But they are part of a 13,665-kilometre railway system on which trains should now be running, from one principal point of the country to another. At least that is what was foreseen in the 2006 National Socialist Plan for Railway Development, the realisation of which was partly guaranteed by the Venezuelan-Chinese Joint Fund (FCCV). The ambitious railway plan was initially designed by the Ministry of Infrastructure (Minfra), through the then State Railway Institute (IFE).

Fifteen years later, however, only 40 kilometres are in operation, barely 0.29% of the total planned. This is the Caracas-Charallave-Cúa section, which connects the Venezuelan capital with the commuter towns of the Tuy Valleys, in the southwest. Only isolated segments of the remainder of the system can be seen.

Some vestiges are what was intended to be the Tinaco-Anaco Railway. The route sought to connect the country from west to east through the plains - from Cojedes state to Anzoátegui. In doing so, it would avoid the north-coastal axis, an area where the population, industry and, therefore, roads have traditionally been concentrated. It promised to encourage a new pole of development in the empty heart of Venezuela and, aboard the "first bullet train in South America", the possibility of shortening a 468-kilometre journey to just three hours.

Yet, promises never turned into reality as the company responsible for carrying out the work, the state-owned China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), got bogged down by disputes with Venezuelan labour, bureaucratic hurdles and language barriers. In the end, CREC withdrew from the works not only without completing them - it barely made 31% progress - but also without delivering the promised technology transfer.

Tinaco-Anaco: Better quality and more speed

On 30 July 2009, China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) signed a contract with the Venezuelan State Railway Institute (IFE) for US$7.5 billion for the construction of the Tinaco-Anaco railway system. According to the document, the project would be financed through the Binational Fund, created in May 2008 during the visit to Venezuela of Hui Liangyu, then one of the Chinese government's deputy prime ministers.

Armando.info has had access to the contract, along with others analysed by the Latin American Journalism Centre (Clip) for the series Venezuela’s Dance with China, for which Diálogo Chino has provided additional reporting.

The agreement was signed by the then president of the State Railway Institute (IFE), Franklin Pérez, and Bai Zhongren, then vice-president of CREC. According to the agreement, the Chinese partner would register four Chinese-Venezuelan mixed capital companies in the country, thus transferring technology to Venezuela and contributing to a specialised workforce.

During the inauguration ceremony of the works on 22 March 2009, in the El Mamoncito sector of the Ortiz municipality in Guárico state, in the centre of Venezuela, Bai said: "We will finish this Tinaco-Anaco project with the best quality and the fastest speed. (...) We are going to make the complete technological transfer of engineering, construction and manufacturing to Venezuela. And we are going to negotiate with the Institute for the construction of sleepers, wagons and rails, to offer more jobs, to generate more employment opportunities for Venezuela".

The project included the construction of three plants or factories for sleepers - slabs of wood or cement that support the rails - rail welding and the assembly of switches at the Dos Caminos station (Guárico state), the contract says. There would also be a fourth wagon assembly plant at Chaguaramas station, in the same province.

According to documents from the State Railway Institute, the total investment in the four plants was just over US$347.6 million. The factories were projected to produce 600,000 sleepers, 2,000 rails and assemble 1,000 freight cars per year.

At the time, spokespersons for Hugo Chávez’s government assured that the project would bring new development opportunities to a vast area stretching from the central to the eastern plains, its 1.3 million people and its economy sustained by agriculture and livestock and, to a lesser extent, tourism.

The freight and passenger train would pass through ten stations, including the towns of Tinaco and El Pao in Cojedes state; Dos Caminos, El Sombrero, Tucupido, Zaraza and Chaguaramas in Guárico state; Valle de la Pascua in Aragua state; and Aragua de Barcelona and Anaco, in Anzoátegui state.

Despite the lack of progress, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (CREEC), the design and engineering subsidiary of CREC responsible for determining the feasibility of the project, still has the Tinaco-Anaco project listed on its website as "the largest project undertaken by China in an overseas railway market".

The plan envisaged that, upon completion, the Tinaco-Anaco Railway would connect with the now unfinished Ferrocarril del Centro, which would lead from Aragua state to Puerto Cabello, in Carabobo state; and with the Acarigua-Araure section, in Portuguesa state, which was to be extended to neighbouring Barinas state and Táchira, on the border with Colombia.

In state plans and in the mind of Comandante Chávez, a tangle of railways irrigated the whole country with progress. "It is the great railway of the northern plains axis", the then president said jubilantly at the groundbreaking ceremony in El Mamoncito. The Chinese technology and money behind the project led Chávez, and to some extent CREEC, to count their chickens before they were hatched.

However, "once the Chinese left, people took everything they could sell", says Ramón Figuera, a journalist and editor of El Tubazo Digital, a local media outlet. The looting was the rude awakening of a dream that could never materialise.

Paid for music that did not play

The work was partially paid for. In a status report presented in June 2010 by the State Railway Institute (IFE), a first disbursement of 10.66% of the total investment, equivalent to US$ 800 million, was made to begin work in 2009. In a communication issued on 9 July 2010 by Roger Caraballo, IFE's general manager of railway development, and addressed to Gan Baixan, CREC's executive president, he wrote that a second disbursement of US$675 million had been approved.

In 2011, the Executive Management of Development Funds at the Economic and Social Development Bank of Venezuela (Bandes) approved a third disbursement of US$667 million for the continuation of works on the Tinaco-Anaco Railway section. The allocation also appeared in the 2011 Annual Report and Accounts of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The 2012 report lists another disbursement of almost US$598 million for the ongoing work. The ministry wrote in its report that, while the financial execution of the project was fully on schedule during that period, only 5.6% of the project had progressed.

Despite the funds flowing in, in January 2011 the work was halted for the first time. Workers from different sections complained publicly that the previous month CREC had signed the severance cheques for almost all workers, arguing that the work had to be imminently suspended due to lack of resources.

Union leaders Hermis Ramírez, a local leader of the United Socialist Front of Workers of the Construction, Wood and Railway Systems Industry of Venezuela (FSUTC), and Jhon Vargas, of the National Union of Venezuelan Workers of the Construction Industry, Railway System and Related Industries (Sovica), said: "the company managers claimed that the national government gave them only US$800 million in 2009 to start the work and by December 2010 they had already spent US$1.2 billion dollars. $1.2 billion! They said that because of this they incurred financial losses and could not continue building the section".

The then legal representative of CREC in Anaco, Tomás Aguilera, confirmed to workers that the operations were suspended, "not because of debt but because the talks between China and Venezuela had resumed to establish new guidelines".

In an interview on the Televen channel in June 2013, IFE president Francisco Torrealba admitted that the Venezuelan government owed US$400 million to China. That year, the Ministry of Transportation's Memory and Account Report showed that the project received no resources in 2013 and that up to the previous year that only a third had been completed.

In 2014, the Ministry of Transportation noted that among the obstacles to the progress of the works were variations in the prices of inputs and the "economic requirements of the projects above the real possibilities of financing in the year". It added that "the execution of the works of the different sections has been affected due to the fact that the contractual commitments with several contractors have not been honoured".

During a meeting of the Binational High-Level Joint Commission in Venezuela in June 2014, Gan Baixian, the president of China Railway International Group (CRIG), the arm of CREC in charge of overseas projects, called for “a prompt solution to the financial difficulties" of the Tinaco Anaco railway project.

And that is as far as it went. Between 2011 and 2014, the project was intermittently paralysed and reactivated. In 2012, Francisco Solórzano, the then mayor of Anaco, Anzoátegui state, announced that the construction of the railway in his municipality would restart in 2013, with completion set for 2016. He admitted in passing that "it has been at a slow pace".

Yet, the local reinvigoration of the project never happened. When consulted for this report, Antonio Barreto Sira, an opposition leader and the governor of Anzoátegui state since 2017, said that the central government had not discussed the possible reactivation of the work, nor investigated the lost resources.  

Five years after the definitive stoppage, the work lies abandoned and in some sections it is being dismantled, according to former National Assembly deputy Carlos Andrés Michelangeli, who toured the interior of the state of Anzoátegui in January 2021.

"The camp located in Anaco is abandoned, deteriorated and destroyed by vandalism," he said.

Rafael Aponte, a regional member of the opposition Avanzada Progresista party in Cojedes state, said that the camps in the villages of El Pao and Tinaco were abandoned at least five years ago and that "even the floor tiles were taken from there, nothing was left".

Both political spokespersons agree that the debacle accelerated in early 2015, when the Chinese directors of the project left quietly.

Reflecting on the failure of the railway, some Chinese commentators argued that the overtly political nature of engagement with Venezuela precluded any sensible business decision-making and that the country lacked the necessary criteria to undertake a high-speed rail project.   

Writing in the book Building Development for a New Era on Chinese infrastructure in Latin America, Haibin Niu, a researcher at the BRICS Policy Center, argued: “China's experience with high-speed trains indicates the most viable routes are those that connect metropolitan areas and have a stable electricity supply. Those conditions did not exist in Venezuela.”

At the very least, Niu wrote, lessons would be learned: “The railway case in Venezuela taught Chinese companies that the better way to achieve successful overseas investment is to go through a traditional commercial process and follow financial common sense.”

A disfunctional Babel

Another problem the unfinished Tinaco-Anaco railway revealed was that national labour laws were suppressed and poor consideration was given by CREC to its environmental impact.

An internal report presented on 4 August 2010 by Franklin Pérez Colina, president of the Railway Institute, to then Minister of People's Power for Transportation and Communications at the time, Francisco Garcés, outlined these issues. In it, he explained there were "existing problems in the construction of the Emiliano Arévalo Cedeño northern plains axis railway system, Tinaco-Anaco section".

