The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283

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The Extractive Industries and Society

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Original Article The history of mining in : An examination of Spanish-language sources

Brian Brazeal

Department of Anthropology, California State University, Chico,

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article history: This article presents a review of Spanish-Language sources on the history of emerald mining and trading Received 16 July 2014 in Colombia from colonial times to the present with a special focus on the late 20th century. Sources are Received in revised form 28 August 2014 drawn from academic history, anthropology and political science, but also from books produced by Available online xxx mining organizations, journalistic expose´s and popular history and fiction. They chronicle the history of violence that characterized the mining area from the 1550s to the 1990s as well as the peace established Keywords: among miners in 1991. The history of is intimately tied up with the history of the nation, its violent struggles and its hopes for a peaceful and prosperous future. Mining ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Colombia History

1. Introduction: the Czar is dead power depends on hotly contested elections rather than back room deals negotiated among elites. Disenfranchised farmers and On April 4, 2013 Vı´ctor Carranza, the Emerald Czar of Colombia disenchanted urban middle classes alike are clamoring for their died. He had presided over a tenuous, 20-year-old peace that had rights and their cries are being heard. This optimism reverberates brought an end to 50 (some would say 500) years of war around through the Colombian emerald trade as well. Emerald dealers no Colombia’s emerald mines. He was accused of forming paramili- longer gun each other down in the streets of Bogota´. Emerald tary groups, masterminding assassinations and even suborning miners are no longer tossed into the murderous black waters of the presidents, but he was always exculpated. It seemed a miracle that Rio Minero. Perhaps an examination of the troubled history of he died of cancer after surviving so many violent attacks on his life. emerald mining in Colombia will help keep those troubles from In the wake of Carranza’s death there was intense speculation in repeating themselves. the Colombian media that the esmeralderos would go to war once This article is intended as a review of the again (El Tiempo, 2013b). There have been skirmishes, assassina- on emerald mining and trading. It depends on published, tions, a few tragic deaths of women and children, and a few secondary sources and not archival research. However, as these imprisonments of the most bellicose miners, but the peace seems sources are published in Spanish, and as some of them are difficult to be holding (El Tiempo, 2013c). The owners of the largest to find, even in Colombia, they might not be accessible to this mines, together with civil, military and ecclesiastical leaders, journal’s readership. are scrambling to ensure that the equilibrium imposed in Emeralds, and the travails of the mining area, have fascinated 1991 endures. Colombian academics, journalists, novelists and the general public This seems like an opportune moment to review the long to a surprising degree. Perhaps this is because the stones history of emerald mining in Colombia. Colombian authors have themselves are finer and have been mined for longer in Colombia claimed that conflicts over emeralds encapsulate their country’s than anywhere else. Perhaps it is because the story of these whole violent history (Guerrero, 2002:123). The brutality of the gemstones are so tied up with the story of the Colombian nation. conquest, the Bolivarian revolution, the political violence of the The sources are drawn from academic history and anthropology first half of the twentieth century, and the violence of the drug but they also include a self-congratulatory proclamation of an trade in the second half of the twentieth century, have all organ of the state. They include a massive tome published by a reverberated through the emerald mining area. massive mine that attempts to silence the recent past by burying it But this is an optimistic moment in Colombian history. The under a mass of scientific and mythological detail. There is a world’s longest running civil war seems poised to end. Political journalistic expose´ and some ghost-written pseudonymous pulp fiction. Each illuminates a different facet of the history that still ‘‘weighs like a nightmare on the brains of living’’ (Marx, 1964:1) E-mail address: [email protected]. Several authors have pointed to the brutal and seemingly http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2014.08.006 2214-790X/ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 274 B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 inexorable ways in which this history repeats itself. Today that trouble, throwing huge parties on religious occasions and cycle may be broken, in spite, or perhaps because of, the fact that distributing largess in sundry other ways (Uribe, 1992).2 the Czar is dead. The towns in the mining area are small. The people are related to one another. They live in intimacy, tinged with deference, with their patrons. They have been willing to fight, and to die for them 2. Sources and methods (Uribe, 1992). So if I describe the conflicts in the emerald mining area in the twentieth century as conflicts among individuals, it is I have conducted both ethnographic and oral historical worth remembering that these individuals commanded and still research on emeralds in Colombia, but this article is neither an command large followings. Their followers are people who are ethnography nor an oral history. It is a review of published accustomed to working in the most difficult and dangerous Spanish-language sources on the social history of Colombian conditions. They consider themselves more adept in the use of emerald mining and trading. As such, the people who I spoke to in violence, and better equipped for it, than the Colombian police or the course of my research in Colombia are not implicated in the military (Uribe, 1992; Steiner, 2005). production of this text. The information I received from them is It is also worth remembering that many, perhaps most, of the strictly ‘‘on background.’’ The aim of this article is to open up the people in the mining area took no part in these conflicts literature that might not be available to Anglophone scholars and whatsoever, except in that they struggled to survive them. It to share the contents of sources that are difficult to access outside was impossible to work or even to live in the mining areas without of Colombia itself. I have attempted to synthesize these sources having some relation to the Dons, but this did not necessarily into a coherent narrative, rather than reviewing each of them extend to bearing arms for them. Most illegal miners were men and individually. women standing by a sluice echando pala, scooping up the dirt It is hardly fashionable in academic historiography these days washed down from the mine, hoping to find an emerald and to sell to discuss history as a succession of the doings of great men. By the it to sustain themselves and their families (Parra, 2006). same token, it has become trite in the history, sociology and This article examines a period that extends over nearly anthropology of Latin America to fall back on ‘‘patron-client 500 years: from the conquest in the first years of the sixteenth relations’’ to account for social structures and historical processes. century to the establishment of the peace in the emerald mining This article does both. This is in part an artifact of the sources it area in the 1990s. However, its focus is mostly on the events that draws on. Many of them come from journalism, popular history transpired in the second half of the twentieth century. The Bank of and fiction. These sources interweave history and biography and the Republic was granted on ostensible monopoly over the make it sound as though the processes that unfolded in the emerald mines in 1947. This event unleashed a wave of illegal emerald mining area were the results conflicts among the leaders mining activities that precipitated the three so-called emerald of the bands of illegal miners. wars. But there is a grain of truth in this perspective. The Dons or The aftermath of these conflicts shapes social relations in the Patrones of the emerald mines hold great sway over the areas emerald trade as well as public perceptions of miners and traders where they operate. Academic sources, written by political to this day. I include information about the pre-Columbian period, scientists and anthropologists, describe these men as the heads the conquest and the Bolivarian revolution to the extent that this of organizations forged by links of kinship and affinity rather than material sheds light on the more recent conflicts. This article omits straightforward capitalist organizations for the exploitation of a a substantive discussion of archeological and ethnohistorical mineral resource. Working in an emerald mine, even for a few sources on the pre-Colombian period (for example Langbaek, weeks, is considered an ‘‘opportunity.’’ Miners do not generally 1987). It also omits a discussion of primary sources from the receive wages, or if they do these wages are mere pittance. Instead colonial period (for example Aguado, 1956). I hope that it they get the chance to comb through the dirt that is hauled away compensates for these lacunae with its examination of popular from the productive veins, looking for green stones. If they are sources that might otherwise escape the notice of the anglophone lucky, and sneaky, they might manage to filch an emerald from the academic community. 