“If gold rusts, what then can iron do?”

June 9, 2019 3:09 PM

Long Read: Digging to the Mining Arc.
In this journey, we talked to miners, companies, academics, indigenous, politicians and activists and gathered exclusive material on Latin America’s most underreported natural resources conflict.
Venezuela’s gold fever fuels gangs and insecurity: 'There will be anarchy'.
posted by adamvasco (2 comments total)

I read a William Langewiesche article not long ago that's mostly about the Foreign Legion, but when he gets into the practical part of what they actually get up to, they're fighting gangs of illegal gold miners (from Brazil) right next door to Venezuela in Guiana.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:51 PM on June 9, 2019 [1 favorite]

That first link is an incredible piece of journalism, depicting one horror after another. The last section is the kicker--and not even because it describes the irreversible environmental damage... There is the idea that all this could be based on a drastic overestimate of their gold and mineral deposits, or money laundering, and that it may endanger their future capability to generate power. Failure and corruption appear at every turn.
posted by heatvision at 10:21 AM on June 10, 2019