Pérez Colina complained that CREC personnel did not adhere to Venezuelan construction regulations and refused to hire Venezuelan companies, which would have allowed the projects to be executed more expeditiously. Those that were subcontracted by the Chinese company, the report insisted, did not have the necessary equipment to carry out the work properly.

The agreement between CREC and IFE allowed the contracting of Chinese personnel for the works, something that became commonplace very early on in most binational projects. Often the contractual clauses of Sino-Venezuelan cooperation projects explicitly stipulated the suspension of Venezuelan labour regulations. This also enabled contractors to employ and remunerate workers in line with Chinese customs and legislation.

But this licence, according to Pérez Colina's report, resulted in another Gordian knot. Communication did not flow well. There were no technical translators to facilitate understanding, neither in meetings to discuss specific projects, nor with workers in the field. Engineers were spoken to in Chinese and "plans, for example, were presented by CREC to Venezuelan staff in Mandarin".

"There has been an increase in violent, defiant and out-of-order claims by Chinese personnel towards Venezuelan personnel due to the refusal to have a translator in the field to work for the proper communication between the Chinese foreman and the workers," the report states.  

In addition to this, complaints of non-compliance with contracts and labour standards proliferated during the works. On several occasions the workers went on strike to demand the cancellation of labour liabilities and wage improvements.

According to the same report, the Chinese personnel responsible for the different sections downplayed the importance of recommendations to comply with contractual benefits. "The salaries of the workers (workers and employees, both administrative and professional) in the different sections are different due to the lack of a tabulator. They are paid according to the criteria of the head of the camp (...) the contracting of the sub-companies is split up and they do not recognise the variation of prices in the workforce, ignoring the presidential decree of the wage increase of 1 May", Pérez Colina warned.

For their part, unions repeatedly denounced the company for violating labour laws, especially on the length of the working day and overtime. "China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) violates almost 70% of contractual benefits, does not cancel clinic service, pharmacy, travel time, weekend bonuses and food bonus adjustments," workers told local media in August 2014.

They also complained that on several occasions they had sat down to talk with representatives of the Chinese contractor, who claimed that they could not provide these benefits because they only had to pay them for the working week and nothing else.

"This company is in breach of the collective bargaining agreement and the Organic Labour Law. We are tired of this repeated violation of workers' rights. If they don't catch up, this work will not continue and will be delayed much longer than it already is," union leaders representing  200 workers on the section under construction between Aragua de Barcelona and Anaco.

Pollution too

Finally, a special section in the report addressed to the president of the State Railway Institute (IFE) listed the environmental irregularities committed by CREC.

In the camp installed in Tinaco, Cojedes state, the report said "the riverbed of the Pao river was affected by the placement of plant material that obstructed it, in violation of Decree 2220 of the Environmental Law, which dictates the rules for regulating activities capable of causing changes in flow, obstruction of the riverbed and sedimentation problems". It also explained that "the poor management of hazardous waste generated at the construction site" led to a fuel spill, "causing soil contamination without the necessary corrective measures being applied".

After an investigation in 2010, the State Environmental Division determined that the companies subcontracted by CREC did not have the Register of Activities Susceptible to Degrade the Environment, an indispensable requirement for any company responsible for generating, handling and transporting hazardous material in Venezuela. Part of the agreement established with the state-owned company to mitigate the impact was to hire another company to deal with the situation. However, at the time of the Railway Institute's report, the commitment had not been fulfilled. 

The Tiznado river in Guárico state was also affected because a ready-mix concrete plant was set up just 135 metres from the shore. From there, they dumped concrete aggregates that affected the Río Verde dam. The company’s subcontractors also deforested several areas without carrying out the required inventories and without due authorisation from the Ministry of the Environment. They felled valuable species such as oak, araguaney (Venezuela’s national tree), cedar and acapro, of the Tabebuia genus native to the Americas’ tropics and subtropics.

This is not the only Latin American project in which CREC’s design and planning arm has left question marks over its consideration of environmental risks. A subsidiary, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (CREEC), considered it feasible to build a proposed interoceanic railway between Peru and Brazil through sensitive Amazonian ecosystems and an indigenous reserve because of preferable topography.

One of its engineers told a Brazilian senate hearing: "They say the geology can be an obstacle. But the geology is even more complex in China, which has made Chinese railway construction technology more refined".

The non-compliance of the Tinaco-Anaco railway and the various complaints of violations of labour and environmental laws did not stop the Venezuelan government from contracting a CREC-affiliated company again. In 2018, Venezuela's executive vice president Delcy Rodríguez signed new agreements in China as part of the so-called Plan for Recovery, Growth and Economic Prosperity.

Among them, there is a contract with China Railway N° 10 Engineering Group Co Ltd, another subsidiary of CREC, to boost iron and gold production in Venezuela. Rodríguez was hosted in Beijing by the Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela, Li Baurong, and held meetings with Minister He Lifeng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top planning body. They pledged to "consolidate and expand cooperation between our countries," Rodriguez tweeted on 10 September 2018.

Four days later, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro travelled to China to participate in the closing of the XVI Meeting of the China-Venezuela High-Level Joint Commission (CMAN), where 28 new agreements were signed on energy, mining, agriculture, industry, science and technology.

It is unclear whether this new contract includes any reference to the one that was abandoned, or why, after millions of dollars invested, only 40 kilometres of track have been laid.

When it all began in March 2009, the then Chinese ambassador in Caracas, Zhang Tuo, told Chavéz in Guárico that he wanted to "give thanks, deep thanks to the Venezuelan government, to the President, and also to the Minister of Infrastructure, for the trust placed in our company CREC because I can assure you that you have made the right decision".

In time, he was proven very wrong.

*This investigation is based on a trove of documents obtained by Armando.info (Venezuela), which were processed and analysed in partnership with the Latin American Centre for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) and with additional reporting by Diálogo Chino.

But those were also the times of oil bonanza and political hegemony. President Hugo Chávez had declared himself a "socialist" in 2006 and his party was in almost complete control of the National Assembly, following the opposition's desertion in 2005 parliamentary elections. He had the power and political clout to strengthen a network of new international allies, including China. The relationship with the Asian country flourished amidst dozens of new projects put together over long meetings, memoranda and billions of dollars.

In the midst of this intoxication, on 22 December 2009, without any assessment, China Development Bank (CDB) poured $1 billion into the coffers of the Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank (Bandes). The funds were destined for projects that would improve Venezuela’s iron ore production and the production capacity of the CVG Ferrominera company in the state of Bolívar, in the south of the country.They would be repaid by Venezuela with the proceeds from the sale of 42.96 million tonnes of iron ore to Wisco. The agreement also foresaw that Chinese companies would be contracted for those improvement works, according to documents accessed by Armando.info and processed and analysed together with the data team of the Latin American Centre for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), with additional reporting by Diálogo Chino.

This was no regular export deal. If China had paid for the 42.96 million tonnes in advance and according to international iron ore prices in 2009, it would have had to wire the Caribbean country a figure nearer $4.176 billion.

Under the terms of this exchange, dressed as cooperation for the development of Venezuela's export capacity of this commodity needed to produce steel, China was in effect buying cheap ore. But, as it would turn out, the huge 75% discount was linked to a very high risk of default by its South American partner.

The timing of the deal was tight. According to the sales contract that had been signed two months earlier, on 22 October 2009, CVG Ferrominera was obliged to deliver Wisco a first installment of 160,000 tonnes of material by the end of that month. Two more deliveries were to follow: one of 160,000 tonnes in November and another in December for an additional 140,000 tonnes. Delivery of the ore was delayed, but the quota for that year was eventually met. In the first half of 2010, Ferrominera delivered a further 460,000 tonnes of iron ore that corresponded to the previous year’s quota.

For 2010, the agreed quota was much higher, at 4 million tonnes, or 29% of Ferrominera's eventual total production that year, just over 14 million tonnes, according to the Ministry of Basic Industries' 2013 Annual Report. The goal was ambitious but looked achievable if the improvements laid down in the Chinese loan were carried out. They weren’t. It soon became clear that there was no alchemy that could transform the initial optimism of Beijing and Caracas into iron ore.

By 30 June, 2010, CVG Ferrominera had delivered just 337,250 tonnes of iron ore, less than 10% of the total pledged. To meet its commitment for that year, it had to deliver on its outstanding balance of 3,461,946 tonnes, with only six months to go.

A joint report by the Venezuelan delegation to the CVG Financing Agreement and China Development Bank (CDB) warned that the Venezuelan company was in dangerous waters and that, if it failed to meet the schedule, it would be obliged to pay China an amount equivalent to the volume not delivered at the agreed price. In other words, almost US$70 million, in addition to payments for transport, cargo loading and unloading, among others.

It didn't take long for the poor planning of these monumental projects funded by Chinese money to be exposed, along with no guarantees of compliance. "Minister [Rodolfo] Sanz made promises that Corporación Venezolana de Guayana was unable to keep and committed Ferrominera to supplying iron ore at levels it does not have," complained Tian Yunhai, deputy director of CBD's international cooperation department, during an urgent meeting in Beijing in December 2010 to discuss the failure to honour the agreement.

Disappointment

Gradually, Venezuelan authorities realised that they had signed a contract that was not favourable to them and very difficult to fulfil.