1 mine face itself (Parra, 2006; Uribe, 1992). The wealth of the popular literature on Colombian emerald Miners get these opportunities by virtue of their proximity to mining points to the importance of emeralds in Colombia’s patron. They are given the privilege of working long shifts in national imaginary. Colombian emeralds are generally held to grueling conditions for a few weeks for no pay in hopes that they be the finest in the world.3 However, it is rare to see might pocket a stone worth as much as a house. In return, the who are not directly involved in the trade wearing emerald patrons expect loyalty. In the past this included bearing arms to jewelry. The stones have found their ways to the courts of the protect the person and property of the Don and his followers. These Mughal, Persian and Ottoman empires not to mention those of the Dons, in turn fulfill the traditional role of patrons, serving as Incas and . They are included in the crown jewels of several godfathers to people’s children, helping them out in times of European countries. They adorn the monstrances and reliquaries of the . They have graced display cases of the finest 1 Parra’s (2006) article gives us a sustained look at questions of sex and gender. jewelers in the world. They symbolize vast wealth and have Most writers on Colombian emerald mining focus on men. Women only enter the generated considerable fortunes, but not for the Colombian state stories as prostitutes, virtuous wives or young virgins offered up to the sexual rapacity of the Dons. But the links of kinship and affinity that tie patrons to their and certainly not for the majority of the miners who dig for them. followers are forged by and through women. Parra’s work highlights their roles. Those who have managed to succeed in emerald mining and 2 Uribe (1992) gives us the only book-length treatment of the troubled history of trading are always viewed with some suspicion in polite the emerald mining area to have emerged from the Colombian academy so far. Her Colombian society. They are derided as ‘‘campesinos con plata’’ ‘‘Limpiar La Tierra’’ or ‘‘To Clean The Earth’’ offers an anthropological explanation of the violence of the mines and shows how killing can become the preeminently or peasants with money, whose consumption habits do not accord moral activity. Men are defined by their enemies and who will avenge them. Her with the staid preferences of Bogota´’s elites (Parra, 2006:18). They title comes from a statement offered by a bodyguard to one of the Patrones, who laid are described, in academic and popular discourse alike, as a Mafia his Browning pistol on the table during their interview, ‘‘Matar bien es limpiar la tierra,’’ ‘‘To kill well is to clean the earth’’ (Uribe, 1992:95). Maria Victoria was part of the Jesuit-Organized CINEP team of researchers on violence in Colombia. She had 3 Excellent gems occasionally emerge from other mines around the world, but extraordinary access to the Dons and their followers, and the book she produced Colombia, and especially remains the benchmark against which other stones was considered threatening to the trade when it was first published in 1992. are measured. B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 275

(Uribe, 1992, Pa´ramo, 2010). Nearly everyone I met in Colombia ‘‘Fragile and permanent at the same time, the emerald has the who was not affiliated with the trade urged me to stay away from warmth of the hope that is born in the entrails of America, and the esmeralderos. The people who were in the trade urged me to use as the messenger of the ideals of the American peoples within my writings to burnish their tarnished image. the great project of universal peace.’’ (Retana, 1990: unnum- But Colombians are fascinated by their emeralds and their bered page, my translation) esmeralderos. They are the subject of songs, soap operas, movies This talk of universal peace, emanating from the emerald mines and novels. They are featured in the culmination of the exhibit at in 1990 seems troublesome. The book omits any mention of the the Museo del Oro (The Museum) which Michael Taussig emerald wars of the twentieth century. Hundreds of people must argues is the symbolic bedrock of the national identity (Taussig, have been killed in Boyaca´ as this ponderous volume was being 2004). Every rumbling of violence in the emerald mining area prepared. The Great Book of Colombian Emeralds is a classic unleashes a torrent of speculation in the press. The occasional example of what Rolph Trouillot has described as ‘‘silencing the reporter who ventures into the mining area, a few scant kilometers past’’ through the production of history (Trouillot, 1995). from the capital, describes a journey into the heart of darkness. It is It seems to be intended to sit like a rock on top of any other held to be a sphere where traditional social mores are inverted and historical investigation of the events that have transpired in and lust and violence given free reign (´ n, 2008). Anthropologists around Colombia’s emerald mines. It seeks to rehabilitate have learned to be suspicious of such exoticizing depictions of the Colombian emeralds by burying their recent, violent history under other, especially when the other is so close to home. a mass of much older historical facts and timeless scientific data. Colombia’s own anthropologists have turned a critical gaze on The only hints of the bloody career of emeralds in the twentieth the mystique and romance of the emerald mining area. Its political century come in the second glossary where there are entries for scientists and historians have chronicled the troubled past of the Isauro Murcia, El Ganso Ariza and Gilberto Molina. There are also mines and tried to understand the root causes of the violence that some colorful slang terms for assassins and assassinations, but has taken place. These academic sources are cited in the footnotes they are buried very deep. throughout this article. Popular sources are similarly cited and Emeralds have also captured the popular imagination in described briefly. But a few books merit additional discussion. Colombia. History and fiction written for mass consumption Two important but problematic sources on Colombian emerald provide perspectives on the emerald economy that academic mining and trading came from the organizations responsible for research might miss. The greatest popular historian of the emerald the mines themselves. The first is Esmeraldas de Colombia, mining area is Te´llez (1993).Te´llez is related to Efraı´n Gonzalez, published by the Bank of the Republic (Mun˜oz and Villalba, the Bandit of Seven Colors. He has devoted much of his life to 1948). This is a celebration of the history of Colombian emeralds, expounding the exploits of his ancestor and recounting the events published when the Bank must have been very optimistic about its that unfolded in the wake of his death. His work does not conform chances for success in managing the emerald mines. The book is to the canons of academic history. Much of the detail he presents illustrated in several colors with woodcuts and is a beautiful could only be of his own invention. But he has an ethnographic typographic object. The history it presents is one of progress: from insight into the emerald wars that cannot be ignored. Noble Savages to benevolent Conquistadores, to a technocratic and The work of Iva´n Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012, is more scientific administration by the Bank on behalf of all Colombians. problematic. They present a biography of Vı´ctor Carranza in the Whatever violence this presentation may perpetrate on the mode of a journalistic expose´. It was published almost exactly one historical facts, it is certainly ironic in light of the violence that year before his death. Their book details both his activity as an would erupt in the years after the book’s publication. emerald miner and his alleged formation of paramilitary groups. In The second source to have emerged from the trade is the El Gran 2013 this book was in the window displays of many of the popular Libro de la Esmeralda Colombiana, The Great Book of Colombian bookshops in Bogota´. They clearly captured an audience, but they Emeralds (Retana, 1990).4 This is another impressive typographical also clearly have an axe to grind. object: a mighty tome lavishly illustrated with color photos, Ivan Cepeda, like his father before him, is a politician affiliated tipping the scales at over 10 pounds. It was published in 1990, as with the Union Patrio´ tica (UP) party. The UP is an offshoot of the the last emerald war was drawing to its bloody conclusion. The FARC, that espouses the same goals as the guerilla , but publication seems to have been sponsored by Tecminas, the which has renounced violence and works through the political company operated by Vı´ctor Carranza and his then recently process. Members of the UP were frequent targets of paramilitary deceased associate, Gilberto Molina. It was published under the assassinations. Cepeda’s own father was a senator who was killed auspices of the newly created Federacio´n Nacional de Esmeraldas de in Bogota´ for his communist political activity (Steiner, 2005). So Colombia or National Federation of Emeralds of Colombia. their inquiry into of the life of Vı´ctor Carranza seems to have been The book provides an incredible wealth of information. It undertaken with a clear personal and political agenda. purports to record every mention of emeralds in literature from Their sources are journalistic accounts as well as the statements Babylonian times to the present. It examines the religious and of ex-paramilitary soldiers. Some of these depositions were magical lore of emeralds, their use in heraldry, philately, medicine, collected in the course of interrogations