The Strike

James [00.00.03] A column of people filed down the dirt road, hundreds of men and women, young and old, even a few children here and there. We followed them down the mountain as they marched into Segovia. 

The town is an epicenter of gold production in Colombia, and we’d gone there to report on blood gold – gold tainted by its connections to armed groups, organized crime, and corruption. But after spending several years investigating, we’d found that blood gold is a poor, simplistic label for a deeper, more complex social and economic issue: How to tame the savage capitalism that operates on the frontiers of the global economy. 

The marchers were protesting a government crackdown on informal gold mining and attempts by a Canadian multinational, Gran Colombia Gold, to shut down their unauthorized mines, a move that they were determined to resist as it would have devastating consequences for them and the town’s economy. 

The slogan they had chosen was deceptively simple, but it spoke directly to this much thornier question. It was printed on banners and the T-shirts they wore and worked into their chants.

Mineros sí, criminales no – miners yes, criminals no. 

But deciphering who was a criminal and who was not in this town was never easy. These people were not criminals, at least not in any overt way. But their mines were illegal. And their businesses did fund armed groups and had been infiltrated by mafias and corrupt interests. 

So, in a way, the gold they produce is the blood gold we’d come to Segovia to find. And this gave the government and the big mining companies an opening to call them criminal miners. 

But those labels belied a fundamental point: The miners were mostly just seeking to make a living. And they were not the only ones producing gold contaminated by crime, conflict, and corruption. 

In other words, Segovia’s gold has been stained by blood for generations, as powerful interests – warlords and gangsters but also investors and politicians – have fought to capture the town’s wealth at any cost. 

But now, the complexities contained in that slogan – mineros si, criminales no – were marching the town towards a different type of conflict, one that threatened to engulf Segovia – in fact all of Colombia’s mining regions – and that would swallow us in the melee that followed.

From InSight Crime, this is The Shadow of El Dorado, a series about the intricate web of corruption, violence, and complicity behind the gold trade in Segovia. And the story of how this once-thriving Colombian mining town became a mafia stronghold. 

I’m James Bargent

Mat [00.03.22] And I’m Mat Charles. This episode we look at the moment when two worlds collided. This is Episode Six – The Strike.

Leading the marchers was Jaime Gallego. At the time, Jaime was the vice president of the mesa minera – or mining roundtable – an organization set up to represent small-scale, informal mining in Segovia. Jaime is a thick set, bullish man. His appearance is gruff, and he tries to be brusque and curt, but he can never keep it up for too long before his humor breaks through. 

Jaime [00.04.15] Lo que pasa es que hace 14 meses en Segovia, pues debido a los decretos ley del Gobierno, pues la Fuerza pública empezó aquí a quitarle el oro, a quitarle su material aurífero a la pequeña minería.

Mat [00.04.32] We’d met with Jaime earlier that morning as he was preparing for the protest. He explained to us how the mesa was leading a full-frontal struggle, not only against the government and its laws, but also against Gran Colombia Gold, the Canadian mining multinational that claims Segovia’s gold for itself.

Gran Colombia owns the mining rights for almost the entire area in perpetuity – something pretty much unheard of elsewhere in the country. 

Jaime [00.05.02] Y entonces la Gran Colombia lo que quiere es coger a toda la pequeña minería y ponerla a trabajar a… hacia ellos. O sea, esclavizarlos hacia la multinacional.

Mat [00.05.14] And Gran Colombia, Jaime said, wants to make all the small-scale miners work for them, “to enslave them”. If they allow that, he added, then it will be the end of Segovia.

As we saw when we first came to Segovia, there is a struggle of two visions of mining in Colombia. On the one hand, small scale, rustic, often informal, and sometimes totally illegal. On the other, massive scale industrial mining, usually carried out by foreign multinational companies. 

Jaime sees this as a David and Goliath fight. The government, he believes, is stigmatizing the small-scale miners as criminals in order to pave the way for their preferred model – the one driven by foreign capital and cheap, contract labour. 

It’s a fight that has echoes throughout Colombia’s bloody history. From the 1928 massacre of United Fruit banana workers famously fictionalized in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, to accusations that multinationals such as Chiquita, Nestlé, and Coca-Cola were complicit in paramilitary violence. As a recent judgment in a US court found in a landmark case against Chiquita, companies often rely on local violent actors to secure their businesses.