A report presented by the Venezuelan delegation to the CVG Financing Agreement and China Development Bank (CDB) in June 2010 detailed that the iron ore delivery contract signed with Wisco did not generate income for CVG Ferrominera. "Although so far there has been enough ore in inventory to cover commitments, it is necessary to recover and increase CVG Ferrominera's production capacity to guarantee the volume of iron ore to China, without detriment to its other commitments (...) It is essential to have other sources of income to meet contractual and operational commitments, and currently this source is exporting to Europe," the document says.

The report highlighted the company's operational and logistical inability to meet a commitment of the size agreed upon. "In order to increase transport capacity, the ship Río Caroní, which is currently undergoing major repairs at the Curaçao dock, is required. The cost of these repairs amounts to US$9 million, which CVG Ferrominera does not have. To date this payment has been delayed for two months and the Curaçao dock states that it will remove the vessel without completing the repairs if the delay in payment persists. This would imply that the vessel would be anchored and out of operations, with the consequent associated costs," the document says.

In a rare sample of realism, the report held back on neither detail or sentiment. It admitted that the company did not have the funds to cover the costs of materials and spare parts that would allow it to reach operational capacity in the extraction, processing and transport processes. Moreover, it could not afford to maintain the Boca Grande II transfer station, the largest floating iron ore transfer station in the world, located in the Columbus Channel (otherwise known as the Serpent’s Mouth), which lies opposite the mouth of the Orinoco River between Venezuela and the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

Another drawback was listed in the report. The port capacity of the Boca Grande II station did not match that of the vessels hired by the Chinese company Wisco to transport the ore. To make matters worse, those vessels did not have GPS-assisted navigation systems to allow for night navigation, slowing transit through the treacherous waters of the channel.

In addition to the fact that the iron committed to the Chinese company came at a significant price discount, there was the prospect of an imminent decrease in Ferrominera's income from sales to its domestic customers in the industrial sector. A plan to cut energy consumption was already in force. It was the year of the electricity emergency decreed by Chávez, which foresaw important limitations for heavy industry.There were also technical problems in the direct reduction plants in the Guayana region (Matesi, Orinoco Iron, FMO Briquette Plant and Comsigua) that are responsible for the second process in the iron production cycle, which consists of reducing pellets  so they become suitable for making steel, a process which also includes the removal of the oxygen in the iron oxide.

The report, drafted at the request of Venezuela's Ministry of Basic Industries and Mining (Mibam), proposed an extraordinary investment of $50 million to address urgent issues that could overcome some of these obstacles and increase Ferrominera's production line.

"Failure to take immediate action will result in non-compliance with the loan contract as of September 2010 and with the supply contract as of December 2010, which would generate the legal and economic consequences already described. However, such actions also do not guarantee the due fulfilment of all obligations under the various contracts for subsequent years, as their fulfilment will depend on structural reforms in the company," the report warns.

Despite the fact that the $1 billion credit line, which according to the commitment Venezuela was to pay with 42.96 million tonnes of iron ore, was intended to improve the company's production and dispatch capacity, in the report the Venezuelan representation stated that "CVG Ferrominera has not benefited from the funding".

Beyond ensuring materials needed to fuel its economic growth, one possible explanation for China's interest in securing supplies of Venezuelan iron ore is its quality, which is judged by how much iron it contains. More than 65% is considered as high-grade. Anything between 62% and 64% is considered average-grade. “Among the proven reserves [in Venezuela] the average grade of 1.748 billion tonnes is 63.51% and that of 4.176 billion tonnes is 41.2%. This proportion is rare in the world,” Zhan Hongkun, the chief engineer of China Railway 10th Engineering Group (a subsidiary of CRECG) in Venezuela, told China’s People’s Daily in 2018. Additionally, the ease of extracting Venezuelan iron ore suits industrial use. Zhan’s said: "the mining difficulty is small, the iron ore is all located above the surface, and can be directly loaded and transported after being excavated".

According to Rebecca Ray, a researcher at Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative (GEGI) who has extensively studied Chinese loans in Latin America, the deal appears to follow a traditional model of commodity-backed lending.

“Rather than direct repayment in kind, they entail commodity shipments to a Chinese firm (in this case, Wisco), which then channels the proceeds from the sale to an account linked to the loan. Typically, if the value of shipments surpasses the amount needed for repayment, the surplus proceeds can be returned to the borrowing country as normal export revenue. Obviously in this case, with the mining company struggling, we don’t expect that there are surplus shipments,” said Ray, who maps China’s Overseas Development Finance.

Without improvements in production capacity, in 2010 Ferrominera Orinoco was barely able to deliver 514,250 tonnes of iron ore, just 13.45% of its commitment for that year.

“Unfortunately, as far as I know the details of the deal have never been made public, so we cannot confirm if it follows the traditional pattern,” she added.

Frustration in Beijing

At the end of 2010, the Chinese partner complained about Venezuela’s non-delivery of its side of the deal.

On December 9, a meeting was held at CDB’s headquarters in Beijing. Edmée Betancourt, president of the Venezuelan Economic and Social Development Bank (Bandes), was supposed to attend. Instead, Richard Miranda, compliance officer of Bandes, and Guadalupe Franco, first secretary of Venezuela’s Beijing embassy, were present.

During the meeting, Tian Yunhai, deputy director of CDB's international cooperation department, expressed his annoyance. "Both the bank and Wisco expected a response from Venezuela vis-a-vis cooperation and sincere dialogue. However, the negotiations led by Ferrominera veered far from that goal, presenting only a purely commercial position and with supply ranges that did not meet Wisco's expectations," said the official, according to documents to which Armando.info had access. Tian recalled that in 2009, when the then minister of Basic Industries and Mining, Rodolfo Sanz, made an emergency request for resources from the bank, "its response was in line with the confidence it maintains in cooperation with Venezuela".

The aim of the meeting was to receive CDB’s proposal for the use of the credit line, but Chinese representatives complained about the absence of the recently appointed minister of Basic Industries and Mining, José Khan, and of Edmée Betancourt, president of Bandes, who until then had represented Venezuela during contract negotiations with China. "The situation is affecting the financial relationship with Venezuela and I am sure that this situation would not be to the liking of President Hugo Chávez," Tian said.

The day after the meeting, the Venezuelan Diplomatic Commission in China received an urgent communication from Tian. He informed them of an urgent visit to Venezuela in 30 days, accompanied by bank officials and Wisco's technical team, to evaluate the productive capacity and logistical conditions and begin carrying out planned projects by the end of 2011. "The objective is to solve CVG's production and logistics problems as soon as possible," he said.

With partners like these..

Improving Ferrominera's iron ore production and dispatch capacity justified CDB’s US$1 billion loan that obliged the Venezuelan state-owned company to commit 42.96 million tonnes of output . But the mine's upgrading projects saw as many setbacks as did its attempts to meet the payment schedule.

At a meeting on 30 May 30 2011, Ferrominera and Wisco signed a new agreement committing the Chinese company to design and implement two projects with the state-owned China Railway Engineering Corporation Group (CREC), including the "expansion of the operational capacity of the Palúa dock", in the small port in the northeast of San Félix, a city in Bolívar state, and the "dredging of the Orinoco River". The agreement also contemplated a third project to be developed by Wisco for the "purchase of machinery and spare parts for the mines", in order to alleviate the operational and infrastructure crisis faced by the company.

Three months later, on August 10 2011, after several meetings between Ferrominera and Wisco, the parties concluded that the projects should be executed by companies specialised in these areas. Wisco finally admitted that it did not have sufficient experience to undertake engineering work to expand the operational capacity of the Palúa dock or to dredge the Orinoco. It therefore informed Ferrominera that both projects were to be handed over to third parties, awarding the dredging project to China Railway Engineering Corporation Group (CRECG) and China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which, as Diálogo Chino has shown, has more than 50 projects in Latin America. The expansion of the operational capacity of the Palúa wharf was awarded to China Railway 10th Engineering Group Co., a subsidiary of CRECG.

Wisco would thus be left with only one of the three projects mooted in the original agreement, for the purchase of machinery and spare parts for the mines.

On 5 September 2011, Ferrominera signed a contract with China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) for the maintenance, dredging and deepening of the Orinoco River channel, between miles 0 and 42 of its outer channel and miles 42 and 196 of its inner channel. On the same day, the Venezuelan state-owned company gave the go-ahead to China Railway N° 10 Engineering Group Co, Ltd to begin a number of works at the the Palúa wharf. These included the construction, installation and commissioning of receiving hoppers for fine and coarse iron ore, conveyors, a transfer house, a stacker with a capacity of 3,500 tn/h, a reclaimer, a mud loader, a stacking yard, and the construction of 2.5 km of closed-circuit railway track for the entry, unloading and exit of trains.

Both works were due to start in October 2011 and stated to be completed fourteen months later, in December 2012.

But while the infrastructure improvement projects did not materialise, Ferrominera faced increasing delivery commitments and difficulties in meeting them. In 2011 it had to deliver a quota of six million tonnes, or 35% of total production that year. For 2012, that quota rose to 6.5 million tonnes, some 43% of production which, as it turned out, would barely reach 15 million tonnes, according to the Ministry of Basic Industries report from that year.

In the end, the Palúa wharf was the only project to be completed, some five years behind schedule and after Hugo Chávez had died. Marcial Arenas, the then vice-minister of Industrial Planning and Strategic Investments, and Isaías Suárez Chourio, president of the state mining company inaugurated the work on January 31, 2017, during the presidential TV show “Contacto con Maduro”, along with CREC representatives.