conducted by the DAS, ‘‘gemmotherapy,’’ and fiction. It includes articles by the foremost Colombia’s intelligence agency, which was notorious for torturing scientific experts on the chemistry and crystalline structure of suspects in its custody (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:60). This emeralds, their optical properties, lapidary techniques, and the makes the content of these interviews suspect. Carranza was instruments used to examine and evaluate them. It describes the absolved of most of the charges leveled by Cepeda because the synthesis of artificial emeralds, emerald identification by patterns evidence brought against him was compromised. Cepeda takes this of inclusions, other green gems that might be mistaken for very lack of evidence as evidence that he corrupted the judiciary emeralds and more. There is a glossary of every word that means (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:84). This is as intuitively green and has been used to refer to emeralds in many different plausible as it is logically unsound. The things that Cepeda claims languages. There is even introduction by His Royal Highness, Juan about Carranza and his association with paramilitaries could very Carlos I, the King of who says: well be true, but the issue of reliability is complex. The issue of reliability is equally complex for those books about 4 This edited volume includes the articles from Arcienagas (1990), Macho and emerald mining and trading that are ostensibly works of fiction. Sinkankas (1990) and Keller et al. (1990) cited below. 276 B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283

Some of these books appear to be ghost written biographies of 4. The tears of a Divine Cuckoldress specific miners. In most cases, these books are fictionalized enough, that it was not possible (at least for this researcher) to Emeralds were mined in what is now Colombia long before the associate most of the characters in the stories with specific ill-fated voyage of the Genovese navigator who gave the country its individuals. name. Archeologists seem to agree that the emerald mining area This is not the case for Fe´lix Marı´n’s massive, ‘‘Guerra de las was first inhabited by peoples, the legendary goldsmiths of Esmeraldas’’ (Marı´n, 1979). Marı´n’s text is an historical account of Colombia’s Andean Highlands. Musica pottery and funerary the first emerald war, with a very thin veil of pseudonymity. Isauro offerings were found in the hot country on the western slopes Murcia becomes Don Isa. El Ganso ‘‘The Goose’’ becomes El Cisne of the Eastern Cordillera in what is now the province of Boyaca´ ‘‘The Swan.’’ Gilberto Molina becomes Gil and so forth. The (Rojas, 1974:91). literary style is pulpy and picaresque, but the events it describes The Musicas were pushed out by the Muzos in a series of battles accord well with the academic sources. People in the trade have that persisted into the colonial period. The Muzos were a Caribe described it as accurate. It was written in 1979 and spans more people who had come to the region up the Magdalena Medio River. than seven hundred pages, examining the life, death and exploits of Their system of kinship and residence was matrilineal and Don Isa and his associates. I do not know how Marin collected his matrilocal, an harmonic regime almost unattested in the anthro- information but the wealth of detail is extraordinary and it is a pological literature (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, 1995:30, Le´vi-Strauss, valuable source for the history of the Colombian emerald trade in 1949:216). Their villages were acephalous groups of matrilineal the mid twentieth century. In my own writing I have attempted to kin without political titles or hereditary offices. Men were enjoined preserve some of the picaresque flavor of this author’s prose. to commit suicide if their wives proved unfaithful. Chiefs, distinguished by military valor, emerged in times of war and then subsided back into the general population. Muzo settlements 3. A note on geography, geology and gemology were described by early authors as behetrı´as, after the autonomous Iberian communities who refused to submit to a king (Pa´ramo, Colombia’s most famous emerald mines are generally referred 2010:65).7 to as Muzo and Coscuez. These are not precisely mines but rather The Muzos took over the Musica practice of emerald mining, districts where innumerable small and large, formal and informal but they had little use for the stones themselves. They traded them mines are found. The mines themselves are called cortes and they to their highland neighbors in exchange for pottery and cloth come and go as the stones appear and then vanish with an (Rojas, 1974:90). The indigenous people of the used apparent will of their own. Muzo and Coscuez are located in the emeralds in their funeral offerings but also sent them into western province of the department of Boyaca´ (el Occidente de networks of international trade. Emeralds from Colombia found Boyaca´). When people refer to ‘‘the emerald mining area’’ they their way as far north as Aztec Mexico and as far South as Inca Peru. generally mean western Boyaca´. From there they entered the treasuries of the rapacious Spaniards The trip from Bogota´ to Muzo is only 214 km (132 miles), but it (Macho and Sinkankas, 1990:84). seems like a world apart. One descends from the Andean highlands A Muzo legend is frequently cited by academics and locals alike into the hot country (tierra caliente) formerly known as the to account for the apparently interminable cycles of love, betrayal Territo´ rio Vazquez.5 The roads are infamously bad though today and death in the emerald mining area. Colombia’s most famous they are improving. The terrain is rugged, but very fertile. The local mines are in the Western province of the Department of Boyaca´ in dialect of Spanish is immediately recognizable by the use of the the basin of the Rio Minero. A few kilometers upriver from the second person formal pronoun, sumece´.6 mines, near the town of stands the region’s Emeralds as a commodity confound the conventions of most impressive landmark: two peaks called Fura and Tena divided extractive capitalism. This may be why emerald mining and by a black river. These peaks were places of Muzo worship and the trading has always had a decidedly informal tinge. It is impossible objects of Muzo legend. Like most legends, this one has multiple to calculate the cost of production because it is cannot be said with versions that account for multiple realities of present-day. I will any degree of certainty where emerald will be found. Emeralds tell one them following the work of Javier Guerrero Baro´ n occur in veins and pockets scattered, apparently at random, across (2002:127–128).8 a vast and craggy landscape. It is impossible to calculate the cost of Fura, the woman, and Tena the man were created by the god labor because compensation generally comes in the form of Arbe. They lived in eternal youth, nourished by the love they informal profit sharing and pilferage. Finally, it is impossible to shared. Then along came Zarbi, a blond-haired, blue-eyed state the value of the stones themselves. Unlike gold and diamonds adventurer who seduced Fura and led her to infidelity. Having there is no accepted international valuation for emeralds. Indeed betrayed her lover of centuries, Fura was so overcome with grief there is not even a generally accepted local valuation for the stones. that she aged immediately. Prices are hashed out in face-to-face negotiations and they vary widely as the stones move from hand-to-hand. One thing is certain: Colombian emeralds can be very valuable. 7 Pa´ramo (2010) gives us an acute and nuanced reading of the history and social Large, fine, faceted stones fetch over $3000 per carat on the structure of the mining area in the guise of an ethnomusicological essay. In trying to wholesale Colombian export market. They fetch considerably more understand the popularity of Mexican-style corrido music among the emerald in the wholesale gemstone markets of Jaipur, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong miners of Colombia he produced an essay that covers several centuries and nearly a hundred pages. and Manhattan. By the time they reach jewelers’ display cases they 8 Javier Guerrero Baro´ n is a political scientist who conducted research in the can cost as much as yachts and thoroughbred race horses. Those who mining area through the thick of the wars. His (1986) work provides a chronology of deal in the commodity that is so capricious and so precious often the most significant events, describes the relationships among the various actors prefer myth and legend to the dry pronouncements of geologists and and frames them within the political . One of his articles (Gutie´rrez and Guerrero 2008) contrasts the cocaine and emerald economies as gemologists, and so we turn to the lore of the emerald mines. ‘‘subsidiary orders,’’ parallel economies that have proved particularly refractory to state control. It would be interesting, if perhaps inadvisable from the point of view 5 The emerald mines of and Gachala´ are outside of Western Boyaca´ and of personal safety to pay closer attention to their imbrication. Another article have not be affected by violence to the same degree. published by this generally sober and staid author is a much more lyrical 6 Sumece´ is presumably derived from Vuestra Merced, or Your Worth, an old exploration of love and death in the mining area from pre-Columbian times to the Spanish term of formal address. present (2002). B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 277

