LIKE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS stranded on the gravel, their flame-blackened remains lie here and there along the rivers. In the northeast of Antioquia, the State is waging a merciless battle against the dredges used for the illegal extraction of gold.
Miners use these iron monsters, known as “dragons,” to divert rivers and dig into their beds, destroying the environment and, according to authorities, financing organized crime.
The military campaign to destroy it with explosives arouses strong hostility from the communities in the municipality of El Bagre (Antioquia), in the heart of Bajo Cauca, a region historically rich in gold, where numerous miners subsist on informal exploitation.
Since the beginning of March they have been protesting with roadblocks and acts of vandalism. According to the government, behind the so-called ‘mining strike’ is the largest criminal gang in the country, the ‘Clan del Golfo’.
“We have nothing to do with these groups,” claims union leader Luis Campo, dressed in a half-open flowered shirt that reveals a golden crucifix, while stressing: “(we are) miners from the area.”
“Nothing else to do”
At 32 years old, Luis represents 20 miners who “are suffering many needs” due to the incineration of their dredger in an Army operation.
“We do not want to continue being persecuted by the government. We want to reach a legalization process where we can work freely, without fear,” he claims.
Zaragoza, Cáceres… the names of the cities remind us that the Spaniards were already mining gold in the 17th century in the rivers of Bajo Cauca, including the Nechí.
A former stronghold of the paramilitaries in the 1990s, the region is today the fiefdom of their heirs of the ‘Clan del Golfo’, the most powerful cartel in the country, with which President Gustavo Petro has just broken a truce. The president accuses this criminal gang of getting rich from illegal mining.
With the rise in prices and the dollar, Bajo Cauca is experiencing a new gold rush: poor men with their traditional pans, powerful yellow excavators and imposing dredges divide the rivers. The union says it is a “victim” of extortion by the Clan, and not an accomplice of the organization, as the Government points out.
“Here there is nothing else to do if it is not mining,” says Campo. In El Bagre there are no “crops” or “livestock,” he adds bitterly.
In the last two decades, illegal mining has deforested some 70,000 hectares in the department of Antioquia alone, where Bajo Cauca is located, according to the government.
Questioned about this environmental impact, Campo maintains that there “the damage was already caused” by the exploitations authorized by the government decades ago.
According to the local authority, the depredation of the forest went from 10,000 hectares lost in 2021 to 15,000 in 2022.
Alex Cossio, captain of another dredger, says he has an environmental plan to mitigate the damage.
“We have not started to plant (trees) or anything because we have difficulties due to unemployment,” he justifies.
“Brazilians”
There are almost 350 dredging machines of all kinds in Bajo Cauca, according to local sources.
They range from the simple motorized float with an improvised conveyor belt, to the largest so-called “Brazilians” or “dragons”, which are about 27 and are the protagonists of the current crisis.
There are also the large legal dredges of the Mineros Alluvial company, a multinational company with Colombian capital and the only one authorized by the State in this area of almost 50,000 hectares.
A Brazilian one is “a three-story boat, 20 meters long, with large engines, which sucks the bottom of the riverbeds,” explains the Army chief in the area, General Eduardo Arias, who describes the process as “ecocide.”
Named after their counterparts used in the Brazilian Amazon, their technology was imported in 2005 by two foreigners from that country who were imprisoned.
Authorities also accuse the miners of polluting rivers with the mercury they use to separate gold from sediment. Cossio denies it: “We don’t use mercury, we take everything out by means of rafts. It takes between two and three hours.”
Neither “dark money is handled” nor “shady hands” intervene in the operation, he adds.
mad max style
The AFP visited several of these machines, including the brand new “Nativa”, built at the end of 2022 and captained by Cossio.
“He has nothing to hide. It is a family patrimony,” explains Cossio, the son of a retiree from the Mineros company.
Now his “dragon” rests in an arm of the Nechí River.
“Unfortunately we have it stopped due to unemployment. The State flies over us every day,” laments the robust 41-year-old man.
The first floor houses the engine room, where a monstrous engine drives the motorized pump. Tons of sediments reach the top floor and accumulate in a giant strainer. And a long tube runs down from the bow to suck up the riverbed, giving the ship a beetle-like look straight out of the movie Mad Max.
They are prodigies of DIY, mechanics and recycling, built with ingenuity by the locals. Most have bedrooms and dining rooms on the upper deck, where around twenty people live with the roar of engines 24 hours a day. The crew takes a percentage of the profits.
Assembling a Brazilian costs about 500 thousand dollars. “At current prices, it’s profitable,” says Cossio.
The device can dig up to 2 kilos of gold a day, worth more than $50,000, according to a police source.
The AFP counted at least six “Brazilians” burned in Nechí. In Nueva Esperanza, a poor riverside hamlet where three dredges were targeted in an Army raid on March 10, mechanics worked on repairs.
“Three times now these sons of bitches have burned this dredge,” curses William, a potbellied member of the team.