The year 2013 marked the definitive collapse of the iron ore industry, with millions in debts to be collected. Nationalised in 1975, a year before the oil industry, the exploitation of the iron ore deposits in Bolívar state was the first pillar of a state plan of successive democratic governments to turn the southern bank of the Orinoco River into a global hub for steel and heavy industry. Ferrominera, built up from operations previously held by US companies, was fundamental to this vision.

In 2013, the president of Ferrominera, Radwan Sabbagh, admitted in a public interview that the company faced difficulties even in its payment for electricity, gas, social security and contractual commitments assumed through the National Bank of Housing and Habitat (Banavih). At the same time, an important part of production was mortgaged by the contract with China, which left the company with no direct profits. The international price of iron ore that year averaged US$135 per tonne, whereas Venezuela had accepted a deal in which it was delivering a tonne at $23. Caracas had squandered a decade of soaring commodity prices driven, ironically, by China's appetite.

Worst of all, the suffocating commitment had further to run. By 2013, the promise of ore deliveries amounted to 6.5 million tonnes. That year, Ferrominera's total production was 10 million tonnes. In other words, 620 grammes out of every kilogram of iron produced in 2013 was had been “paid for” long before by its Chinese customer.

The 2013 official document titled “Memory and Account”, drafted by the Ministry of Basic Industries, gives an explanation for the sharp decline in national production of iron and steel. This was due to "the accumulated effects of the old capitalist management scheme that prevailed, as well as the historical disinvestment of the old management model of these factories, in equipment and scheduled maintenance to ensure the availability of the equipment necessary for the sustainability of production and sales", it said.

But that statement was not credible. Something else must have been going on. To find out, Caracas dispatched an intelligence agent to Ciudad Guayana, at the juncture of the towns of San Félix and Puerto Ordaz, where the Caroní River meets the Orinoco and where CVG’s headquarters are located, the heart of Venezuela’s heavy industry. It was the beginning of a corruption scandal that ended up engulfing the agent himself: Juan Carlos Álvarez Dionisi, also known as “The Shark” and a colonel in the Bolivarian National Guard.

On June 12, 2013, President Nicolás Maduro, who had only just been elected the previous April after the death of Chávez, announced the arrest of Ferrominera president Radwan Sabbagh, who had earlier complained about the impossibility of paying utility bills. Sabbagh was later sentenced to six years in prison after admitting his responsibility in the diversion of more than US$1.8 million during his tenure between 2006 and 2013. Several other Ferrominera officials also ended up in prison, including finance manager María Acosta, administrative manager María Rodríguez, legal consultant Noel Ramírez, former technical operations manager Ángel Ramón Campero Franco and a businessman, Yamal Mustafá, who had extensive links to the long-time governor of Bolívar state and prominent ‘chavista’, Army General Francisco Rangel Gómez.

The announcement uncovered several crimes linking Ferrominera's top management to a corruption scheme involving the sale of iron ore at preferential prices to intermediary companies that then placed the product on the international market. It also revealed that those involved had bribed Álvarez Dionisi, who was sent to investigate the irregularities, to not report them. "The Shark" was charged by the 54th national and 2nd assistant national prosecutors, Nelly Sánchez Pantaleón and Maryori Da Cunha, respectively, with the crimes of extortion, money laundering and criminal association.

In the aforementioned 2013 report, the Industry Ministry refers to the investigation and notes that "as a result of this and other allegations, part of the management team of the plant was dismissed and various arrests were made by the competent agencies".

Chinese executives, frustrated and faced with the inability of their commercial partner - now also plagued by a corruption scandal - to comply with the agreements, were forced to evaluate and renegotiate the projects, seeking a real recovery in production.

"The project 'Expansion of the capacity of the Palúa dock' did not show progress in the physical goal, since it was reached at the end of 2014 with the completion of the facilities," the document says. It adds that the project plans were received "in built condition", tests were carried out without load and with load that allowed the correction in different points of the installed systems and the signing of the provisional acceptance minutes, although it was pending finalize technical assistance to the project.

Meanwhile, in 2016, Wisco, based in Wuhan -the city later elevated to a dismal celebrity by the coronavirus-, merged with Shanghai-based Baoshan Iron and Steel Group (Baosteel) as part of a comprehensive reform of the state enterprises started by the Chinese government. The result of this operation was that the company, now called Baowu Steel Group, became the second largest steel company in the world. It is not clear if Ferrominera's contractual obligations passed to that group. According to Panjiva, a company that records international trade data, between 2017 and 2018, Ferrominera still exported about three million tons of iron ore per year to China.

The last public announcement made by Nicolás Maduro assured that, in October 2019, Ferrominera would once again produce three million tons of material per year. A year after that forecast, the ovens located within the Punta Cuchillo industrial complex, in the Matanzas industrial area, west of Ciudad Guayana, remained off, while the company's production figures continue to decline, without even having reached the two million tons in 2020, one-seventh of what Ferrominera was producing a decade earlier, when it received credit from China for its expansion.

*This investigation is based on a trove of documents obtained by Armando.info (Venezuela), which were processed and analysed in partnership with the Latin American Centre for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) and with additional reporting by Diálogo Chino.

Despite of the security force that follows him everywhere, Julian is perceived as a "lone wolf", which, in addition to his career as a former guerrilla, helped him generate fear and respect among those who know him or have just heard about him.

Short, of mixed race and slanted eyes, characteristic of the indigenous descendants of the scroungers who inhabited El Dovio, a municipality at the south-west of Colombia, Julian began his guerrilla career in Front 40 Jacobo Arenas and then in Acacio Medina, where he hardly appeared in 2012 in the charts as a fourth "replacement", without changing position again. Despite having had a medium command in the guerrillas, his name resonated when the Central Chief of Staff of FARC expelled him from the organization along with four commanders who led the dissidents "for contradicting the political line" of what was now a party.

Géner García Molina, alias "John 40", the highest commander of Acacio Medina Front; Miguel Santanilla Botache, alias "Gentil Duarte"; Ernesto Orjuela Tovar, alias "Giovanni Chuspas", head of Front 16; and Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias "Iván Mordisco", commander of the First Front, are the four renegades who, together with Julián Chollo, turned their backs on the peace process in Colombia and lead the criminal reorganization of the guerrilla dissidence. These five men, with over 20 years of career and extensive military knowledge, have something in common, all led fronts of the Eastern Bloc, the financial structure of FARC linked to coca production, the axis of this guerrilla movement from 1993 to 2002, when it was at its best.

The Heritage

"At first, they entered Venezuelan territory looking for refuge (...) The guerrillas was present, especially of FARC, from the mouth of the Meta river to Cerro el Cocuy on the border with Brazil," says indigenous Baniva Liborio Guarulla Garrido, Governor for 17 years - until October 2017 - of the Amazonas State. "It was so evident that one had to attend indigenous communities on both sides. Sometimes we had to see their flags, their troops and there was no problem, until Uribe arrived."

Álvaro Uribe Vélez won the presidency of Colombia thanks to his promise to "restore peace in Colombia" with a government program called "democratic security" policy, focused on regaining control of the territory and attacking the guerrillas’ rearguard. It was 2002 when the new security policy—financially supported by the United States of America through "Plan Colombia"— guaranteed the deployment of a military offensive that intensified the attacks on the insurgent positions and provided the Colombian Government a tactical victory on the main guerrilla hotspots, until their withdrawal.

This forced insurgents to diversify their portfolio of criminal economies which, fortunately for them, coincided with the increase in international prices for gold and raw materials, thus making illegal mining an important source of financing. From 2007 to 2012 only, illegal gold mining had grown in Colombia inversely to the cultivated hectares of coca leaf, which, according to the United Nations, had dropped from almost 99,000 in 2007 to around 47,000 in 2012. Gold displaced drug trafficking as the most profitable business for guerrillas and organized crime.

It was then, between 2011 and 2012, when a large FARC camp was seen on the banks of the San Miguel river in Maroa municipality, which according to Guarulla, moved to the Javita Maroa highway, where they established an airport larger than the village airport, "It even had lighting for the night", he recalls.

Intelligence records in Colombia agree with Guarulla's version. On June 10, 2011, in the village of Danubio, municipality of Puerto Rico, department of Caquetá, a meeting was held with the participation of commanders Mauricio Jaramillo "El Médico" —member of FARC secretariat, who assumed the leadership of the Eastern Bloc after the death of "Mono Jojoy"— and the now dissident Gentil Duarte and Jhon 40. In the meeting, the creation of the Acacio Medina Front was agreed with the aim to oxygenate the weakened Front 16 that had 360 combatants in 2002 and just 76 in 2011. The creation of the Acacio Medina Front was made official in 2012 on the banks of San Miguel River in the municipality of Maroa, Venezuelan territory, with Jhon 40 as ringleader.

The exploration of the Acacio Medina in Venezuela then connected with the Casiquiare River, a body of water of 326 kilometers (202.56 miles) that is a tributary of the Orinoco River. In its advance, the Acacio Medina penetrated the Atabapo River and took control of the gold deposits on the grounds of Yapacana National Park.

The objectives of the Acacio Medina Front were financial and by then, it had already ventured into gold and coltan mines in the neighboring municipality of Guainía of Colombia, where mining activity dates back to half a decade. In mid-2015 and according to a Colombian police report prepared after executing "Operación Arpón," the front had about 150 troops, fifty in Colombia and the rest in Venezuela.

Eduardo Álvarez Venegas —Director of the Armed Conflict Dynamics and Peace Negotiations Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), a Colombian NGO that studies the path of dissidence since the signing of the peace agreement— explains that the creation of the Acacio Medina Front was part of a finance and border policy strategy that was born at the eighth meeting held in April 1993 in Guaviare, where FARC designed a FARC war economy plan to diversify its finances and a possible strategic retreat to other countries.