Tena read the signs that he had been betrayed and slew himself A Spanish account of the final victory over the Muzos tells the with a wooden sword. Fura held his decomposing body in her arms story of the first time a peace treaty in the emerald area would for three days as his soul went toward the sun. As he died, he ultimately lead to betrayal. It was by no means the last. A tenuous cursed Zarbi, hoping to turn him into a bare peak that he could lash end to hostilities had been established between the Spaniards and daily with the sun’s punishing rays. But before the metamorphosis the Muzos in 1550. But then word came from the Chibcha lover of a could be effected, Zarbi tore out his own entrails. The torrents of his Spanish Captain that the Muzos were planning an attack. The blood flowed between Fura and Tena, separating them forever and Captain, Pedro de Ursu´ a, invited the Muzo Chiefs to a feast where becoming the river Zarbi, later to be knows as the Rio Minero. he distributed gifts and drink. When they were sated, and ready to Fura’s anguish knew no bounds. Her cries of despair became make their way home, Spanish soldiers fell upon them, tied them blue morpho butterflies (Morpho cypris) that still flit along the to trees and killed them all (Guerrero, 2002:128). river’s edge. Her tears became emeralds. Those who mine them are cursed to relive her tragedy (Guerrero, 2002:127–128). 6. The Most Holy Trinity of the Muzos

Whether by curse, treachery or the force of arms and dogs, the 5. Poisoned arrows and murder by dog and harquebus Spanish succeeded in conquering the Muzos. They established the town of Villa de la Santı´ssima Trinidad de los Muzos in 1560, The greatest tragedy to afflict the Muzos came from the Spanish complete with church and pillory, the two indispensable tools of Conquest. The pillage of the South American Viceroyalty of Nueva civil and ecclesiastical administration in Nueva Granada (Machuca, Granada was fueled by the myth of . The use of gold in 2008). The town’s indigenous inhabitants were loath to reveal the indigenous rituals led the to believe that there was a location of the emerald mines that had so piqued the avarice of the golden city in the jungle and they set out to find it. Soon they were Spaniards. It was only after four years of exploration and brutal infected with the fiebre verde as well. This green fever of lust for interrogation that Juan de Penagos discovered the mines at Muzo. emeralds has afflicted generations of would be miners (Guerrero, It was only in 1567 that Spanish mining began in earnest (Rojas, 1986:227). 1974:91). Emeralds were known in Europe before the conquest. However, The Spanish reserved the rights of the subsoil to the King, but these were inferior specimens from Egypt and the Austrian Alps miners were permitted to exploit it if they paid the Quinto Real,or with none of the fire and brilliance of Colombia gems (Giuliani Royal Fifth. This was a 20 percent tax on the production of mines in et al., 2000). The first European to handle emeralds on the South the colonies. (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, 1995:64).9 This law proved American coast was Pedrarias Da´vila (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, difficult to enforce in the remote fastness of Muzo. They 1995:61). Soon they became the preferred booty of the quixotic established a Caja Real, or outpost of the royal treasury, in Jime´nez de Quesada. He looted them as he razed 1594. The Caja Real was supposed to collect the production of the villages and slew or ransomed their leaders. He brought them back mines, evaluate it and insure that the Quinto was paid. But many of to Spain where he was known for handing them out in taverns to the emeralds produced never reached its coffers (Macho and women of questionable repute (Arcienagas, 1990:59–72). Sinkankas, 1990). Quesada was a strangely literary conquistador and may well Laborers in cahoots with illegal miners would steal from have been a model for Cervantes’ Don Quixote. But rather than productive veins at night. A lively trade in stolen stones grew up tilting harmlessly at windmills he was busily despoiling as much of around the mines. People from Cartagena would come to Muzo, the continent as he could and consecrating it to his God. One of his buy stones and embark them on ships headed around the world more troublesome lieutenants was Luis de Lancheros. In order to (Lane, 2010). Even the wife of the first administrator of the Caja get rid of him, Quesada sent him out against one of his most Real was caught purloining emeralds10 (Guerrero, 2002:129). intractable opponents, the Muzos (Guerrero, 1986:227). Lancheros Emeralds have always proved refractory to government regulation. survived and his expedition succeeded, but it was a near thing. They are so small, valuable and easy to steal. The pattern would The Muzos excelled in pitched battles and guerrilla warfare change little in years to come. alike. They beat back successive incursions by Lanchero’s forces in The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would see a decline spite of their Sevillian steel and their harquebuses which they in Muzo’s fortunes. From time to time the Spanish Crown would claimed would fell ten or more of the ‘‘savages’’ with each shot get word of irregularities in the exploitation of the mines and order (Guerrero, 1986:227). Their arrow poison turned many Spanish them closed. This would do little to stop the illegal mining. Then brides into widows. The Muzos were only overcome when the the Crown would auction the mines to the highest bidder and the Spaniards brought their perros de presa, famously murderous dogs cycle would begin again. There was always the hope of great bred for war in the Canary Islands (Guerrero, 1986:227). wealth. There were rumors of fortunes made and lost, but very The final subjugation of the Muzos is the fodder for another little profit from emerald mining ever accrued to the Spanish myth of Furatena that shades off into history. Again I follow the monarchy (Rojas, 1974). telling of Javier Guerrero Baro´ n (2002:128). The Muzo The Most Holy Trinity of Muzo began to decline as a religious had been the bulwark of Indigenous resistance against center as well. The city of Chiquinquira´ in the nearby highlands the Spanish incursions into the Rio Minero basin. One day he saw was home to a miraculous apparition of Our Lady of the Rosary. the Princess Furatena walking naked through the valley, with black Soon it was home to a Basilica and several convents. The convents hair trailing down to her thighs and an emerald diadem that of Muzo closed and its church fell into disrepair. Ecclesiastic and reached to the ground. He sent his messengers to proclaim and offer his love to her. Just as they arrived they found the Spaniards 9 Beltran and Ordon˜ez (1995) unpublished masters thesis also provides a wealth massacring their people, turning the black waters of the Zarbi river of information with a distinctly local perspective. Antonio Ordon˜ez grew up in red with their blood. They returned and told their chief that a , the town that saw some of the heaviest fighting in all of the emerald wars. immense black bird had come down from the sky and eviscerated He attended some of the peace meetings that brought these wars to an end, and had his beloved princess. She had died with a fearsome curse. The access to the documents that they produced. He also has a personal knowledge of the conflict because he came of age in the middle of it. warrior chief never recovered from the shock and the Spaniards 10 One is reminded of Laurie Heitt, the wife of the Colonel who commanded United were able to conquer his land and enslave his people (Guerrero, States counter-narcotic operations in Colombia and who was convicted of 2002:128). smuggling cocaine to the US in diplomatic pouches in 1999 (McFadden, 1999). 278 B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 civil divisions changed and Muzo became another backwater rural Colombian government. Finally, lawmakers decided to grant the parish among hundreds (Guerrero, 1986:229). contract to exploit the mines to a respected and technocratic organ of the state, El Banco de la Repu´blica. 7. From Nueva Granada to and back again 8. The Bank, the violence and the guaqueros The nineteenth century saw even greater upheavals. The war for the Independence of Nueva Granada from Spain began on July 20, The contemporary history of emerald mining and trading in 1810. On April 4, 1811 independence was declared. The battle of Colombia began when the state signed a contract with the Bank of Boyaca´, fought in the same Department where the emerald mines the Republic. The contract gave the Bank the exclusive right to are located, was decisive in the struggle. By 1822 the Spaniards mine stones in Western Boyaca´ Province and to sell them abroad. were defeated. By 1823 the former viceroyalty was incorporated To understand the tribulations and ultimate failure of this into the Republic of Gran Colombia, a new nation encompassing arrangement we must first examine the background of political , , Colombia, and parts of Peru, Guyana violence that convulsed Colombia in the early twentieth century. and (Macho and Sinkankas, 1990). This era is known simply as ‘‘The Violence’’ or .When Bolivar’s government was not long in signing its first contract to it is divided into periods, these periods are described as The Violence exploit emeralds. They granted the concession to a Captain in the of the Thirties, The Violence of the Forties and so on (Steiner, 2005). Army of the Libertador named Jose´ Ignacio Paris (Rojas, 1974:96). The violence was ostensibly political, with liberal and conservative Ignacio Paris would control the mines, experiencing only a few factions fighting to purify the ideology and electoral loyalty of large vicissitudes of nationalization and failed attempts at regulation, swaths of the country. Whether there were actual political principles until his death in 1849. at stake or this was just an effort by large landowners to displace and Paris