International capitalism and conflict have often advanced in lockstep in Colombia. 

Jaime [00.05.44] Si nos queremos formalizar, si queremos trabajar, si nos queremos coger a la ley.

Mat [00.06.49] Jaime sought an escape hatch from this vicious cycle. The small-scale miners wanted to work within the system, follow environmental and labour regulations, and tax laws. But they wanted those laws to be equitable, to be fair to everyone, not made for the multinationals.

Jaime [00.07.06] Son 15 minas en estos momentos que hay para cerrar y hay una lista de 30 más. Si esto lo permitimos, es el acabose de Segovia.

Mat [00.07.15] But the other side had little time for such arguments. The day of the protest the conflict was coming to a head after Gran Colombia Gold drafted decrees to shut down 15 informal mines. The mesa minera was in negotiations with the company over the closure orders. 

James [00.07.32] ¿Y si como las cosas no salen como quieren ustedes? ¿Qué es el futuro para Segovia? 

Mat [00.07.39] But what happens if those talks fail, we asked Jaime, what’s next for Segovia? 

Jaime [00.07.44] Yo creo que esto sería una desobediencia civil. Nos vamos a una desobediencia civil, a defender nuestra ancestralidad.

Mat [00.07.51] “Civil disobedience,” he replied, “this is a line the entire town will not cross. Today, they are not on strike, they are just holding a march, but they are here to say to the multinational, Segovia is tired of the tricks, of the blows, of the persecution.” 

Jaime [00.08.07] … de los atropellos, de la persecución. Nos están dejando cocos y pobres y en pura miseria.

Mat [00.08.13] The company is taking their gold and leaving them in poverty and misery.

One of the mines under threat was Las Brisas, where, back in episode one, we met three informal miners: Fabian Gutierrez, and the brothers Jorge Sepúlveda and Carlos Durango, who goes by the nickname of Pelo Mula – Donkey Hair.

Las Brisas is a perfect example of the conflict between the small-scale miners and Gran Colombia Gold. It’s no hole in the ground. It’s a functional, organized business. It has more than 30 years of history, and it provides employment for over 100 people. But… the gold they are mining, by law, does not belong to them. Because of the agreement between Gran Colombia and the government, it belongs to the multinational

Of course, as we explored in earlier episodes, many in Segovia believe that the gold belongs to the former employees and pensioners of the company that Gran Colombia Gold purchased in 2010, Frontino Gold Mines. And many of the small-scale miners, including Fabian, Jorge, and Pelo Mula, are among those former Frontino workers. They only turned to informal mining after they had been laid off or had quit amid the labor disputes that followed the sale of Frontino to Gran Colombia. 

Fabian [00.09.37] Nosotros, los mineros de acá, de Segovia, reconocemos que ellos son los titulares, que son los dueños de los títulos, pero ella no ha querido sentarse con nosotros a negociar.

Mat [00.09.46] Sitting in the sun outside the mine entrance, Fabian told us that at this point all they are asking is that the company negotiate the terms in which they can coexist.

Gran Colombia’s public position is not so different to this – it says it’s willing to work with the miners, to legalize their mines through operating contracts, which would allow them to work on the company’s concession in exchange for a share of the profits. The dispute is in the details – what those contracts contain.  

Fabian [00.10.19] Ellos manejan unos contratos… pero unos contratos que para nosotros los pequeños mineros, esos contratos no nos sirven.

Mat [00.10.26] The small-scale miners have put in all the investment and all the work, Fabian said, but their cut of the gold is barely enough to cover labor and equipment. And if the company decides not to renew the contracts when they end, then not only is the gold underground legally theirs, but so is the mine, everything that the miners have put into the operation ends up as company property.

And it’s not just the miners that are affected. Under the terms of the contracts, the company takes away all the ore for processing. This means no jobs for those who also live from the mines: the chatarreras, for example, women like Maria and Angelica who we met in Episode one, who sift through discarded ore for the last scraps of gold. It also means no work for the processing mills and the gold traders. The local economy moves around informal mining, and it would be devastated, Fabian said. 