Although it was implemented much later, the investigator indicates that FARC found in Venezuela a favorable government for that retreat. "FARC said to itself, 'we may be able to exploit new criminal economies, we have a government that gives us shelter and refuge'. As a result, there began to be some sort of adaptation to the military strategy of the Colombian Government, which clearly managed to strategically defeat FARC guerrillas, though not tactically. That was part of the acceptance that allowed them to sit down to talk in Havana, but part of being tactically afloat was to create structures such as the Acacio Medina Front to ensure other spaces still far from any type of state and military intervention in terms of territorial control," he says.

Relevant information about Julián Chollo, the boss at the Yapacana mines - within the distributions of duties of the year when Acacio Medina was created -, is the control he had over a tungsten mine in Guainía, a potential material to manufacture machines and power devices.

A Perfect Marriage

Cerro Yapacana National Park is located in the southwestern sector of the Guiana Shield, in the central-western region of the Amazonas state. In the 230-thousand hectare natural reserve - established as a protected area since 1978 for its great scenic and scientific value -, live more than 8 thousand Venezuelans, Colombians, Brazilians and Ecuadorians, who exploit day and night seven gold deposits named Cacique, La 40, La 44, La 50, Fibral, Jerusalem and Moyo (the oldest and largest).

As revealed by an action taken in 2017 by the Ombudsman's Office of Inírida in Colombia, following a miner displacement that resulted in the activation of an orange alert in that municipality, at just 40 minutes from San Fernando de Atabapo. At least 600 people walked through the jungle to be safe in Inírida. Some papers threw from a military plane that urged them to take action ended up being interpreted as a future bombing of the mines, which prompted thousands of people to walk for days and nights on improvised trails to avoid the requisitions and extortion in Venezuelan military checkpoints set out in the waterways.

Different versions emerged as reasons for the eviction of the mine, but two previous events registered in the state yielded to the idea about the strong pressure put by the Venezuelan central government inside the security forces: the disappearance for over four months of an MI17V5 helicopter with 13 people on board, including five civilians and a 4-year-old boy, and the assault on a military checkpoint in "El Suspiro" area of the Orinoco River, by men identified as members of FARC, who took arms and cell phones presumably as a revenge for a seizure made by troops of the Bolivarian National Guard.

The exploitation of Venezuelan gold has employed thousands of Colombians for several decades. Julián Mancera, head of the Colombia Migration office in Puerto Inírida, explains it. "The mines are a sort of livelihood for families. There are no opportunities here other than working for the Government. Those who have money suddenly start a business or something like that, but there is no employment generation. Hence, the mine becomes the only livelihood."

Sitting at his dark mahogany desk, with the logo of the Mayor’s Office of Inírida, accompanied by the phrase “starting to believe,” behind him, Camilo Andrés Puentes Garzón, the youngest mayor in the history of that Colombian municipality, smiles and says bluntly, "The truth is that Colombian people live, work and exploit a mine in Venezuela. We know, and they tell us, that they make payment agreements or better known here as payment of “vacunas” (vaccines) to be able to work, pass elements and extract gold from there."

But he does not miss the opportunity to make a unanimous complaint that constantly and silently resonates as the murmur of the wind in the Amazon jungle, among all the inhabitants of both sides of the border — the evident marriage between the irregular groups and the Venezuelan authorities.

- Who mediates between the Venezuelan authorities and the miners?

- They tell us that the guerrillas supposedly protect them from the guard, that they are the ones who directly negotiate. "

- The guerrillas have control of the mines?

- They have control of the mines.

- Which guerrilla group?

- FARC.

- Dissidents?

- Yes, dissidents, because FARC is over. Although that is very simple; they changed the bracelet and now they can be called ELN - he pauses before finishing and adds – I will tell you something. The army here will end the dissidence, but if they are in Venezuela, it is impossible.

Recruiting among Trails

In Atabapo, 90% of the population is indigenous and lives in poverty, a vulnerability that has been integrated into the economy around the mine, in addition to the burden of the environmental impact and disruption of daily activities.

Camilo Silva, a retired educator and captain of the San Juan de Puruname community in Piauá, is 61 years old and faces the situation by trying to convince young people not to abandon their economic practices, like small farms and fishing, urging them to participate in the economy of the mine with the sale of its products. Together with one of his sons, he created a tourist cooperative that promotes sport fishing in the Atabapo River, but in 2017, the camp received just two groups of national tourists. "Foreign tourists stopped visiting the state due to insecurity."

This insecurity is generated by the certainty that the territory is taken by former Colombian guerrillas with extensive experience in kidnapping and crimes against civilians. But inside the mine, the guerrilla is a source of fear because it represents order and law. "They are FARC guerrillas who have control over the mine, but not even a needle gets lost in there," says Junior, a 19-year-old Colombian who worked in the mine attending a food stall.

An activity associated with the development of illegal mining by criminal groups, which is of particular concern to the Warelelu indigenous women's organization, is the establishment of alliances with other criminal activities, like sexual exploitation and the recruitment and use of children in improvised structures called "currutelas" where little girls are offered for sexual entertainment.

While Warelelu denounces the possible existence of trafficking networks, for the Indigenous Organization Piaroa Huottuja del Sipapo (OIPUS), of Autana municipality, the main concern is the recruitment of young indigenous. Carlos Morales Peña, assistant coordinator of OIPUS and resident of the Caño Uña community, affirms that the indigenous youth leave to work with the guerrillas, attracted by money. "The other day, they offered soccer balls, volleyball nets and also diesel fuel for the power plant in my community. They offered them things they need and the boys received them. That is how they recruit young people."

It was through an indigenous man recruited by the guerrillas that OIPUS received the first official FARC communication inviting him to discuss his presence in Piaroa territory. The letter confirmed the rumors of that guerrilla penetration when they began to notice an unusual fluvial traffic in the dawn, footprints of boots and dismantling of spaces that looked like itinerant camps, by the roads and rivers where they settle. The communication received by Otilio Santos, general coordinator of OIPUS, dated May 14, 2013, did not leave room for assumptions. FARC was inviting the communities of the Sipapo River tributaries to a meeting with their presence in Autana as the first item on the agenda.

That was the first of three meetings, which the towns and indigenous communities of the municipality were called to, with uniformed men and women with Colombian accent, who identified themselves as members of FARC and then of ELN. The indigenous people of Autana opposed through their organizations to the presence of these invaders in their territories. The assistant coordinator of OIPUS said that in one of the meetings "they arrived and said, ‘We did not come to invade. We did not come to harm. We did not come to recruit children. We came to protect them’. And we told them, ‘you arrived without prior consultation. That is already a violation of our human and customary rights. You have already committed a crime’."

But it was no use, and today the irregulars show themselves publicly in Autana. The communities see them going by their boats and showing off their weapons. "Before, they were not seen, they moved at night (...) but after they were discovered, they do not care. You see them at any time in the ports, armed, moving merchandise, visiting communities to buy food."

What the OIPUS coordinator denounces also occurs in Atabapo and Manapiare municipalities, where indigenous leaders and authorities say that nearly in all the waterways, men and women dressed in military uniforms, patrol on the banks of the river with rifles at their backs. The villagers identify them as members of FARC guerrillas, and despite the peace process, for them, they are still FARC, and the dissidents who penetrated the state of Amazonas continue holding the mark of the armed group.

Lissa Pérez, president of the Cherejume indigenous women's organization of the municipality of Manapiare, came face to face with a commando group that surrounded her bongo, when she was sailing the waters of the Ventuari River towards Guanay Valley. After a brief confrontation, Lissa reignite the engines of her bongo and continued on her way, but what was never expected was to find them again at the National Guard military checkpoint on the San Juan de Manapiare dock, where they stopped her again to check her boat. "They arrived greeting the military men very calmly. They even shook hands."

New Target — The Mining Arc

The guerrillas also move to the Orinoco Mining Arc (AMO) - a mega project promoted by the Venezuelan government in an attempt to increase the nation’s foreign currency income in the midst of falling oil prices -, which covers an area of 111,843 square kilometers (43,182.82 sq mi) and has 7,000 tons of reserves of gold, copper, coltan diamond, iron, bauxite, and other minerals. The aim is to boost criminal economies to assure their continuity or establish new alliances that keep them float.

Camouflaged in the jungle, they arrived by a trail that connects the municipality of Manapiare, state of Amazonas, with the state of Bolívar, passing through Los Pijiguaos, Alto Parguaza, and finally, to the "Y", an intersection between Puerto Nuevo and the Caicara highway, where there is an illegal open-air coltan deposit controlled by the National Liberation Army (ELN). There, they occupy the land of Area 1 of the Orinoco Mining Arc, a block of 24,717 square kilometers (9543.28 sq mi) where the first two joint ventures - identified as Oro Azul and Parguaza, incorporated between the Venezuelan state and companies Faoz and Supraca - operate to exploit coltan.

The president of Cherejume indigenous women's organization saw the guerrilla camps in Cedeño municipality when she traveled to Sabana Cardoza, an indigenous village at the border of the mining arch in Bolívar state. Together with her family, she walked for a week on the same trail used by the irregulars. "The walking route was opened and adapted for four-wheel transmission cars," she says. It took a week to reach the village where a relative was waiting for them and saw them for the first time on the other side of the river.

"I saw their camps, their cars, their bikes. There were a lot of gas drums. Around six o'clock in the afternoon, the people arrived, they looked like soldiers. All my relatives said that it was the guerrilla. Everyone said that these people bring medicine, food, everything. We do not need gas or diesel." He pauses to add, "Everyone there is working with these people".