used the open air, tajo abierto system that had been used despoil the campesinos who lived in their territory, remains open to by the Spaniards and the indigenous people before them and he question. Each faction counted on the assistance of bandits prospered. He sent his brother, Joaquim Paris, to the city of Paris to (bandoleros) to enforce their will. The Conservative faction had sell emeralds at great advantage. He used the proceeds of the sale another powerful ally: the Catholic Church, and especially its to pay off the debts contracted by Colombia during the War of Dominican order (Steiner, 2005).11 Independence and to erect a statue of Bolivar in the main square of Isauro Murcia would become the first Emerald King, but in Bogota´. The statue remains there to this day (Macho and Sinkankas, 1948 he was just a boy. Bandits chased his family from their small 1990). farm in Yacopı´, a town in the Department of Santander. Liberals But Bolivar’s vision of a unified Northwestern was were taking control of the region. His displaced family made the not to be realized. The area that is now Colombia would become the trek overland to Quı´pama, a conservative bastion near the Muzo Republic of Nueva Granada, The Confederacı´on Grenadina, The mines in Western Boyaca´. Along the way, they met another family Estados Unidos de Colombia and finally la Repu´ blica de Colombia that had been hounded out of Quı´pama by conservative bandits. with its current borders and constitutional government. In spite of The fathers of the two families agreed to exchange the titles to their this political turmoil, the late nineteenth century was a time of respective farms, sight unseen (Te´llez, 1993:11; Marı´n, 1979). relative calm in the emerald mining regions. The Coscuez mines a By the time young Isauro Murcia would arrive in Quı´pama, the few kilometers from Muzo were rediscovered and reopened. Miners Bank of the Republic had already been operating the emerald mines found, to their horror, the skeletons of hundreds of indigenous forone year. The agreement signed in 1946 gave it the exclusive right miners and their Spanish overseers who were killed in a collapse to exploit the mines in the so-called National Reserve. The stones centuries before. The conquistadores still wore their armor. extracted were brought directly to Bogota´.InBogota´ the Bank made The mines at Chivor, in the eastern part of the Boyaca´ its own arrangements to sell the emeralds, either rough or polished, Department, were also rediscovered. Francisco Restrepo, a mining to foreign buyers. It became a crime for anyone not associated with engineer, found documents related to the lost mines in a the Bank (or the independent mines at Chivor) to mine, or even Dominican convent in Quito, Ecuador. They described a view of possess uncut emeralds. The Bank’s monopoly should have distant plains seen between two mountains. Restrepo roamed the guaranteed them vast profits as well as endless royalties for the countryside until he found that view, and then he dug until he hit a Colombian state, but these profits were never realized. The Spanish vein of emeralds. Restrepo received the rights to work the Chivor Crown could never control illegal mining and commerce in emeralds deposits in perpetuity. The mines of Muzo and Coscuez were and neither could the Bank of the Republic. transferred more or less peacefully among English, French and Two men were key in subverting the Bank’s monopoly: Pablo Colombian companies (Macho and Sinkankas, 1990). Emiliano Orjuela and Juan Beetar Dow. Orjuela was a campesino This peaceful expiry of mining contracts ended as the twentieth who became rich when he struck a vein of emeralds. Unlike most century began. In 1901 the Colombian government nationalized informal miners, he was able to retain the profits of his early the mines and the rights to exploit them were granted to success and build an illegal but apparently benevolent empire. He government administrators. But the British and French combine would recruit young men, provide them with food and tools and that worked the mines refused to hand them over. The threw in send them to mine for emeralds in the National Reserve. When their lot with an anti-government rebel force who took over the they found the gems, they would bring them to him. This mine headquarters and looted their accumulated production traditional role of provisioning illegal mining crews is referred to as (Macho and Sinkankas, 1990). being a plantero. As his prote´ge´s succeeded, they would recruit By 1902 control of the Muzo and Coscuez mines was restored to crews of their own, becoming planteros in their own right but the state and its administrators. For the first time, the mine’s remaining subordinate to Pablo Emiliano Orjuela (Te´llez, 1993:22). managers founded a private police force, El Batallo´ ndeZapadores,or Juan Beetar Dow was the main buyer for the stones wrested the Sappers’ Battalion, made up of miners (Macho and Sinkankas, from the earth by Orjuela and his men. He is of ‘‘Syrio-Lebanese’’ 1990). This state-sanctioned use of force by miners foreshadowed descent and lives to this day in the coastal city of Cartagena. He had the paramilitarism that would sweep the region a few decades later. The mines opened and closed, were privatized and nationalized 11 Claudia Steiner is a Colombian anthropologist whose 2005 dissertation is an and the stones were exported to England and France under a series important, English-language source for understanding the emerald mines and the of arrangements, none of which were quite satisfactory to the legacy of violence in Colombia. B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 279 connections to international buyers from the United States and productive deposits at night and extract the stones before they Europe and would supply them with stones when they came to could find their ways into the coffers of the company (Te´llez, Colombia (Guerrero, 1986:235). In addition to Orjuela, Juan Beetar 1993:17–18). had two other important suppliers: a doctor and a priest. Another, perhaps even more perilous tactic, was to dig a tunnel The priest was Padre Damian Barajas of the parish of San Pablo (or socavo´n) into the crumbly shale, hoping to intersect with the de Borbur. The illegal miners of his flock trusted the good Father to productive vein underneath the spot where it was being exploited give them a fair price for their stones. He is rumored to have gone by the official mine (Keller et al., 1990:123). The mining area is out mining himself, under cover of darkness, dressed as a huge and the companies that ostensibly controlled it never worked campesino. He is also rumored to have kept a jeweler’s loupe more than a few potentially productive faces (frentes) at a time. and a scale in the tabernacle with the Sacred Host (Marı´n, 1979; Illegal miners could easily range across the vast territory looking Te´llez, 1993:33). for emeralds in the alluvial soil. These alluvial emeralds are often The Doctor, Enrique Nohora, was a physician employed by the the easiest to extract and of the finest quality (Marı´n, 1979). Bank of the Republic to look after the health of the workers and Illegal miners in Colombia are called Guaqueros. The word is their families at the mine. He was also of Syrio-Lebanese descent derived from guaca or huaca which refers to an indigenous, pre- and got the job by virtue of the machinations of Juan Beetar Columbian burial site. These burials often include mortuary (Guerrero, 1986:235). In addition to caring for the miners’ health, offerings crafted from gold (Field, 2012). They sometimes include he would encourage them to abscond with stones from the emeralds as well. Colombia has a long history of what contempo- production sites and sell them to him. The priest and the doctor rary archeologists would probably call looting or grave-robbing, would in turn sell their stones to Juan Beetar in Bogota´ (Marı´n, but which miners simply call guaquerı´a (Pa´ramo, 2010). 1979). He controlled an illegal economy that prospered alongside, This notion of illicit digging for buried treasure is metaphori- and even within, the state-sanctioned operations of the Bank of the cally extended to the illegal hunt for emeralds. Indeed, the two Republic. occupations have a lot in common, with their risks, rituals and In order to understand how so many emeralds were diverted promises of fabulous wealth. And so informal miners of emeralds into these illicit channels we must examine the particularities of and illegal archaeologists of pre-Columbian burials are both emerald mineralization and mining in Colombia. Emeralds require referred to as guaqueros. a very specific confluence of geological and chemical factors in Some of the obstacles to the Bank’s control over the supply of order to form. In Colombia, one finds the injection of mineral-rich emeralds came from the physical characteristics of the mining area aqueous solutions into the heavily fractured and folded shales of itself. Others came from the methods used for mining. Even with a one part of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. This is an private security force and help of the civil and military authorities, hydrothermal process where a superheated solution invades a it was never possible to police the entirety of this large and fissure in a host rock and then cools and solidifies as it gets closer to mountainous region against a large contingent of determined the earth’s surface and temperature and pressure decrease (Keller guaqueros. et al., 1990:108). Still other problems came from the functionaries of the Bank This process forms veins of calcite, dolomite, albanite, parisite itself. Many of these were liable to be suborned by figures like and a few other minerals. They are immediately visible in a mine Beetar and Orjuela. The Bank did not hire people from