Fabian [00.11.22] Entonces esos contratos no nos da, no nos da para trabajar. Inclusive hay minas que por lo regular toda mina que firma esos contratos se va a quiebra.

Mat [00.11.31] The contracts, he added, don’t work. The money they are left with isn’t enough to cover costs. In fact, he told us, some of the mines that have accepted the contracts are now facing bankruptcy.

James [00.11.47] To hear the other side of this argument, we visited the offices of Gran Colombia Gold in the city of Medellín 

Medellín is only 200 kilometersfrom Segovia, but the area where the company has its offices is a different world. One of bright, gleaming buildings populated by well-scrubbed men and women in smart suits and ties.

There, we sat down with José Noguera, the Vice President for Corporate Affairs, who also featured in Episode four.

José [00.12.20]  Es un conflicto, pero entre la legalidad y la ilegalidad.

James [00.12.23] While the miners in Segovia frame this dispute as a struggle between small, local miners and multinational behemoths, José and Gran Colombia see it as a struggle between legality and illegality.

Segovia has long had a culture of illegality – and this is why the company is committed to the formalization and legalization process, he told us. 

José [00.12.48] Entonces nuestra visión como compañía es que estamos seguros que de la mano del Gobierno nacional y de la mano del Gobierno departamental, con la ayuda de Gran Colombia Gold, podemos formalizar a todos los mineros que están dentro del título.

James [00.13.04] They have a vision, he said, of working with the government to formalize all of the mines that are within Gran Colombia’s title. But there is a problem – not all of the mines want to be legal. It’s expensive to be legal, he said – there are taxes, social security, and the costs of meeting environmental and safety standards. 

James [00.13.26] ¿Qué dice la empresa frente a estos críticos que ellos tienen sobre los contratos? 

James [00.13.30] What about the contracts, I asked, and the miners who say they just can’t survive on those terms?

José [00.13.36] Eso es lo que establece el contrato. No decimos que sea perfecta, pero es un análisis serio.

James [00.13.41] They’ve worked out a formula that might not be perfect, he replied, but allows the miners to recover their investments, cover their costs and make a profit. But, he said, it will never be more profitable than being illegal.

José [00.13.57] Nosotros hemos tenido la mejor voluntad de negociar, de modificar la fórmula. Presentamos unas propuestas.

James [00.14.05] Jose said the company has been and is willing to revise their formula for the contracts, but the miners say the formula simply doesn’t work. So the company asks, what does work? The answers they have received amount to little more than the miners being able to carry on working illegally, he told us. It hurts him to say it, he said, but the process has not been effective.

It was easy to get drawn into the arguments over laws and regulations and squabbling over contractual details. But in doing so we felt something bigger was getting lost. 

The gold produced by the informal miners was, by most definitions, blood gold – it funded organized crime, armed groups, and corruption networks. But then, over the course of this investigation, we had uncovered evidence that legal mining operations were also contaminated: the paramilitary involvement in the Frontino saga; the threats, violence and influence trafficking that helped push through the sale to Gran Colombia; the murderous mafia of sub-contractors working the company mines, the fact that miners working in Gran Colombia’s mines were also paying off armed groups. 

Much of the gold flowing from Colombia to us, the global consumers, could surely be considered blood gold whether it started with an illegal mine or a legal mine.  

And while the informal miners were scraping a living off their blood gold, there were shareholders, investors, and executives that have made millions off the trade, including, as we have shown in previous episodes, some of the most celebrated entrepreneurs on the planet and Colombian political elites.   

When we went back to Segovia six months after the march, we found a dark reminder of these complexities. Death threats had been circulating around town, the latest one signed by a group calling itself La Mano que Limpia – The Hand that Cleans. It declared the mesa minera as military targets and singled out Jaime Gallegos and two other negotiators.

“We came to clean house, and we are going to mop up as well”, it concluded.

We went to speak to Jaime to find out what was going on.

Jaime [00.15.36] Ese panfleto salió de un día después de que nosotros tuvimos una reunión con la multinacional y no les paramos firmes.

James [00.16.44] The threat started circulating the day after their last meeting with the company, Jaime told us.

After a few tentative advances, talks had broken down again and tensions had spilled over. The three people named in the threat were the three people who had spoken out in the most recent meeting between the mesa and Gran Colombia.

