PEACEFULNESS REGARDING THE LATEST NEWS FROM COLOMBIA
Dear MINXers:
Yesterday, a news was expanded from Colombia, that generated concern and uncertainty to all users with interests in the InnovaMinex project: Iván Márquez, one of the former FARC leaders, announced that they were returning to arms.
We have to say that the restlessness that yesterday’s news conveyed came mainly from the fact of not having the precise information. We now want to share with you all the really important details of this news that could affect us, and contextualize it, so that you will all see that THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.
1. Iván Márquez said in his message that they were in the Inírida region.
The city of Inírida is located in the easternmost part of Colombia. This town is the capital of the Guainía department, a place that is located in the Amazon, on the border with Venezuela. We, as you know, are on the mountains. We invite you all to open any website that shows distances and times between 2 locations, so you can verify, by yourselves, that between Inírida and Vereda Guayaquil there are more than 1,200 km. It is, more or less, the same distance between Madrid and Paris.
2. Difficulties in mobility between different areas inside Colombia.
Roads in Colombia have nothing to do with what we are used to in Europe. The relief is very wild and rugged, and that makes any displacement requires more time.
When the company manager travels from Medellín (where our headquarters is) to Pennsylvania (municipality where our Vereda Guayaquil mine is located), he must travel 367 km… in more than 7 hours! You can see it in this link.
That is, to give us a better idea, the time it would take in Colombia to go from Inírida to Vereda Guayaquil is, more or less, the same time it takes to go by car… from Madrid to Berlin! In addition, Bogotá, the capital of the country, is in the middle of that route, and the guerrillas never approach the capital. And, finally, if a big group of this guerrilla wanted to move to our mine (it should be a big group to be able to maintain their coercion with continuity), they would have to go with heavy vehicles, which means that they would have to expose themselves too much, and that it would also greatly increase the time to arrive (more than 1 day).
In short, the possibility of moving to our project would be absolutely unfeasible for those who have announced their return.
As you can see, even if our mine was an objective for this group, it would be impossible for them to approach. And the reality is that we are no target, neither theirs nor anyone else’s.
3. The group that announces that it returns to arms is insignificant.
The number of guerrillas that make up the group that announces that it’s going back to its old ways is ridiculous, attending to the number of people that formed the FARC when they were a real problem. Now they are only a handful that does not have the support they would need to pose a real risk, even if they were much closer to our mine.
Consulting trusted Colombian sources, with no interest in our project, they confirm that IT WILL NOT IN ANY WAY AFFECT our mine, and that, in addition, they will not make a big mess, and that the only thing they want is to make noise.
Summarizing, everything is still in order, and we keep working and moving forward to start production as soon as possible.
The InnovaMinex Team.
