Turkey Signs Deal to Exploit Land in Venezuela’s Ravaged Gold Mining Region

Venezuela’s socialist regime signed an agreement with the government of Turkey on Friday that will allow the Middle Eastern nation to mine gold in Venezuela’s Orinoco Mining Arc, an area devastated by illegal mining and plagued with human rights abuses.

Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro signed the agreement during a Friday evening event that state media broadcast. The Venezuelan leader claimed that the agreement is part of the “win-win” alliance between Venezuela and Turkey, which Maduro’s predecessor, late dictator Hugo Chávez, first established.

Maduro — accompanied by representatives of the Turkish government and his alleged top money launderer, Alex Saab, whom U.S. President Joe Biden released from prison and sent back to Caracas in December — described Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as his “older brother” and claimed that “Turkish investment is coming to keep developing the Mining Arc.”

“We are going to develop these gold fields, and I wish the best of luck so that what we are signing in gold becomes an example for ecological development, respectful of nature, and very productive, building a productive economy,” Maduro said.

The socialist dictator, in addition to the gold mining agreement, signed joint agreements with Turkey for the construction of an ammonia refinery and for the exploitation of gas fields.

The Orinoco Mining Arc (AMO) is a roughly 43,180-square-mile area adjacent to the southern bank of the eponymous Orinoco River, which covers parts of the Venezuelan states of Amazonas, Bolívar, and Delta Amacuro. The AMO encompasses roughly 12 percent of Venezuela’s land area.

In a February 2016 decree, Maduro designated the land a special area for the mining and extraction of gold and other mineral resources, such as diamonds, bauxite, coltan, iron, copper, kaolin, and dolomite. The Mining Arc designation followed plans Chávez first drafted in 2011 when he nationalized Venezuela’s gold mining industry.  

Since the start of regime operations there in 2017, environmentalists, politicians, and human rights activists have condemned the regime for allowing uncontrolled illegal mining operations, which have led to the contamination of local rivers and widespread deforestation. Evidence that these observers compiled has revealed tremendous environmental damage in addition to the routine execution of gross human rights violations against workers and locals, as well as damage to the local indigenous population and fauna.

In 2020, a United Nations investigation found that criminal gangs controlled some of the Arc’s gold, diamond, and bauxite mines. The gangs were found to “exploit, beat, and even kill workers” while the Maduro regime’s military forces failed to prevent the crimes and, in some cases, actively participated in them.

Local activist groups have denounced that, in addition to criminal gangs, foreign guerrilla groups such as Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) allegedly operate some of the Arc’s gold mines, having brokered a deal with the Maduro regime’s Bolivarian National Guard and state security forces.

Activists have also condemned the Maduro regime for granting mining concessions to dubious local and foreign “entrepreneurs” from countries such as Turkey and China, allowing them to exploit the resource-rich area under questionable legal frameworks.

Reports published in 2019 indicated that local miners were forced to labor in unhealthy conditions and received meager wages in the highly devalued Venezuelan bolivar currency while the Maduro regime sold and shipped most of the gold mined to Turkish refineries, using the proceeds to buy consumer goods from the Middle Eastern nation.

During his official visit to Caracas in February, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced that Erdogan plans to visit Venezuela sometime during 2024. Neither government has publicly announced the date of the visit at press time.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.