In Colombia, New Gold Rush Fuels Old Conflict Stephen Ferry for The New York Times Thousands from across Colombia have flocked to mining sites in Antioquia, where armed groups vie for control of operations. More Photos By SIMON ROMERO Published: March 3, 2011 CAUCASIA, Colombia Officers pored over intelligence reports describing the movements of two warlords with private armies. Then the helicopters lifted off at dawn, carrying an elite squad armed with assault rifles to the newest front in this country's long war: gold mines. Multimedia Stephen Ferry for The New York Times Miners confronted government officers in northern Antioquia after a raid on a mining camp resulted in several arrests. More Photos Seizing on the decade-long surge in gold prices, combatants from multiple sides of the conflict are shifting into gold mining, among them leftist guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and fighters from the shadowy armed groups that rose from the ashes of right-wing paramilitary squads. Their move into gold underscores the many difficulties of ending Colombia's devilishly complex four-decade war. Even as the Colombian authorities claim victories in bombing top rebel commanders and eradicating vast tracts of coca the plant used to make cocaine, long the financial lifeblood of the insurgents resilient factions are exploring new sources of money. "These groups are metamorphosing to take advantage of the opportunities they see," said Jeremy McDermott, a director based in Medelln of InSight, a research organization that focuses on criminal enterprises in Latin America. "They know there's a huge new revenue stream within their grasp, and they're grabbing it." The result is a gold rush unlike any now under way in South America, both feeding off Colombia's evolving conflict and keeping it alive. Up and down the sweltering river basins around Medelln, miners from across Colombia are flocking to sites where backhoes are tearing up forest and tree canopies, leaving behind lunaresque landscapes. Some of these small mines have existed for decades, echoes of frenzies that stretch back centuries to the plundering by conquistadors in search of fabled gold deposits. Newer mines emerge on almost a weekly basis, reflecting efforts to find gold while its price remains high. Gold futures climbed this week to a noninflation-adjusted record of $1,441 an ounce. The gold rush here is just a part of a broader mining boom in Colombia, with gold production climbing more than 30 percent last year and attracting an array of fortune seekers, from multinational corporations to farmers who have left their fields and picked up shovels. Guerrillas and their paramilitary adversaries have long been involved in mining, often using it and related businesses like cattle ranching to launder money and to extract extortion payments. But military intelligence officials and residents here say that new factors, like the success of American-financed coca eradication projects and the price of gold, have pushed rivals in Colombia's long drug war to focus elsewhere. The role of guerrillas and the new criminal syndicates in the pell-mell opening of new mines has made Antioquia the department, or province, whose capital is Medelln one of Colombia's deadliest and most environmentally devastated regions. Miners in lawless backlands use liquid mercury to separate gold from river sediments, giving Antioquia one of the highest levels of mercury pollution anywhere, according to United Nations researchers. An estimated 67 tons of it are released into the province's environment each year, by about 30,000 miners taking part in the gold rush. "Colombia has the shameful first position as the world's largest per capita mercury polluter from artisanal gold mining," said Marcello Veiga, a mining engineer who led a United Nations study of mercury contamination in Antioquia. More than 60 grenade attacks were carried out last year in Caucasia, a city of about 100,000 with a downtown district of gold-buying shops. They largely involved two armed groups, the Urabeos and the Rastrojos, vying for control over gold mines and, to some extent, the cocaine trade. Both groups are thought to have more than 1,200 fighters in their ranks. Each emerged from the paramilitary groups that were supposed to have demobilized years ago. At times, these heirs to the paramilitaries work with FARC, illustrating the post-ideological nature of today's conflict. But score-settling between these groups and urban FARC operatives also takes place, lifting Caucasia's homicide rate to 189 per 100,000 inhabitants last year, compared with a national average of only 35 per 100,000, according to federal officials. "It's hard for anyone to say this out loud, but one reason why the guerrillas and criminal gangs are moving into gold is because it is not just profitable," but because it deals with a legal product, unlike cocaine, said Leiderman Ortz, the publisher of a small newspaper here who survived a grenade attack on his home last year after he described the new dynamics of the region's gold trade. "It's a way for them to keep their war alive," he said. In January, President Juan Manuel Santos said communications intercepted from FARC showed that gold mining had become a source of financing for rebel group. More