the local because they are milky white against the black carbonaceous shale communities, probably in an effort to avoid collusion and thievery. that hosts them. In a few cases, they will have had the perfect But that made the Bank appear as an exogenous force is forced combination of aluminum, silica and , chrome, titanium, imposing its will on a fiercely independent region. In this context, vanadium and iron at the right temperature and pressure that will there was little motivation for impoverished local communities to have caused emerald crystals to form (Keller et al., 1990:108). respect the Bank’s monopoly (Guerrero, 1986:223, Marı´n, 1979). The veins themselves are perhaps 50–65 m long and around 15 cm wide (Keller et al., 1990:113). They are distributed across an area that comprises hundreds of square kilometers. To say that this 9. The armadillo hunter and the Bandit of Seven Colors is like looking for a needle in a haystack would be to overestimate the size of needles relative to haystacks. And not all of the veins will Any pretense of a monopoly by the Bank on the production of contain emeralds, not by any means. The shamans of the Musica emeralds crumbled in 1960. An elderly man named Juve´ncio people would ingest an hallucinogenic brew in hopes that the Morales was hunting for armadillos on the Pen˜as Blancas hacienda location of emerald bearing veins would be revealed to them in near San Martı´n, an outlying territory of the town of San Pablo de their divine transports (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, 1995:60). More than Borbur.12 In addition to catching an armadillo, Morales brought a century of scientific, geological study of the emerald deposits in home a fistful of green crystals (Marı´n, 1979; Te´llez, 1993:32). Colombia has failed to discover a more effective way to locate the His son, who had dabbled in guaquerı´a, recognized them as green stones. emeralds and brought them to Padre Damian Barajas who bought So from pre-Columbian times up until the 1990s people them for what seemed to be a fantastic price. The young man was explored for emeralds using the ‘‘tajo abierto’’ or ‘‘open gash’’ drinking up the fruits of his father’s good fortune when he system. In its mechanized version, this involved cutting a terrace imprudently divulged the source of his newfound wealth to one of across a mountainside with a bulldozer, hoping to unveil one of the the planteros in Pablo Emiliano Orjuela’s organization (Marı´n, white veins, and then stopping and digging it out with hand tools. 1979; Te´llez, 1993:34). Miners then washed the overburden of unproductive rock down Orjuela and the Padre mounted simultaneous, competing the mountainside using a tambre, or reservoir fitted with a sluice expeditions to the new deposits at Pen˜as Blancas. Before long, gate for that purpose. Informal miners would stand along the word spread across the region and the country. The area became a sluice, shoveling through the slurry hoping to hit on emeralds that the mine owners may have missed (Keller et al., 1990:123). 12 In case the readership of The Extractive Industries and Society is not be familiar But that is not all that they did. Because the mining was carried with the techniques of South American armadillo hunting I will provide a brief description: The hunter goes out at night with dogs. The dogs catch the scent the out in the open air, and because the white productive veins are armadillo and run it to ground. The armadillo begins digging, the hunter digs behind immediately apparent against the black shale background, it was him with a shovel. It becomes a race. If the hunter is successful he dispatches his relatively easy for mine employees and illegal miners to raid the prey with the blow of the shovel’s edge. 280 B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 buzzing and unruly mining camp full of fortune hunters and Isauro Murcia had been displaced from his childhood home by fugitives. The vast wealth made possible by alluvial emerald political violence in 1948. His family had sought the protection of mining, combined with the difficulty of realizing this wealth by Pablo Emiliano Orjuela. Murcia had joined the Army and later the bringing the stones back to Bogota´, led to an upsurge of Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, Colombia’s infamous interpersonal violence. Orjuela, in his role as patron of illegal and recently disbanded intelligence agency. He was imprisoned mining in the region, decided it was necessary to impose control after an operation to interdict a smuggling ring left a long (Marı´n, 1979; Te´llez, 1993:35). trail of corpses. However, he escaped from prison and managed to He enlisted the help of Efraı´n Gonza´les, El Bandido de Siete procure a job with the Bank of the Republic working security at the Colores. Efraı´n was fresh from fighting against the liberal forces of emerald mines (Te´llez, 1993:11–22; Marı´n, 1979). the bandit Carlos Bernal in nearby Cundinamarca. He harbored a Doctor Enrique Nohora, the purveyor of illegally mined deep hatred for the National Army after standing off 200 soldiers in emeralds, convinced him to mount a nocturnal expedition to the so-called ‘‘Batalla de las Avispas’’ or The Battle of the Wasps. extract stones from a productive vein that Murcia had supervised Efraı´n had only two fighting men of his own and was accompanied by day. He was caught and imprisoned once again. Pablo Emiliano by his lover, their infant child as well as his aged father, Godfather Orjuela paid a substantial fine (or perhaps a bribe) to free him. He and mother-in-law. The old folks had turned themselves in to the returned to his home in Quı´pama and joined the ranks of Orjuela’s army but were taken hostage. When Efraı´n refused to surrender, illegal mining organization. He advanced until he became its leader they were shot in front of his eyes. After he escaped he went on a on Orjuela’s death (Te´llez, 1993:19–20; Marı´n, 1979). rampage, killing suspected informers and anyone else associated With Orjuela and Efraı´n Gonzalez both dead, there was an with the fatal battle (Steiner, 2005:121, Te´llez, 1993:24–27). uptick in violence in and around the Pen˜as Blancas mines. Murcia He was wounded and taking refuge in the Parish House in had stepped into Orjuela’s role of civil leader, but he lacked a Borbur when he was approached by Orjuela and asked to bring military leader to enforce his decisions and impose calm on the order to the mining area. Efraı´n Gonza´lez moved into the hills near illegal business. He and his compatriots chose Humberto Ariza, Pen˜as Blancas and began to enforce the law that Orjuela was known as El Ganso or ‘‘The Goose.’’ In spite of his ridiculous creating (Marı´n, 1979; Te´llez, 1993:44). He punished robberies and nickname, The Goose was a force to be reckoned with. He was in prevented cycles of revenge killings from taking hold among the prison in Bogota´ having confessed to some his crimes. This did not followings of the various planteros. His force was small and prove to be too much of an obstacle (Te´llez, 1993; Marı´n, 1979). secretive, consisting of a few trusted associates, his own brothers Murcia and his followers staged a spectacular escape. The Goose and a figure who would become important in the history of the flew the coop and was spirited back to the mining area. There, emerald wars. This was Humberto Ariza, known as ‘‘El Ganso,’’ or Isauro Murcia offered him the mantle of Efraı´n Gonza´lez and the The Goose (Marı´n, 1979; Te´llez, 1993:29). support of the dead bandit’s brothers. Together they consolidated With Pablo Orjuela as the civil leader and Efraı´n Gonza´lez as the their monopoly over the illegal business (Te´llez, 1993:49; Marı´n, military leader of the guaqueros, a semblance of calm returned to 1979). Pen˜as Blancas. This helped to forestall any unwelcome interven- tion by the national authorities. Members of the Senate demanded to know why the Bank was allowing illegal mining to occur. The 10. The incompetence of the Bank and the first Green Wars Bank replied by letter that while Pen˜as Blancas was within the National Reserve, its contract with the state was only for the As this underground commerce was thriving, the legal trade in exploitation of the mines at Muzo and Coscuez and that Pen˜as emeralds, controlled by the Bank of the Republic, was hemorrhag- Blancas was outside of its jurisdiction (Guerrero, 1986:232). The ing money and stones. In 1968 the Bank requested an indemnity of Bank also created a means by which miners could bring their 28 million pesos for losses incurred in emerald mining (Solano 13 stones to Bogota´ , have them evaluated and be compensated if and et al., 1996:26). Its auctions to foreign buyers were rigged. It sold when the Bank sold them. It is difficult to imagine that many vast quantities of top quality emeralds for the price of moralla, low- guaqueros availed themselves of this opportunity (Beltran and grade material worth little more than green gravel (Te´llez, Ordon˜ez, 1995:87). 