The Independent Catholic News reports, “Father Jose Reinel Restrepo Idairraga was killed by unknown assailants…on Thursday, 1 September…in Colombia. …Father Restrepo was 36 years old…and since 2009 was pastor in Marmato, where he was appreciated and respected by the locals because of his commitment to the poor. The authorities have begun investigating the case to determine whether the reason for the priest’s killing was mugging or if there is any other reason. This area of Colombia is well-known because about 80 percent of the population of Marmato works in gold mining.”
In a video posted to YouTube just days before his murder, Father Restrepo spoke against an open pit gold mine proposed by Toronto-based Medoro Resources (which recently merged with another Canadian company, Gran Colombia Gold Corp). Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper reports, “The priest had spent the past two years in Marmato where he had opposed the moving of the town, a possibility that has been considered if the mining company Gran Colombia Gold mines its open pit project.”
The Marmato Project: As noted on their website, “Medoro Resources Ltd. is a gold exploration, development and mining company with a primary emphasis on Colombia. Medoro owns most of the prolific Marmato gold district and the producing Mineros Nacionales underground gold mine located in Zona Baja at Marmato. The Company is conducting an exploration and infill drilling program at its Marmato Project to expand and upgrade its already substantial gold resources there as the basis for its plan to develop a large open pit gold mine to realize the large potential of the Marmato Project. The Company’s Marmato Project currently hosts measured and indicated gold resources of approximately 6.6 million ounces, and an inferred resource of approximately 3.2 million ounces.”
‘Economic Forced Displacement’: The company’s website also notes, ” In October 2009, Medoro acquired the Zona Alta license through its share purchase of Colombia Goldfields Ltd.” A March 2008 article in The Dominion by Micheál Ó Tuathail of Edmonton’s La Chiva collective reports, “Five years ago, (Marmato’s) roots were shaken when the Compañía Mineras de Caldas, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Colombia Goldfields Limited, began its project of consolidating ownership of the mountain, leading to what many call the ‘economic forced displacement’ of Marmato and the social eradication of a working community. …(An article in El Colombiano) claims that an open-pit gold mine at Marmato would be ‘one of the largest in South America’, requiring the removal of ‘between 30,000 and 60,000 tonnes of earth daily in order to produce 250,000 ounces of gold annually.’ The operation would exploit in 20 years what small miners could in 200.”
Water: The Dominion article adds, “While small mining practices are notorious for their use of harmful chemicals such as cyanide, open-pit mines are environmental disaster zones, according to critics, who say they bring limited short-term employment and leave behind gigantic holes in the ground where communities once lived.” A Colombia Goldfields media release from February 2007 says, “The first detailed water monitoring ever undertaken at Marmato was completed in December 2006 at 18 locations in three creeks and two locations on the Cauca River. The sampling was a joint effort with Corpocaldas, the State Environmental Agency responsible for the Environment in the Department of Caldas. Due to unregulated discharge from the mills and the lack of any tailings disposal facilities at Marmato, cyanide levels are toxic in all locations and the amount of suspended solids is many times above acceptable levels.”
‘Our town is not just mines’: A report by the World Rainforest Movement says, “The inhabitants of Marmato and indigenous communities in Caldas, who are opposed to the town’s destruction, argue that ‘our town is not just mines and its inhabitants are not just those who control the mines and other sources of work. The town of Marmato is us, the people who have lived in it and feel an attachment to it that cannot be measured in monetary terms. It is the scenery we look upon, the cobbled streets we walk along, the unique architecture that characterizes our town, the neighbours with whom we have built ties of solidarity, the stories that our elders tell the young about a long-ago past where the histories of indigenous, Afro-descendent and white peoples are intertwined, the artisanal miners who have always known how to extract gold from the mountain, the mule drivers who make it possible to transport goods along our steep roads, the peasant farmers and indigenous communities who live around us and supply us with their agricultural crops.'”