indigenous people are there, with them,” said a young Indigenous Venezuelan we’ll call Carlos* for security reasons. He described how the National Liberation Army (ELN) seized areas rich in coltan, tin ore, and rare earth elements in the southwest of the country. The ELN now sits at the center of a new mining boom.
Most extraction occurs in the Venezuelan states of Amazonas and Bolívar. In Amazonas, mining is prohibited by decree. In Bolívar, it is concentrated in the government-declared Orinoco Mining Arc, established in 2016. While exact timelines are hard to confirm, there is general agreement that rudimentary extraction began around 15 years ago in Cedeño municipality, near a site called Morichalito, close to the Parguaza area….
By 2010, as the global race for critical minerals accelerated, buyers began to appear and local miners were displaced from their extraction sites. Carlos and Josué said that hundreds of armed ELN combatants began seizing the most productive mining sites in 2023, bringing new workers to the region.
When the guerrillas took control, Indigenous leaders were coerced, threatened, or bought off by irregular forces. Those unwilling to work under the guerrilla regime could only work at night, in hidden mining sites.
In Amazonas and northwestern Bolívar, where most critical mineral mines are located, the ELN’s José Daniel Pérez Carrero front and the Acacio Medina Segunda Marquetalia Front, a former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dissident group, operated in alliance, dividing territory and mines while sharing drug-trafficking routes.
Invasion, Violence and Plunder in Southern Venezuela: The Price of Global Defense and 'Clean Technology' - Amazon Underworld
In the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands — from the arid, rocky savanna areas near the Orinoco River to the dense, fertile stretches of the Amazon rainforest — lie some of the most coveted minerals on Earth. Their existence exposes a stark contradiction: the critical minerals essential for green...
amazonunderworld.org
****************************
Trump admits his invasion was about controlling Venezuelan oil resources but it is also about rare earth minerals that are abundant in Venezuela.
The question is how will Trump access these resources. How many troops will Trump commit to gain access to these minerals.
Maduro could not control these resources, so how will the US.
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