This is not the first time this has happened. In fact, it has been going on ever since they formed the mesa minera.

Jaime [00.17.11] El mes de febrero, pues yo tuve la primer llamada amenazando por pertenecer a la mesa minera; en el mes de mayo nuevamente una llamada.  

James [00.17.22] First it was threatening phone calls, Jaime said, then came the first panfleto, or pamphlet as the written threats are known in Colombia. That one, though, didn’t even feature the name of any specific group, it was just signed off as “a Revolutionary Group that struggles for Social Equality.”

And this is the strange thing with these threats: The town of Segovia is a bastion of criminalized paramilitaries, while the rural areas are occupied by left-wing guerrilla groups. All of these groups put out panfletos. And all of them have some kind of interest or stake in the gold trade. But they are not usually shy about putting their names on their messages, in fact that is kind of the point. And there are no groups by those names in Segovia. So where do these threats come from, I asked Jaime?

Jaime [00.18.15] Pues los amigos también de la misma multinacional, sacan este panfleto con el fin también de que nosotros bajemos la guardia.

James [00.18.22] Jaime is careful not to point the finger directly at Gran Colombia. But, he said, it is the “amigos” of the company.

Mat [00.18.36] The flashpoint came at Las Brisas a few months later. A delegation of government officials – with a military escort – arrived at the mine to carry out a technical inspection. The visit was to establish that the mine is on Gran Colombia’s concession. It was a prelude to executing the order to close the mine and everyone knew it.

Miners from all over town descended on Las Brisas to block their entry. After a heated debate between the officials and the miners, with an army official attempting to referee, the delegation got back in their pickup and was jeered down the mountain.  

Mat [00.19.24] But the informal miners knew that they were now fighting against the clock and had no choice but to take more drastic action. That was when they called the strike, not only for the mines, but for the whole town. Segovia was shutting down.

The strike started out slowly. When we arrived at the central picket on that first day, it was wet and miserable. A grey mist settled over the mountainside as a smattering of people gathered by the stage. Jaime tried to rally the crowd. 

He started off scolding them, telling all the mine reps to get their workers to shake off the hangovers from their last parties before the strike and get down to the picket to help. 

But he soon shrugged it off, “I know my town likes a party and that’s just the way it is,” he said. 

We went to look for the Las Brisas crew and found them a few blocks away organizing the shifts to man one of the seven pickets being set up around town.

Pelo Mula [00.21.02] Todas las minas vamos a estar en puntos estratégicos del pueblo. ¿Para qué? Para evitar que, que haya muchos trabajadores a laborar y no apoyen en el cese de actividades. Nosotros, de la mina, Las Brisas nos tocó allí, junto a la arcilla, la vía para Providencia.

Mat [00.21.20] Pelo Mula explained to us how the pickets are being set up at strategic points where they can shut off the routes to the Gran Colombia mines. There are day shifts and night shifts, he said, 12 hours long.  

They had barricaded the road and set up folding chairs and gazebos to keep the sun off, while they played cards. The women that ran the little café hut in the mine were cooking huge pots of food donated by local businesses on an open fire. It was the same set up at every picket, and, morning, noon, and night, wherever we went, enormous plates of rice, plantains and chewy meat were thrust into our hands.

It all seemed relaxed, upbeat, good-natured. And when night started to fall, even quite peaceful… Until we talked to Pelo Mula’s brother, Jorge.

Jorge [00.22.15] Pues la verdad, todos nosotros, los que estamos en esto, pues, estamos dispuestos de llegar hasta lo último. No importa los días, porque sabemos de que, como les decía ahorita, somos ancestrales, vivimos de esto.

Mat [00.22.30] They’re ready to stay here to the very end, no matter how long it takes, Jorge told us. There are no alternatives, he insisted. They’re not here for violence, he said, they’re not looking for a fight. They just want the state to listen. And the state doesn’t care if they are tired and hungry. Everyone knows the only way you can get the government to listen is by bringing big businesses to a stop, he added. 

They want to do something peaceful, Jorge said. But if the ESMAD – Colombia’s infamous riot police – comes to defend the company, then who knows what will happen.

