Sun, Apr 02, 2023 page12

• Battle in Colombia over river-wrecking gold ‘dragons’

  Informal miners, some of whom operate massive vessels that dredge up to 2kg of gold per day, say that they buy diesel, food and logistics locally, which keeps the local economies afloat

  • By Herve Bar / AFP, EL BAGRE, Colombia
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  The giant skeletons of burnt and dismantled gold dredgers litter the rivers of northwest Colombia, where the government is waging a full-out war on illegal mining.

  Nicknamed “dragons” by locals, the massive machines used to suck gold from riverbeds are blamed for destroying the environment and financing organized crime.

  Their dismantling in a massive army operation has been met with hostility by communities who depend on mining for their daily survival.

  

  A man operates a dredger in the Nechi River in El Bagre, Colombia, on March 23.

  Photo: AFP

  Around El Bagre in the gold-rich Bajo Cauca region, a protest by miners that started early last month has been marked by acts of vandalism that the government blamed on the Gulf Clan drug cartel for instigating.

  “We have nothing to do with criminal groups,” said Luis Manuel Campo, 32, one of the miners.

  Campo co-owns a dredger with three other people.

  

  A man holds a gold nugget at a gold trading house in El Bagre, Colombia, on March 23.

  Photo: AFP

  “We are not hiding. We just want the persecution to stop,” he said. “We want to be formally recognized as miners so that we can work in peace, without stigma.”

  The names of the villages in this region such as Zaragoza and Caceres serve as a reminder of the Spanish colonizers who were already extracting gold in Bajo Cauca in the 17th century.

  It became a bastion of rightwing paramilitary fighters in the 1990s, and is now a stronghold of the Gulf Clan, Colombia’s most powerful cartel.

  

  A man jumps off a dredger used to extract gold on the Nechi River in El Bagre, Colombia, on March 23.

  Photo: AFP

  Colombian President Gustavo Petro this month called off a ceasefire with the Clan, accusing it of being behind attacks on civilians committed by protesting miners.

  Criminal groups in Colombia make almost as much money from illegal mining as they do from trafficking cocaine, authorities say.

  With a recent rise in gold prices, Bajo Cauca has been gripped by a new type of gold rush, with poor communities scouring the gravelly river beds with shovels, bulldozers and dredging machines.

  

  A dredger, burned by Colombian authorities, is docked on the Nechi River in El Bagre, Colombia, on March 23.

  Photo: AFP

  “Apart from gold, there is nothing here,” Campo said.

  Locals say that about 350 dredging machines are active in the region — big and small — on top of those operated legally by the Mineros Aluvial SAS multinational.

  The illegal dredgers range from simple machines with makeshift conveyer belts to larger mechanical contraptions that require several divers to guide a massive vacuum pipe under the dark water.

  Then there are the “dragons” — three-story, 20m-long boats with massive engines.

  There are about two dozen of these in the Bajo Cauca region.

  One “dragon” costs about US$500,000, their owners say.

  “At the current [gold] price, it is profitable,” said Alex Cossio, 41, who runs one of these dredgers.

  One “dragon” can extract up to 2kg of gold per day — worth more than US$50,000, said a police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

  Agence France-Presse (AFP) visited a number of these beasts, including one named “Native” that has been operational for only two months in a branch of the Nechi River.

  “The [army] helicopters fly over us every day. We are afraid,” said Cossio, who insisted there was no link to organized crime.

  “Diesel, food, logistics... We buy everything in the neighborhood. A large number of families live from our activity,” he added.

  AFP observed at least six “dragons” lying mutilated and burnt by the riverside, some already being repaired by their owners.

  There is no official data on how many dredgers have been destroyed.

  “We tried to stop them, it was terrible,” said Julia Tatis, who owns a small eatery, of a raid this month on three of the machines in Nueva Esperanza, a poor hamlet on the water’s edge.

  “The military just arrived saying we are the Gulf Clan, and they burned everything,” dredge owner Juan Manuel Carcamo added.

  Campo said that the dredges are working river beds “that were already exploited by Mineros 40 years ago... The damage has already been done.”

  Lawyer Francisco Arrieta Franco is an advocate for the miners who he describes as victims.

  “It is false to say the dredges belong to the Clan,” he said. “It’s complicated and expensive to operate a dredger. Criminals are more interested in extortion, which is everywhere in this region.”

  Locals say the miners are subject to Gulf extortion rather than perpetrators of it.

  In a gold shop in El Bagre, an employee warned of trouble if the government continues to “harass” the miners.

  “We need these dredgers to work and to eat,” shouted the employee, who did not want to be named. “They serve the whole community.”

  Added a miner, also on condition of anonymity: “It is when you have an empty stomach that you are forced to do illegal things.”
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