CPTnet  
16 September 2008
COLOMBIA: David and Goliath--a story of the small miners’ struggle for survival

by Christine Busch-Nema

The lush and gold-rich San Lucas Mountains in Colombia's Southern Bolivar province seem calm at first glance.  Here, isolated mining communities hug the steep mountain slopes.  Unfortunately, these mountains also harbour a bloody war.  Most Colombian government officials, courting gold-mining multinationals, present a different picture of the region as they sell off the mineral rights to these corporations.  Yet, the facts remain clear; most small miners in this region have had a family member killed or "disappeared."  They are caught in a three-way battle over land, in the middle of the FARC and ELN guerilla groups, the Colombian regular army battalions and the paramilitary or "mercenary hired guns."  The miners fear that the Army and paramilitary are working to clear the land of what the Colombian ministry of mines has referred to in a brochure as "a plague," i.e.,  the small campesino miner.

It was into this conflict that our Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation of fourteen North Americans ventured.  We came to hear the stories and struggles of these miners that work to exact a livelihood from their threatened land, as large mining companies eye the wealth that lies under their feet.

Over the next two and a half days, we heard the biblical story of David and Goliath told and retold as this federation of small miners spoke of their struggles to comply with mining codes that strongly favor the multinational mining companies.  We discovered that many of the new mining codes now debated by the Colombian legislature were actually authored by the lawyers representing Anglo Gold Ashanti and other enormous multinational corporations.

After a mining federation meeting one afternoon, we got a small taste of the anxiety the people here deal with daily.  A group of twenty soldiers appeared in the small town plaza.  CPTers William Payne, Julie Hart, and Nils Dybvig spoke with the soldiers about how their presence in town puts civilians in danger.  The commander, who hid his identity tag and refused Payne’s request for his name, became upset, insisting his battalion was in the region to ensure the safety of the civilian population.  He asked the miners themselves to verify his claim.  Finally, one brave miner spoke up, telling the commander he had recently encountered a soldier from a different battalion who told him, "Our mission is to clear the hills of the guerilla and secure the land to make way for the foreign gold companies."  He told the commander that the presence of the soldiers did not make him feel more secure but in fact, more insecure, because it made him fear for his way of life.

Photos taken during CPT's May 2008 mining delegation are available at http://cpt.org/gallery/album250.

[Members of CPT's July 16-29 Colombia delegation led by Julie Hart (Columbus, OH), were Jake Bader (Denver, CO), Amanda Balzer (Lincoln, NE) Christine Busch-Nema (St. Louis, MO), Megan Felt (Iowa City, IA), Joel Girard (Miami, FL), David Goodner (Iowa City, IA), , Drew Herbert (Claremont, CA), John Knox (Salem, OR), Linda Knox (Salem, OR), Joseph Wyse (Columbus, OH) and Matilda Yoder (London, OH).  Members of CPT's Colombia team, William Payne and Nils Dybvig, accompanied the delegation.]