Have you ever wondered what happens when a big multinational mining company turns up in your small Colombian town with the intention of building a gold mine? A new report produced by a UK-based campaigning group records the experience of local people in Cajamarca, Tolima, as South African-based gold miner AngloGold Ashanti moved in.
The report, La Colosa: A Death Foretold, is about a mine that hasn’t yet been built. So it isn’t about mass pollution or large-scale environmental destruction, or not yet. The multinational gold-mining company has been in Cajamarca for almost ten years just preparing the ground for their mine. This is a tale of what happens before the mining even starts.