Guyana grants mining concessions in zone in claim Venezuelan government is not against to the work of the transnational ones in the Esequibo The Government guyanés has taken him the word to the president from the Bolivariana Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and is carrying out great public auctions for the mineral operation diverse in the territory in claim. Between February and last April, the governmental commission of Mines and Geology of Guyana great blocks in two border mining departments with Venezuela (identified with numbers four and five) and within the zone supplied nueves that Venezuela demands like hers from the century ancestor. In agreement with the referred Commission, for aims of 2009 it is anticipated that there will be thousand miners working in the zone, number that create will arrive next year at 5 thousands. The zone is rich in gold, diamonds and granite, among others mineral. The nine supplied blocks comprise of two great mining projects, denominated Amamury and Oko, calls thus by the zone where they are located. In agreement with the vestibule of the governmental Office of Investigation of Guyana, the government of that country is interested in assuring investments in great scale (in spaces of up to 32 kilometers square) in the mining industry, mainly in gold and bauxite. Operation in the heat of Great spaces of the Esequibo territory already are in the heat of exploitation phase of gold and diamonds on the part of transnational companies. It is the case of seven projects that develops Sacre Coeur Minerals, LTD and of three more in charge of Guyana Inc. Goldfields, both companies of Canadian origin. Only Guyana Inc. Goldfields at the moment is operating - in agreement with its page Web 1,014 kilometers squared of the zone in claim (more than the extension of the Daisy island that has little more than 900 kilometers square). Guyana also ordered feasibility studies for the construction of generating power stations of electricity in the territory that Venezuela has protested historically like his. These are: the Hydroelectric one of Turtruba, in the Mazaruni river, assigned to the company Enman de Trinidad and Tobago, the plant of Devil´s Hole in the Cuyuní river, so memorando of understanding with Guyana Inc. Goldfields subscribed, and a great plant in the Mazaruni Stop, whose concept was developed by two Japanese companies, while the study fell to the Russian Aluminum Company. The contradictions In 2005, within the framework of the gas project Rafael Urdaneta, the Venezuelan Government adjudged to a national company, the Vinccler Oil & Gas, the call Block Tower NE II in the gulf of Venezuela. The company paid a bond for the beginning of the works of exploration of 7.38 million dollars, but a protest of the Colombian Chancellery - that alleged that the zone was in dispute, caused that the Venezuelan part decided to abort the exploration in the area and it gave back the money to him to Vinccler. That one fact contrasts with the inaction of the Venezuelan Government against the massive concessions that are granting the guyanesas authorities in the zone in claim. But that attitude not always was the same. The 19 of March and the 1 of April of 2000, president Chávez expressed its energetic opposition to the granting of a concession to the American company Beal Aerospace Technologies, to construct an airdrop platform of satellites in the Esequibo. However, in March of 2004, historical declarations changed what it had been the Venezuelan traditional policy against his claim. Chávez said that Venezuela was not against to that Guyana unilaterally granted concessions and contracts to transnational companies in the Esequibo. Ambassador Sadio Garavini, publication author on the subject and ex- head of the Venezuelan diplomatic representation in Georgetown, explain that the previous governments, in constant form, anchored in article V in the Agreement of Geneva, not to accept investments of multinationals in the Esequibo territory. He emphasizes that inhibited the great investors, by the legal insecurity and because they thought that went to them to affect in the investments that could do in Venezuela. “Era a pressure form, so that Guyana accepted to enter negotiations, but when Chávez says that it does not have any disadvantage - on the granting of concessions everything changes”, indicates Garavini. According to the diplomat, with all this wave of concessions in the zone in claim “We are against the effects of a same cause, that was the declaration of the president of the Republic”. In the Yellow House they do not know the multiple concessions that Guyana has given in the Esequibo. In fact, the technical office that makes pursuit to the Venezuelan reclamation has sent several offices to the office of the chancellor Mature Nicholas, but they have been “engavetados”. rtheis@eluniversal.com