Suárez Gold – Afro-Colombian miners defending their heritage
by Hollman Morris | 2013 | 30 min
Afro-Colombians have been carrying out small-scale mining in Colombia’s Cauca region since their ancestors settled there in 1637. Today their descendants continue to chip away at the red rock in search of gold, seeing it not only as a means for earning a modest living, but also as an activity deeply linked to their culture. Between 2002 and 2010, Colombia’s government gave out 7,500 mining exploration titles to national and foreign companies eager to exploit the country’s precious resources. In the film we hear of the Afro-Colombian community of La Toma’s brave, and sometimes deadly, struggle to prevent the invasion of mining companies and defend their ancestral livelihoods at all costs.