The ESMAD did come. But at first, they were a low-key presence, skulking around in the background, sweating in their heavy riot gear but doing little more than staring at people. 

All the time, the mesa leaders like Jaime kept putting the word out, keep things cool, keep it peaceful. Don’t let them paint us as violent thugs. 

But then, on day three, the ESMAD made their first move. They targeted the picket at La Cruzada, the small town on the road connecting Segovia and its sister town, Remedios. The picket blocked the route used by the trucks that transport ore from Gran Colombia’s mines to its processing plant.

We headed up with the mesa leaders to find a truck load of ESMAD parked just down the road from the picket. Standing on the hills overlooking the road were also regular police with rifles slung over their chests. 

On the other side, reinforcements for the strikers were arriving. Some were armed with poles and planks, others had fashioned shields out of giant bin lids. And they started hurling abuse at the police.

As the tensions began to bubble over, we found Fabian at the heart of things, yelling at the police.

“We’re here peacefully,” he told them, “But you want to turn us into criminals, real criminals.”

For several tense minutes, the ESMAD commander and the local police chief paced nervously around, deep in conversation on their phones. Finally, they hung up. The crowd jeered as the ESMAD slowly, reluctantly, clambered back into their truck.

The strikers had won. But the atmosphere had turned.

The day after, tensions escalated further after Gran Colombia’s José Noguera told a national radio station that the mesa minera only represented five mines, and that just 300 strikers had the whole town confined.

He added that armed men had been threatening Gran Colombia’s workers and even the school.

Jaime took to the stage. 

“They say we have kidnapped the town, are you kidnapped?” he asks the crowd. 

“Was this the people’s decision?”

They say the strike is backed by criminals – and this from people who want to drive us from our own lands, Jaime said.

James [00.27.03] The next morning, I was woken at dawn by a text from one of the administrators at Las Brisas. The ESMAD are at the main picket, it said. And this time, they were in no mood to back down.

After that first volley of tear gas and pepper balls, there was panic, everyone running blind down the street hacking and wheezing. We took shelter in the side allies away from the acrid clouds. Someone handed us a bag of milk to pour over our faces to stop the stinging. 

As word got out, people – mostly young men – began to filter down, slowly assembling enough numbers to go again. The makeshift weapons and masked faces began to appear. They hurled abuse at the ESMAD, taunting them. They shoved barricades further down the street, trying to establish a foothold. And they made darting runs to hurl rocks. 

Every time they did, the ESMAD fired another tear gas canister down the street. Some of which the strikers picked up and threw right back. Amid the runningskirmishes, we found Fabian, shirt off and eyes red from the tear gas.

Fabian [00.28.22] Queríamos algo pacífico, una solución pacífica. Pero en este momento ya no es nada pacífico. Aquí ya no más nos toca es luchar por lo que es de nosotros y del pueblo.  

James [00.28.34] “We wanted something peaceful”, he yelled, “but this is not peaceful anymore, now we have to defend ourselves.” 

Slowly, a critical mass was reached, and the crowd began moving closer and closer to the ESMAD. The balance of power had shifted. The strikers had the numbers now. And they were angry. 

They were on every street of the junction, cornering the ESMAD. They began to advance. Fabian stood at the front of one of the columns. They began to push up against the police lines, coming right up against their riot shields. 

The chant goes up. “El Pueblo unido, jamás sera vencido” – the people, united, will never be defeated.

The ESMAD fired again, and everyone scrambled, falling over each other in the smokey confusion. But this time it was to cover their retreat. They slowly backed away, never taking their eyes or their weapons off the crowd. 

The strikers had retaken the picket – and the initiative.

It was the beginning of the end of the strike. The ESMAD stood down, and everyone agreed to convene in Medellin – the mesa minera, the Antioquia state government, officials from the president’s office, the mining ministry, the environment ministry and Gran Colombia Gold.

The meeting was not for another four days, so Jaime helped us find transport past the pickets and to the nearest town where buses to Medellin were still running. 

The strike was formally lifted after the meeting, with the announcement of the creation of yet another roundtable – this time the mesa for solutions for Segovia and Remedios. In a way it felt like a victory for the miners. But it also felt like we were right back where we started. 

It was a feeling we would have again when we went back some years later. 

That’s next time on the Shadow of El Dorado….