What is still to be known is the relationship between "farianos" (FARC members) and their "eleno" (ELN members) cousins, who dominate the coltan-full deposits.

The “Pata e’Goma”

Puerto Ayacucho is the capital of the state of Amazonas and home to the state's public authorities. Businesses close from 12 to 3 in the afternoon, and during that time, the bustle of the market is turned off and the city is deserted and submerged in a wave of slow and dusty heat that contravenes with the image of a place with a rate of 214 violent deaths per every 100 thousand inhabitants.

So much violence together in a peaceful village on the banks of the Orinoco River, barely founded in 1924, has caused panic among its inhabitants, who still have not lost their capacity to be amazed when they learned that each weekend was worse than the previous one. On one occasion, the bodies of six people were found in one place in Los Caobos area, then a group of seven in the countryside area of San José in Cataniapo, and another two with signs of torture in the Payaraima area.

Given the silence of police authorities, Rowinson León, who held the position of Secretary of Policy and Border Affairs in the State Government of Amazonas for three years, kept a record of violent deaths. The work reflected that throughout three years, the number of murders was always on the rise —from 38 violent deaths in 2014 to 214 in just two years in the municipality of Atures alone.

The Church, local authorities, the human rights office, the workers of Raudal Estéreo community radio, the taxi driver and even the candy vendor in Plaza Bolívar, agree that the deaths that turned that peaceful town of 100 thousand inhabitants in the third most violent city in the country - according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence - are associated with the presence of the guerrillas in the area.

They identify them as "los pata e'goma" (rubber leg), a pseudonym coined by the use of rubber boots with military clothing. The pata e’goma are members of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last active guerrilla in Colombia, and the government of Juan Manuel Santos recently cancelled a peace dialogue with them.

The former governor of Amazonas, witness for 17 years of the arrival and settlement of Colombian guerrillas in that part of the country, assures that the presence of ELN was evident when the Venezuelan government decreed in May 2016 a state of emergency that remains in force. This concept allowed replacing the civil authority by the military, "it is at that time that they took over all the ports of the municipality, controlling the business of smuggling drugs, gas, but also the security aspect".

ELN could consolidate in Puerto Ayacucho what they call "criminal power", an action that is not limited to the economic sphere, but also covers the social and political spheres, by exercising duties similar and parallel to those of the State but under their own rules of game.

All the complaints indicate that the "elenos" are the ones responsible for the multiple murders in the city. Jhonny Eduardo Reyes Sequera, titular Bishop of the Apostolic Vicar of Puerto Ayacucho, assures that these groups play a criminal cleaning role. "Based on testimonies in the neighborhoods, it is known that it was the guerrilla, but the most striking thing is that everyone says that the boys were considered neighborhood scourges to those who had already been warned once and twice and that they knew that the third call meant they were going to be eliminated."

Noraima Ángel, general coordinator of the Human Rights Office of Puerto Ayacucho, an NGO that works in the field with the indigenous communities located north of the municipality of Atures, reveals that the guerrillas have also reached the indigenous communities offering help in the community organization, "trying to straightening out the boys with bad conduct, behavioral problems, consuming some type of drug or stealing within the community," he says.

Betania Topocho is a Piaroa community located 44 km (27.34 mi) by land from Puerto Ayacucho and is politically emblematic for acting as a pilot in the implementation of social programs promoted by the national government. The inhabitants of that community have been benefited with a fruit processing plant, a community radio, an ambulatory care clinic, a school, a Communal Gas establishment, and credits for economic and social undertakings. Ironically, it is also a metaphor for the penetration of guerrilla groups into the social and political organization of the indigenous peoples and communities of Amazonas.

There have been disagreements among school principals who condemn community leaders for unloading aspects of the communal order onto armed groups. "A teacher told us that one day the 'pata e'goma' entered a classroom saying 'let’s see who the ones who misbehave are'. This occurred in front of some 16 to 17-year-old kids. Then they called a small group of three by their names, took out the gun and said 'we are going to kill him right here in front of everybody so he can learn'. All were petrified, but what was most alarming is that the people in the community said 'yes, that way they will learn'" says Noraima Ángel.

That atmosphere extends to all Puerto Ayacucho. Although the population in general states that they live in fear of the power that the illegal people hold, they also justify that they carry out a "social cleaning" work.

Rowinson León says that only 10 out of the 214 murders that occurred in 2016 were labeled as theft to victims identified as workers. As to the rest, the only thing that could be identified was an age group of victims under 30 years old, mostly with a criminal record, found with bullet wounds in the head, and the absence of relatives willing to report.

The former director of policy and border affairs of the State Government thinks that it was the population itself that resorted to these groups in search of help. "People who are tired of being the victims of theft, robbery, who find themselves with a totally corrupt security organization, who see no progress in reporting neither respect for their problem, were fed up. I do not justify it, but if the laws work here none of this would happen."

The "elenos" have become a "parallel Government" in Puerto Ayacucho, installing an analogous functionality where the level of connection of the national authorities is not very clear. What strikes the most, as pointed out by the general coordinator of the Human Rights Office, is that the guerrillas who penetrated the communities claim that their role is to protect the border "because if something happens, like a coup against the current government, they will intervene, they will defend. They are there to protect the Bolivarian revolution. That is what they say in the communities."

Revolutionaries and Maduro Supporters

A group of inhabitants was summoned to a meeting in the Don Ramón Brisa farm, 180 kilometers (111.84 mi) from Puerto Ayacucho, in San Fernando. Two men dressed in civilian clothes took Professor José Lima, an honorary social comptroller, sworn by the municipal chamber, from his house. "They did not identify themselves. They simply said that they had to attend a meeting. They stopped a motorcycle taxi and indicated the driver where should he take me."

"When I arrived at the farm, I saw about 15 motorcycles and the presence of some town councilors. I thought it must be a very important meeting since we were surrounded by guards, but they were actually the guerrillas, with all their clothing, uniformed, with their bracelet and a number on the back of the shirt. Some were in charge of security; others were responsible for distributing soda and bread. At that moment I said 'no, this is not a meeting with a military man from the area.' And when I was about to enter they asked me:

 - Sir, where are you from?

- I am the social comptroller.

- Ah yes, you are Mr. Lima. Come in. Do you have a cell phone?

- Yes

 - Show it to me.

 They took it from me and put it in a bag."

Lima indicates that there were about 80 people, residents and municipal authorities, in the closed room. The most prominent attendees were the president of the Municipal Chamber, José Yavinape; the then candidate for the National Constituent Assembly for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Erika Belsbeth Lima; the president of the communes, Rodolfo Mirabal; eight representatives of Communal Councils, and the head of the office of Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) in Atabapo.

The situation was only to observe after a while a tall, thin man dressed as a soldier who stood in front of everyone and without further protocol said "I am Commander Jimmy of the National Liberation Army, ELN, we are here to establish order. We are revolutionaries. We are with the revolution and we are supported by the Maduro government."

When the floor was opened for discussion, there were people who expressed their support, including the representative of the CVG and Rodolfo Mirabal, president of the communes. "Later, we learned that Mirabal was responsible for organizing everything. At the meeting they talked about comrades. Until a teacher intervened and said that she did not agree, that they had to leave town because we had our authorities," said José Lima.

"I wanted to go and they told me I could not, that I had to listen to the things that were being talked about. Then, they wanted to organize us at discussion tables to discuss the problems of the people. How were we supposed to participate in that madness? They wanted the communal councils to collect signatures, write a document recognizing the presence of these people. They were looking for a refuge here because they cannot go there anymore. The Colombian Armed Forces chases them."

Two days before the meeting in San Fernando, two boys were found dead in the street. It was the only violent event that recorded in 2017. They were one next to the other with shots in the head and face.

"They distributed a subversive leaflet here that said that they did not want to see criminals, that after nine at night they did not want to see people in the streets. The leaflets were signed by ELN, but they denied their authorship at the meeting."

"My biggest fear is that our children are going to take over our grandchildren. They also need to strengthen their battalion and there are already several boys recruited. They have their big camp on the road in the Cayo Viejita area, via Santa Bárbara del Orinoco, in a jungle. They have a power plant and already order the construction of grills for large pots, because they are quite a few, over 100. They have money for everything."

In San Fernando there are those who have given in to the offer of protection and services offered by the guerrillas, "Now, if you get robbed, people say 'let's inform the pata e'goma'. People resort to them more than to the guards or the police. People already know that they are here since a year and a half ago. They will settle here as the owners and then, we will have to pay taxes to sell cassava flour. They will not leave this place unless there is a change of government, because the same government tolerates them. "

While Colombia celebrates the end of a war that lasted for six decades - with a balance that exceeds eight million victims - and is preparing for an electoral race with Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri - former number 1 of the largest guerrilla in Latin America - as a presidential candidate, Venezuela faces the consequences of an inherited conflict that count on the alliance of local and national authorities, which indicates that peace will not cross the border.

Turned by greed in miners, it was easy to reduce the Army's troops, members of the 507th Battalion of Special Forces. The natives, superior in number and determination, surprised them sunk in the mud to their knees and with the motor-pumps on. They were disarmed and tied up. Only the group's commanding officer, a Lieutenant Gutierrez, and a soldier, managed to escape the attack.

At dawn the next day, a helicopter brought Colonel Cortez to negotiate at the site. President Hugo Chávez himself sent him to address the situation. At least, that's what he said. In any case, his authority was not only derived from the alleged commission. One meter, 80 centimeters tall, corpulent, gray-haired, with a deep voice, upholstered with badges and decorations, he pronounced words with martial rigor. Cortez sought the release of the military, almost demanded it. The staging was designed to intimidate.