1993:50). Emeralds were stolen by everyone from the lowest The peace in Pen˜as Blancas was not destined to last. To the functionaries to the highest echelons of the administration. These forces of law and order, Efraı´n Gonzalez was an unwelcome stones entered the informal market (Guerrero, 1986:285; Marı´n, reminder of an era of banditry and political violence. His brothers 1979). and members of his fighting force had been responsible for some The most frequently cited statistic holds that in 1968 the United horrific massacres of his political opponents. He had made some States, France and West Germany imported $2,795,556 worth of sworn enemies in the military who hunted him with a network of Colombian emeralds, while the Bank only registered exports of informers. They caught up with him in Bogota´ in 1965 (Te´llez, $574,919 (Gutie´rrez and Guerrero, 2008:109). This would seem to 1993:48). indicate that the illegal emerald market was at least five times When Efraı´n Gonzalez was finally cornered alone in an bigger than the legal market. Summoned to the senate to account apartment building, the army mobilized no fewer than 1200 troops for itself, the Bank stated that it was not competent to administer and a full complement of artillery. After their humiliation at the the police functions associated with operating the emerald mines Battle of the Wasps, they were taking no chances. Still The Bandit of (Steiner, 2005:154). Indeed, members of the police requested Seven Colors managed to hold them off, by himself, for several permission from Don Isauro Murcia to mine illegally themselves hours. Finally, his redoubt was destroyed by shells from a bazooka (Uribe, 1992; Marı´n, 1979). and he was shot in the back by an anonymous private (Te´llez, Don Isa had been working through legal channels to legitimize 1993:48; Marı´n, 1979). his business. His first victory was overturning the ban on private Without the support of Gonzalez, Pablo Emiliano Orjuela was citizens possessing rough emeralds (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, unable to defend himself or his claims against rival bands of illegal 13 miners. He was killed outside of his apartment in Bogota´ in Solano et al. (1996) are also political scientists who provide a detailed history of the violence in the emerald mining area, written shortly after the end of the last 1966. Isauro Murcia was named as Orjuela’s successor by his fellow war. The chronology they present provides much of the skeleton of this article. It is planteros and would henceforth be known as Don Isa (Te´llez, not clear the circumstances under which their 109 page essay was or was not 1993:49; Marı´n, 1979). published, but it is readily available over the internet. B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 281

1995:87). Once it became legal to own emeralds, the authorities militarized the entire emerald mining region and completely shut had little grounds on which to imprison the illegal miners. But down all official production from 1973 to 1976. In 1976 and Murcia’s true goal was to start a company, receive a concession and 1977 The Sociedad Minera Boyacense (Mining Society of Boyaca´) mine emeralds in partnership with the Colombian State (Te´llez, and Esmeralcol were granted mining concessions at Muzo and 1993; Marı´n, 1979). He would encounter two obstacles. Coscuez respectively (Solano et al., 1996:26–27). These companies First, the illegal emerald miners were thought to be a were owned and operated by Isauro Murcia and his associates. particularly sanguinary mafia by the political elites and the Esmeralcol, operated by Francsico ‘‘Pacho’’ Vargas, was granted the residents of urban Bogota´ (Guerrero, 1986:245, Parra, 2006:18). right to form its own security force, a harbinger of the This would make it difficult for the State to enter into partnership paramilitaries that would arrive in Boyaca´ a few years later with them, no matter how much money the miners lavished on (Gutie´rrez and Guerrero, 2008:111; Te´llez, 1993:61). political campaigns. Second, Murica’s military chief, El Ganso Ariza, Be that as it may, the emerald mines were being run profitably was an escaped prisoner who had confessed to committing several for the first time (Gutie´rrez and Guerrero, 2008:112). The multiple homicides. El Ganso knew that Murcia’s plans to legalize Colombian state was even receiving royalties. Emeralds became the business would inevitably exclude him. This strained and Colombia’s third largest export product, after coffee and bananas eventually snapped his loyalty to his former bosses (Te´llez, (Te´llez, 1993:66). Murcia and his associates soon found themselves 1993:55; Marı´n, 1979). victims of their own success. Now that they were legitimate Unwilling to partner with Isauro Murcia, the Colombian businessmen, sanctioned by the state, they had to contend with the Government created ECOMINAS, the Empresa Colombiana de las bands of illegal miners who demanded their ‘‘traditional’’ rights of Minas, or Colombian Mining Company (Guerrero, 1986:246). guaquerı´a at Muzo and Coscuez (Te´llez, 1993:64). The strongest Murcia used his customary tactics of bribery and intimidation to faction of illegal miners was headquartered near the Coscuez mine, corrupt it from the inside from the very beginning (Marı´n, 1979; in the ‘‘neighborhood’’ of La Culebrera, ‘‘The Snakepit,’’ so-named Te´llez, 1993:54). His aim was to show that organs of the state were for the sinuous road that provided the only access in or out (Te´llez, incapable of administering emerald mines (Te´llez, 1993:50). In 1993:65). retrospect this seems to have been a reasonable proposition. The Two brothers of Pacho Vargas were killed by people loosely newly founded ECOMINAS was as bad, if not worse as the Bank had associated with the Muzo mines. Vargas, the main owner of the been when it came to stemming thievery and corruption and Coscuez mine, joined the illegal miners of La Culebrera in a series of sending royalties to the state (Solano et al., 1996:26–27). assassinations that pitted Muzo against Coscuez once again. The Meanwhile, Humberto ‘‘El Ganso’’ Ariza turned against Isauro conflict between the private owners of the mines and the illegal Murcia and his organization. He raided a mine belonging to Isauro’s miners took place from 1975 to 1977. It was known as the second brother and killed one of its workers. This began the first Guerra Emerald War (Solano et al., 1996:58). Verde, or Green War (Solano et al., 1996:55–56). The two main This time, the state did not intervene. The FARC, a communist mining areas in Boyaca´ are Muzo and Coscuez. They are only 12 km insurgent army, took advantage of the absence of the state to apart as the crow flies, but the area is mountainous and heavily establish their own presence in the mining area. In 1977 the forested and the government has never paid much attention to leaders of the opposed factions of miners signed a peace agreement transportation infrastructure (Keller et al., 1990:113). Thus the in the presence of the governor and the Bishop and the region trek from Coscuez to Muzo can easily become a day’s journey. returned to relative stability once again (Solano et al., 1996:59). El Ganso set up his operation in Coscuez. He organized the Isauro Murcia would not live to enjoy his success. He was a pilot illegal miners into an hierarchical force and armed them. and he died flying his own plane back from a cockfight in Medellı´n Eventually access to mining areas came to depend on people’s in 1979. It appeared that his gas tank had been perforated and he willingness to serve as bodyguards and to attack the members of ran out of fuel over the mining area that he had fought so hard to the rival group (Solano et al., 1996:56). Isauro Murcia’s organiza- control (Marı´n, 1979; Te´llez, 1993:66). tion retained control over the illegal mining operations around Muzo. As the area became more and more violent, Murcia and his 11. The last Emerald War followers emigrated to Bogota´. Both groups used their own miners, or hired assassins, to kill members of the rival faction. The fighting The last of the Guerras Verdes took place between 1984 and quickly spread to Bogota´ and the Santa Isabel neighborhood where 1991. It was the most deadly conflict to roil the mining area since the leaders made their homes (Solano et al., 1996:56; Te´ llez, the Spanish Conquest. It was also the first time that the money and 1993:59; Marı´n, 1979). military power associated with narcotics trafficking came into the Murcia enlisted an unlikely ally in his fight against El Ganso: the mining area (Solano et al., 1996:63). The event that precipitated it Colombian Army (Te´llez, 1993:55). El Ganso’s association with was in itself unremarkable. A relatively innocent guaquero was Efraı´n Gonzalez and the era of political violence he represented, killed coming down from Pen˜as Blancas. But the killing unleashed made him an attractive target for the forces of the law. Murcia also long-simmering tensions between the Muzo and Coscuez factions seems to have obtained stolen army uniforms and materiel for his and divided the mining area for years (Te´llez, 1993:72). own squad of ex-military assassins (Te´llez, 1993:60). Eventually In 1984 the Coscuez mines were controlled by Pacho Vargas they managed to capture Humberto, El Ganso, Ariza at his hideout while the Muzo mines were controlled by Gilberto Molina in the mining area. He escaped being gunned down only because he (Gutie´rrez and Guerrero, 2008:112). Both Vargas and Molina were emerged with his infant child in his arms (Te´llez, 1993:60; Marı´n, veterans of Isauro Murcia’s organization. A series of revenge 1979). He returned to prison to serve out his sentence. The conflict killings cut the Coscuez mines off from the towns around it. came to an end, or at least a hiatus. There were 670 reported deaths Residents of Otanche, Borbur and Santa Ba´rbara could no longer in the first emerald war. It would be difficult to estimate how many practice their guaquerı´a in Coscuez and had to make the overland people were simply killed and thrown into the Rio Minero trek all the way to Muzo. The only guaqueros with access to the (Guerrero, 1986:246). The conflict was also used as a cover for Coscuez mines were those who lived in barrios, really little more homicidal robberies and score settling among miners who had no than mining camps, of La Culebrera and Chico´ (Te´llez, 1993:65). affiliation with the bands in conflict. In 1985 Pacho Vargas was killed. He probably would have At the same time, Murcia’s legal efforts were bearing fruit. The survived the shooting, but he was injected with poison as he lay in state mining company, ECOMINAS, had failed. The