Amidst Failed US Sanctions
Prominent US and Canada-based investment firms and mining corporations are also involved.
HAVANA TIMES – In a new report, Nicaragua’s Gold Rush, the Oakland Institute exposes how, despite US sanctions on Nicaragua’s gold mining sector, the industry has boomed, fueled by foreign business interests. The US is the primary destination, accounting for a staggering 79 percent of total Nicaraguan gold exports.
“The devastating cost of this expansion is borne by the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in the Caribbean Coast Autonomous Regions, who face incessant violence, massacres, kidnappings, and colonization of their lands,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute and coauthor of the report.
The US government issued sanctions against state-owned mining company ENIMINAS in June 2022, accusing the Ortega-Murillo regime of “using gold revenue to continue to oppress the people of Nicaragua and engage in activities that pose a threat to the security of the hemisphere.” President Biden substantially expanded these sanctions by executive order in October 2022, authorizing the US Treasury to sanction any entity with financial connections to the US involved in Nicaragua’s gold sector.
The report reveals that the US government has so far failed to enforce these measures, allowing the gold sector to expand massively and continue to deliver significant revenues for the Ortega-Murillo regime and the