Having crossed the line, however, the natives did not intend to let things get out of hand. They were organized in groups. One took care of guarding the perimeter, placing watchmen in different points. Another oversaw writing documents. With common sense they realized that they did not know how to negotiate hostages or anything else against the coercion of the State. They called some colleagues in the touristic Gran Sabana, who did have experience in those conflicts.

At that time Alexis Romero was many kilometers away. He was in his Pemón community, Maurak, located 17 kilometers from the town of Santa Elena de Uairén in the municipality of Gran Sabana, in southeastern Bolívar state, near the border with Brazil. But he was quick to answer the call. He arrived at the place on the afternoon of the same day as Chávez's envoy. Romero, who had extensive experience in the indigenous community movement and studies abroad, led the negotiation with the military, which would last four days.

Thus, on October 27, 2011 and the following days, it was inadvertently triggered the sequence of events that would originate the community of Musukpa and its virtual independence from the Venezuelan State. Four years later, its inhabitants exploit the Toronó mine on their own and according to rules defined by themselves. They collect taxes to cover health and education expenses. And, under the simultaneous and asymmetric siege of fortune hunters and the structure of the State, they organize security rounds.

The shrimp wakes up

It is winter - in Venezuela, the rainy season from May to December - and the still pristine basin of the Paragua River, boasts its enormous and powerful flow. The thick vegetation covers the boat when it leaves the river to penetrate the almost imperceptible Musukpa creek, the entrance to the indigenous community.

Musukpa means "shrimp" in the Pemón language. The name of the waterway involves a certain nostalgia. It seems that these animals once were abundant in this fluvial corner of the northwest of the state of Bolívar that, together with Amazonas, make up the rich Guayana region, the southern half of the territory of Venezuela, south and east of the Orinoco River. More than civilization, the mining activities were responsible for annihilating the shrimps.

A poster carved in wood and tied to a tree announces the arrival to the community of Musukpa. At first glance, there is an extensive portion of deforested land. Wide sandbanks, impossible to cover at a single glance, cover the area. Long hoses run on top of them, climbing on rudimentary platforms built with logs and pieces of wood. The hoses are connected to machines that, with asthmatic effort, spit out muddy water on carpets in poor condition that retain the material removed by suction.

They are all traces of mining. Although the settlers are indigenous, they no longer practice artisanal extraction. A diagnosis made in December 2013, as part of a project to build a community sports complex, found that one in two Musukpa residents owns small mining machines. Two out of ten work the wood. One in ten works as a trader or in river transport. Only five percent are linked to agriculture. In Musukpa there is no conuco for cultivation. The demand for cassava bread - tortilla made of cassava flour, essential in the indigenous diet - is satisfied with purchases from neighboring communities. Musukpa is independent but not autarkic.

It is not the typical indigenous community where the houses are distributed around an embankment that serves as a soccer field on Sundays. Upon entering Musukpa, what you see on the left is a group of houses distributed without any apparent criteria. At the center stands a small churuata, then an ambulatory and the skeleton of a structure still without a roof that in the future is intended to be a school. There are at least five grocery stores, where you can get everything from batteries to phone rentals per minute. The place is painstakingly clean.

Musukpa's layout conveys an image of amalgamation, agglomerated disorder. In fact, the community is a miracle of heterogeneity. It is home to members of different ethnic groups from the south: Pemones, Yekuanas, Chirianas, Kurripakos and Arawacos. There are also criollos in the 30 local families.

The inner concert that should reign in the community, difficult to perceive through the evidence provided by the hamlet, becomes almost palpable at assembly time.

It pours rains when Gloria Lucila Morales' voice is heard through the megaphone to summon all the inhabitants to participate in an extraordinary assembly. It's ten o'clock on Saturday morning and some of them begin to join the assembly, driven by curiosity. Gloria is young, thin, with dark thick hair, and comes from the Itoy Ponkon community in Heres municipality, state of Bolívar, about 15 kilometers from the capital of that entity, Ciudad Bolívar, east of Musukpa. She does not speak Pemón, she confesses, the lingua franca of the meeting. But she makes up for it with a lifetime of experience in the struggle and organizational processes of her "indigenous brothers". Not for nothing is she who speaks the leading voice during the assembly she called.

"We don't allow corruption here, nor armed gangs, we don't allow the sale of alcohol", she adds. Musukpa is governed by a strict compendium of coexistence norms of 10 chapters and 76 articles, which regulates all aspects of community life, from mining work to the admission of visitors. According to the Communal Law, the power plant is turned off every day at ten o'clock at night, the operation of the mine is only allowed from Monday to Saturday, between six in the morning and five in the afternoon. Sundays are reserved for community work. Any violation of the rules entails fines and may even lead to the expulsion of the offender.

Ángel Blanco, who is also present at the assembly, does speak Pemón. He took part in the disarmament of the military in 2011; he is one of the fifty original founders who have remained in the bulwark since then. He runs a company, a name given to a group of no more than five people owning the engines and implements required to operate the mines.

"We are not getting rich, we are just surviving", says Ángel Blanco.  Haughty and contentious, for two years he occupied the second captaincy and now heads the Sports Committee. During the assembly he took the floor and proudly proclaimed that since 2011 "we have been independent of the Government, we maintain the ambulatory with 10% of the commission, we are building a school with the contribution of mining, these planks resting there", points out some wooden planks, "we haven't received them from the Government, no, here everything has been achieved thanks to the efforts of everybody", he reiterates. The attendants nod their heads.

Chapter IX of the Communal Law establishes a Social Fund under a special commission elected by the Indigenous Council, responsible for administering the economic resources provided by the owners of machines, who every week must declare a profit report and allocate a tithe to the community. All traders, shovelers and gold buyers are also obliged to make a contribution destined to self-management.

That de facto law is opposed to the Government's ordinances. In particular, Presidential Decree 8,413, with "rank, value and force of Organic Law" - Chávez signed it invested with enabling powers -, which in September 2011 granted the State a monopoly on the exploration, exploitation and commercialization of gold. Just two months later, eight indigenous captains -including Alexis Romero, the Pemón activist who in October of the same year had dealt with Colonel Cortez over the outcome of the skirmish at the Toronó mine - filed an appeal to nullify the Decree.

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) in Caracas rejected the appeal. In simple terms, they told the inhabitants of the expropriated territories that they have no right to decide on their own environments.

Legal precariousness is not the only weakness that threatens to destroy this experiment of self-government, not a utopia. The most pressing may be the stalking thugs that have become strong in the area. "They work together", says Ángel Blanco, without hesitation in denouncing the alliance between the military and the "syndicates", the name they call the armed criminal groups that roam the area. "You have to say this way, we're not going to cover the sun with a finger, it's a public situation. Everyone knows that they pay bribes to the military, to the police, to the army. Here we know very well that the security forces lead the syndicates".

Even though everyone recognizes the danger, not everyone seems willing to mention it so openly. Within indigenous communities, connivance between military forces and criminal gangs is something that is discussed with more discretion and fear than anger. In fact, apart from Blanco's speech, during the assembly in Musukpa, the other allusions to the subject come from locals who refer to the armed gangs as "agents of the Government" who pay bribes to the generals, "to their chiefs, of course, the institutional mafia".

Blood reaches the river

Although since 2005 there have been incidents of violence around the emergence of irregular groups that took the mines in kilometer 88 sector of Sifontes municipality, and El Manteco, in Piar municipality, east of the state of Bolívar, all testimonies coincide in dating the point of break between the State and the community at the end of August 2013. Then Teodoro Osman, a native of the Bethel sector but who had a camp in Musukpa, disappeared. His body was found two weeks later, floating in the river near the Uraima waterfall, eaten by the fish.

Teodoro Osman paid with his life a debt he didn't have. Manolo, his brother, who had allied with the outsiders, disappeared without a trace, but he did have a pending account with some criminal group. The inert, swollen body of Teodoro Osman served as a warning to the locals to learn that in La Paragua the "syndicate" law was already being applied.

On January 21, 2014, almost five months after Osman's death and after numerous internal meetings, the residents issued a report in the General Assembly, in which they state the presence of foreign groups carrying military weapons in their territories and carry out "extortion, outrage against women, threats, kidnappings and murders".

A sealed and signed letter dated August 15, from which a copy was obtained, attests to the fact that the director of the regional police in the area, Pinto Novis, reported on the subject to the Secretary of Public Safety and director of the Bolivar State Police, Juvenal Villegas. The state of Bolívar has been governed since 2004 by a former army general, Francisco Rangel Gómez, a member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and minister until 2000 of the executive cabinet of the late Hugo Chávez.

"The captains are requesting that the authorities focus on finding a solution to the alleged irregularities these so-called "syndicates" are committing, atrocities like lascivious acts with minors, as well as the women of the captains of the communities themselves, who have been also beaten and mistreated", the report indicates.

The assassination of Osman and the deterioration in security over the area of ??La Paragua strikingly coincided with the withdrawal of the military forces that were until then stationed there and the abandonment of a checkpoint located a few meters from Puerto Uraima, where the body was found. 

"Approximately 11 months ago the military officers corresponding to the Ministry of People's Power for Defense (MPPD) ceased their functions in Puerto Uraima, located in the Middle Paragua for reasons unknown to us", the 20 community captains denounced in their statement on January 2014. "Since then, there has been an immeasurable exodus of non-indigenous and foreign citizens among us, many with criminal records and organized into criminal gangs, who exercise mining activities and violently impose a new administration of everything that circulates there".

