The undersigned Venezuelan and international civil society organizations, led by SOSOrinoco, take note of the decision by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to issue General Licenses 51A, 54, and 55, authorizing expanded activities involving Venezuelan-origin minerals, including gold, as well as services and prospective investments in Venezuela’s mining sector.
By Francisco Dallmeier, Cristina Vollmer Burelli
This op-ed argues that Venezuela’s illegal mining industry has become a major geopolitical and security threat, extending far beyond environmental destruction in the Amazon. It warns that armed groups, criminal networks, and regime insiders are profiting from illicit gold and critical minerals that flow into opaque international supply chains, undermining U.S. efforts to secure reliable sources of strategic resources. The piece calls on Washington to strengthen sanctions and enforcement against Venezuelan conflict minerals, target the networks enabling the trade, and work with regional allies to disrupt illicit mining operations and build transparent, traceable supply chains.
Read the full OpEd here.
August 18, 2024 | .ORG Awards Press Release
Document by House and Senate Appropriations Committees | March 20, 2024
Document from Senator Peter Welch | March 11, 2024
Document by U.S. Department of the Treasury & OFAC | January 29, 2024
By lifting the sanction on Venezuelan gold, the United States becomes a co-participant in the looting of the Venezuelan Amazon and chooses to ignore an ecocide that now becomes unstoppable, will be exploited by all transnational criminal groups in the region and will be impossible to hide.
Report by C4ADS
AGM & Hearing from Cristina Burelli of SOS Orinoco, Dr David Soud and Louis Marechal of the OECD
Parliamentarians: Andrew Lewer MBE MP (Chair); John Spellar MP (Officer); Baroness Hooper (Officer);
Lord Mountevans (Officer), John Stevenson MP
Report by the Human Rights Council, UN I September 20, 2022
Resolution by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I September 30, 2021
Report by the OECD I September 8, 2021
Our position on
the Orinoco Mining Arc
The purpose of SOSOrinoco is to shed light on the existing body of work regarding the situation in the Amazonia and Orinoquia regions of Venezuela, to raise awareness of the tragedy that is occurring and to outline some urgent measures that need to be taken in order to halt the unfolding human and environmental disaster.