AS COLOMBIA heralds in a new era of mining, one of the government’s biggest challenges is to formalise the status of traditional miners who operate without licenses, while simultaneously cracking down on those which serve rebels and criminal gangs. The government hopes that its new mining code, which will be submitted for congressional approval early next year, will do the trick. But miners are not convinced.
At least 40% of the 55.9 tonnes of gold produced in 2011 were extracted from unlicensed mines, according to Mauricio Cárdenas, Colombia’s mines minister. Some estimates put the figure at 60%. Miners say successive governments continuously change the rules of the game, making it impossible to obtain a legal title. “When we have the answers ready, they change the questions,” says Luz Stella Ramírez, who heads a confederation of small-scale miners.
Unlicensed miners chafe at being dubbed illegal. They pay royalties on all their production, they say. They complain that security forces mistake them for the criminals who are increasingly turning to gold mining to finance their illicit activities. Some miners admit to paying extortion money to the left-wing guerrillas of the FARC, and the new generation of right-wing paramilitary groups the government calls “new criminal bands”; but they insist that they are victims, not criminals. One miner from the western province of Choco, who asked not to be identified, says the FARC can charge operators of the score of mines which run along the Atrato River between $560 and $840 a month. The paramilitary groups take a fee of 1% of production. Troops and police often need to be paid off too, in order to enter the towns where the gold can be sold.
A study by the national police in January found that groups like the FARC and new criminal gangs like the Urabeños and the Rastrojos control unlicensed gold mines in nearly half the country’s municipalities, either through extortion or a direct stake in operations. The government has launched a nationwide crackdown in response, destroying machinery and arresting miners. Some miners say this is to clear the way for large mining companies to come in. The government denies the charge.