Uraima - port, pass, jump and island - a key point of the river. There it is necessary to disembark to avoid a stream that interrupts the navigation between the high and low Paragua. It is a stretch of almost a kilometer that is covered in four-wheel drive vehicles and borders the rapids. The place is also famous as a world mecca of sport fishing, ideal for catching the payara (Hydrolycusscomberoides) and the pavón (Cichlaocellaris), among other species of the Orinoquia.

Near Uraima is located the most recent and productive "bulla", as it is known the sudden and massive immigrations that occur when the word spreads of a new gold vein. The mine's name is Manaza. It is heading south, towards the high Paragua, near Musukpa and the abandoned military checkpoint. Manaza is still the most active mine in the Paragua basin. Adventurers arrive every day. But in 2012, when the news of its wealth began to spread, it attracted thousands of people. A confrontation between armed groups left six people dead that year. Two gangs, Los 24, on the one hand, and Marco Polo, on the other, disputed control of the area. The scuffle forced a military intervention.

Whoever holds Uraima controls the transit through the Paragua River, which is vital for the riverside communities. In 2013, an incident occurred there made it very clear how far the ambitions of the irregular groups went.

It all started on a Sunday, the sources agree. A bunch of vandals camped in Uraima. Notified of this, Andrés Solis, captain general of La Paragua, presented himself at the site and together with other community authorities, asked the irregulars to leave the area. After many some discussions, they obeyed, though reluctantly.

The next morning, a nervous group of natives arrived at the Meruntöpöy community, which the captains had retired to spend the night. They came with the news that the irregulars had taken the port by assault, subjecting José Fernando Mejías, the owner and driver of the 4x4 vehicle that every day makes the transshipment route on the banks of the river.

The thugs, instead of listening to the injunction of the indigenous captains, had left in search of reinforcements. Now there were 15 of them and they were in under the command of a Colombian who they called Edwin. As a warning they carried an arsenal that included hand grenades.

Nearly a hundred natives, armed with arrows and shotguns, went to reconquer the post. According to witnesses, the tension in the environment could be cut with a knife. But this time blood would not reach the river. The spirits calmed down and it was agreed that both indigenous people and "syndicates" could transit freely through the Uraima pass and move their work tools and supplies, as long as they showed respect for the indigenous authority and nobody carried weapons or, at least, nobody exhibited them.

Certainly, the locals did not allow the syndicates to intimidate them. But to preserve peace they paid a price: to negotiate the passage and crossing through their ancestral lands to the irregulars.

The native communities continue to respect that status quo. However, at the time they still informed the state authorities about the incident and its consequences. According to documents, a report of the events was sent to the major general Marcelino Federico Pérez Díaz, then commander of the Strategic Region of Integral Defense of Guayana (Redi); to the head of the sub-delegation of the Scientific and Criminal Investigation Corps (CICPC, judicial police) of Bolívar state; and to the commander of Regional No. 8 of the Bolivarian National Guard (militarized police, component of the Armed Forces), Brigadier General Ricardo Pérez Lugo. They never got an answer.

It is true that the governments of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution - one of whose flags is the official sensitivity towards indigenous peoples - have recognized the problem. As it is also true that it does not manage to propose and implement solutions.

Three days after the manifesto made public by the indigenous people in January 2014, the then Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, General Miguel Rodríguez Torres, acknowledged the existence of mafias who took the mines, during a visit to the state of Bolívar. "Here we have a problem, there are some groups that call themselves 'syndicates' and they are actually armed gangs that commit extortion". During that visit, in a day that Governor Rangel Gómez described as "exemplary", the creation of special groups was promised to "neutralize those gangs that are doing practically whatever they want". But a year and a half later, the situation changed almost nothing. Still in June 2015, Rangel Gómez declared that he was about to go "with the firm decision and all the forces to normalize a situation that has been generated by the different mining 'syndicates' that try to take control of the area with illegal mining".

It's not the Good Wildling; it's the gold

The rain does not stop in Musukpa. The wind blows furiously and threatens to tear out the flimsy sheet of zinc that acts as a roof in the churuata where the assembly meets. Even the dogs huddle in the middle. But the conclave is not interrupted either.

Gloria continues to recite in strict chronological order the events that led to the creation of Musukpa. She assures that the government's omission and neglect of many years, and the participation of the authority in a network interwoven between irregulars, military, politicians, led to an awakening of the peoples. She takes a pause of a couple of seconds and adds: "Also for the discrimination against the indigenous people that the military had in conjunction with the armed groups they call 'syndicates', because, let's say it once and for all, who wants to work under gun threats?".

In the chronology - presented as an oral exercise of collective memory - the statement of January 21, 2014 occupies a prominent position. Although it was then the equivalent of a "No more!" proclamation from the community, it ended up being a sort of foundational title for Musukpa and its claims to become an autonomous enclave. A sort of independent republic.

As the law of the strongest began to be imposed in the region, over the norms of the Venezuelan State, the text included a fragment that, as would later be confirmed, was neither a bravado nor a simple threat. The natives were preparing to defend themselves. "If the security institutions don't assume their functions, we will be obliged to organize ourselves to defend our rights and fight insecurity within our territories", states the document. Also: "The Port of Uraima will be taken, where a security brigade will be established to strengthen internal security mechanisms in the communities".

As early as October 25, 2011, in the resolution 001-2001, issued by the captains of the indigenous communities of the high and mid Paragua, two days before the takeover of Toronó, which led to the constitution of Musukpa, it was already spoken about the creation and organization of "security brigades" or self-defense groups. Three surveillance and control points were then established at the access points of Musukpa.

In January 2014, the formation of self-defense groups was considered imminent. The natives proposed the maintenance of these groups by self-management with economic contributions from merchants, river transport, visitors, owners of machines, shovelers and workers. In the landmark document of that date, they argue that indigenous peoples have a right of autonomy that allows them to assume their own security and community justice. They make it clear that such actions stem from the institutional vacuum, the abandonment and the omission of the authorities to exercise their obligations in terms of justice procurement and security. And they emphasize: "We reaffirm our desire that our lands and communities not be shelters for criminals, let alone that they bring a bloodshed, we want to be free and independent men and women".

It is not, in any way, an exclusive phenomenon of Venezuela. In Mexico, the indigenous people and peasants of the states of Michoacán and Guerrero, cornered between the drug cartels, took up arms to defend themselves against the organized crime that harasses their communities, where the increase in violence and human rights violations has totally blurred the legitimacy of the State.

And the example of Musukpa was contagious in Venezuela. Two years after the takeover of Toronó, further southeast, in the Gran Sabana, again the Pemones disarmed Venezuelan military personnel who subjected them to the payment of tithes in the Ikabarú area.

Now in areas of the Gran Sabana, such as sectors five and six, there are local security brigades. In Santa Elena de Uairén, the large town in southern state of Bolívar, neighboring the Brazilian Boa Vista (state of Roraima), there is talking about forming community rounds. The last week of last July there was a meeting in the Gran Sabana, from which came the idea of ??a future Aboriginal University of Security.

Alexis Romero, the Pemón leader who in October 2011 traveled from the Gran Sabana to help in the takeover of Toronó, the future Musukpa, successfully negotiating with the government and the army, has some responsibility for the consolidation of this idea in the region too.

Romero paid a high price for his advice: he was the only one of the five imputed captains who ended up in prison for the uprising against the military authorities. He was imprisoned in the Centro Penitenciario de Oriente (East Penitentiary Center), better known as 'La Pica', on the outskirts of Maturín, capital of the state of Monagas. After several days of imprisonment, the political prisoner received an unexpected presidential pardon from Hugo Chávez Frías. In any case, he still seems imprisoned today. He doesn't even leave the Gran Sabana. Although he must appear every 15 days before a court in Ciudad Guayana, 720 kilometers away, he warns that he cannot pay for those trips.

Romero, who speaks on the phone from the community of Maurak, in the Gran Sabana, advises caution to assess what happens among the Pemones in terms of community safety. Firstly, so that local initiatives are not confused with other local popular forms in recent years, such as the so-called collectives or the paramilitary groups. He fears that confusion would at some point serve to criminalize the emerging indigenous movement: "Trying to imitate models that are born from the State is a failure, a mistake, we have to develop our organizational processes from our own structures". Then, so that the situation is not idealized. It is no longer a question about the virginal state of the Good Wildling, but about supervising an extractive activity that preys on nature and collective morals. It is the demon of gold. "Everything is harmful no matter how artisanal you try to do it", warns the 49-year-old leader. "It is very difficult to sustain it when the indigenous people, especially the Pemón people, know the non-traditional mining carried out with hydraulic machines, and the ease it provides. Going back to the past is nearly impossible".

The anthropologist Esteban Mosonyi judges the situation from Caracas with the same fatality - or realism -: "The Indigenous people have become miners because nobody has supported them in any other kind of activity. Now certain interests and even necessities predominate that force them to live with mining. They have asked for help for tourism, aid for agriculture, normal economic activities and have never received support, and when an initiative comes up they have no success".

In Musukpa, where many young people are reservists and high school graduates, few, however, are willing to do community work, which represents the basis of the very existence of the indigenous community. "As it is not a paid job, to cover their needs they dedicate to mining", is the regret with which Gloria Lucila Morales concludes her story. "It's the sad expression we diagnose".

(*) This report was conducted during the Diploma of Investigative Journalism, which is offered by the Institute of Press and Society (IPYS) in alliance with the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).