National Assembly deputy Angel Medina blamed Maduro’s dictatorship for the increase in violence in the country’s gold mines following the usurper regime’s decision to hand them over to the governorships.
“This tall tale of Maduro handing over mines to state governors, which is also illegal and unconstitutional, has provoked an increase in the levels of violence in the different sectors in Bolivar State,” the congressman denounced during a press conference.
The deputy said that according to information gathered by Humberto Prado, commissioner of the legitimate government of Juan Guaidó for Human Rights, in the massacre of Ikabarú six people died: Antonio Perera, sergeant of the GN, Máximo Muñoz, Luis Fernández Gómez, Richard Rodríguez, Lesli Basanta, Edinson Soto and Jhonnny López was wounded, “there are so many other wounded that it has not been possible to identify them”.
However, Medina said that “those who make a living in the southern Guayana (region) report that the numbers of victims is higher.”
“It was a violent attack with high-caliber firearms that seeks to take by force what has been until now a Pemón township of mining tradition,” he added.
The assemblyman said that “it is important that we understand that what happened in Ikabarú is not an isolated event. According to figures from Transparency International, since 2016 there have been more than 40 massacres in the State of Bolívar and they all have to do with the gold rush and the devastation that the Mining Arc is generating.”
“You have no idea what it means to Venezuelans hundreds of hectares destroyed by insatiable voracity. What they are doing is a murder to the future generations of the country, to the capacity to vindicate us and grow as a nation, this is an unprecedented ecocide that is also bathed in blood,” he warned.
Medina said the Ikabarú massacre is part of a scheme set up by the totally violent regime itself, “to control large regions and exploit gold on a large scale in a totally irregular manner, today they want to take Ikabarú to destroy nature, provoke devastation and encourage the insatiable search for gold to maintain a regime that in Venezuela is already unsustainable.”
Finally, the congressman condemned that the usurping dictatorship has done everything possible to delay the investigations of this massacre. “48 hours had passed after the massacre and they had not removed the bodies to carry out the necessary autopsies,” he concluded.