government the hospital (Te´llez, 1993:94). Bereft of its leader, Coscuez looked 282 B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 like a ripe target for acquisition by Gilberto Molina and the Muzo of the civil and military authorities. Violence did not end faction. Molina had a powerful ally in his attempts to consolidate immediately. A logic of ‘‘ajustes de cuenta,’’ or settling of accounts, control of the two largest mines in Colombia. This was Gonzalo kept the murder rate among emerald miners and dealers high for Rodriguez Gacha, known as El Mexicano (Solano et al., 1996:63). the next three or four years (Beltran and Ordon˜ez, 1995:151, Rodriguez Gacha was born near the mining area and had been a Steiner, 2005). The killings decreased gradually and emerald guaquero in his youth. But he went on to join ’s drug production increased substantially. The main beneficiary, as well trafficking organization, The Medellı´n Cartel. Eventually El as the main guardian of the peace accords was Don Vı´ctor Carranza. Mexicano would become its military leader. It is hard to Vı´ctor Carranza was born in 1936 to a family of campesinos. He overestimate the wealth and power of the Medellı´n Cartel in lost his father at age two, was working in the fields at age five, and Colombia in the mid 1980s. Gacha became a major destabilizing by age eight was looking for emeralds at the mines of Chivor in the force in the mining area (Te´llez, 1993:93). Eastern part of the Boyaca´ Department. Throughout his life he had He had been childhood friends with Gilberto Molina, and an uncanny (many would say God-given) knack for finding Molina approached him with a proposition: Muzo was producing emeralds (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:32). He made his first fantastic emeralds. Molina had men, arms and money at his fortunes in the mines of Chivor and Gachala´. These mines are fairly disposal, but he was encircled. There were only two roads out of distant from Muzo and Coscuez. They have never equaled those Western Boyaca´. One passed through the town of and the famous mines for the quality and volume of their production. But other through Maripı´. Both of these towns were controlled by the they were more than enough to cement the prosperity of the young Coscuez faction. Molina could travel by helicopter between Bogota´ Vı´ctor Carranza. Because his attention and activities were more and the airport he had built in Quı´pama. But his men and their focused on the eastern mines he managed to steer clear of most of families were effectively trapped. He wanted to build a road the violence of the emerald wars. He had shares in Gilberto through Gacha’s hometown and stronghold of Pacho. The road Molina’s Muzo mines, but he was not part of the inner circle that would lead to Zipaquira´ and from thence to Bogota´ providing an was massacred at Saisma. This fact has led one author to claim that alternate route out of the mining area (Solano et al., 1996:64, he engineered that massacre, but I have not seen evidence Te´llez, 1993 94–95). elsewhere to substantiate that claim (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, Gacha agreed, but in return he wanted access to the vast 2012:52). landholdings that Molina, and his associate Vı´ctor Carranza, had in When the peace accords of 1991 brought the war to an end, the Magdalena Medio Valley. He would use this land to grow Vı´ctor Carranza ended up with substantial shares of the Muzo and and process cocaine hydrochloride for the Medellı´n Cartel. It Coscuez mines. He also found himself working with the same appears that the agreement was reached (Te´llez, 1993:92). illegal miners of the Culebrera and their allies whom Molina had However, Molina would not allow him to buy shares in the fought against so doggedly. But the mines prospered under Don Muzo mine itself. Presumably El Mexicano wanted a share of the Vı´ctor’s direction and the wealth that they produced was enough to mine to launder a portion of his illicit profits from the drug trade. bury the sanguinary conflicts of the years past (Gutie´rrez and Molina refused (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:48). Eventually, Guerrero, 2008:114). coca plantations and cocaine laboratories were discovered on the Vı´ctor Carranza continued his long-standing partnership with lands and in the buildings owned by Molina and Carranza. The two Juan Beetar Dow, the Syrio-Lebanese merchant who had managed miners presented themselves to the authorities and claimed that the international aspects of the illegal emerald trade since the time they had no knowledge of what was taking place on their land. The of the Bank of the Republic. Juan Beetar helped Carranza translate properties had been rented for years to Gacha and his front men his fantastic wealth into political influence and diversify his (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:52). fortune from the notoriously unpredictable business of emerald Angered by this perceived betrayal, Gacha offered his services mining into many other sectors (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, to the embattled owners of the Coscuez mine and joined the fray 2012:41). against his former friend, Gilberto Molina (Te´llez, 1993:92). The Most emerald miners trace their roots to campesino families for divisions in the mining area hardened. Tit for tat assassinations whom the most honorable occupation is cattle-raising. Carranza became commonplace. Both factions armed their miners and bought vast tracts of ranch land in the Orientales, killing again became a prerequisite for access to the most Colombia’s eastern plains. Many were purchased through front productive mines. It became almost impossible for men to transit men ‘‘testaferros.’’ The true extent of these holdings may never be the mining area by road. Women could barely move to buy food known. They constituted a veritable empire, run from Carranza’s (Uribe, 1992). seat in the town of Puerto Lopez (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, In 1990 Gilberto Molina, his entire corps of bodyguards, and 2012:53). many of his friends, were killed in a massacre at his ranch in Saisma The Llanos Orientales were also an important theater of (Te´llez, 1993:105; Solano et al., 1996:63). A few months later El operation for the Fuerzas Armadas Revoluciona´rias Colombianas, Mexicano was killed by the Colombian army (Gutie´rrez and the FARC. The FARC is perhaps the world’s most tenacious guerrilla Guerrero, 2008:114).14 With the two most bellicose antagonists insurgency. It is ostensibly dedicated to land reform and breaking dead, peace became possible. up huge holdings such as the one Carranza was amassing for himself. The FARC also took advantage of the chaos, born of violence and the absence of the state, in the mining area to set up 12. Concluding remarks: reflections on peace and the rise of a coca plantations and processing facilities there (Solano et al., new Czar 1996:65). The FARC with its communist ideology is anathema to the traditionally conservative patrons of the emerald mining area. The survivors of the third emerald war gathered to sign a peace Although he had brokered the peace among the esmeralderos accord in 1991. The pact was made in the presence of Monsen˜or Carranza found himself embroiled in Colombia’s half-century long Raul Jarro Tobos and Monsen˜or Hector Gutie´rrez Pabo´ n, Bishops of civil war. What role he played is a matter of considerable debate. the Catholic Church. The esmeralderos also invited representatives Some authors hold him responsible for forming right-wing paramilitary groups that terrorized and despoiled the peasantry 14 He was alleged to have participated in the assassination of a presidential candidate who had pledged to extradite drug traffickers to the United States for and even ran narcotics under the cover of their ‘‘anti-subversive trial. activities.’’ It is further alleged that he enjoyed the tacit support of B. Brazeal / The Extractive Industries and Society 1 (2014) 273–283 283 the Colombian Government and even the governments of the References United States and Israel for his private war against the communist Aguado, P.F., 1956. Recopilacı´on Historial. Bogota´, Biblioteca de la Presidencia de guerrilla (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, 2012:64–67). Colombia. Carranza himself contended that his so-called paramilitary Arcienagas, G., 1990. Verde Que Te Quiero Verde. In: de Retana, J.M.M. (Ed.), El Gran armies were nothing more than miners and peasants with Libro de la Esmeralda. Editorial La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, Bilbao, Spain, pp. 59–72. shotguns protecting their lands and their mines from the Beltran, A.T., Ordon˜ez, A.T., 1995. Conflicto y Pacificacio´ n en Occidente de Boyaca´, incursions of Maoist narcoterrorists (Steiner, 2005:148). These 1970–1995. Tesis de Grado, Programa de Magister. Universidad de los Andes, debates were swirling in 1998 when Carranza convened an Bogota´, Colombia. international conference on Colombian emeralds to resolve issues Cepeda, Iva´n, Javier Giraldo, S.J., 2012. Vı´ctor Carranza alias ‘‘el Patro´ n.’’ Random House Mondadori, Medellı´n. in the trade related to the use of resin treatments on gems. The El Tiempo, 2013a. La U´ ltima Carta de Vı´ctor Carranza April 4. conference was in full swing. Experts from the major gem El Tiempo, 2013b. Muerte de Carranza Genera Incertidumbre Sobre Paz ‘Verde.’ certification laboratories of the world, as well as the most April 5. El Tiempo, 2013c. Atentado a ‘Pedro Orejas’ Revive el Fanta´sma de la ‘Guerra Verde.’ important merchants and miners were in attendance, when November 11. Carranza was arrested in his mansion in Bogota´ (Cepeda and Field, L., 2012. El sistema del oro: exploraciones sobre el destino (emergente) de los Javier Giraldo, 2012:91).15 objetos de oro precolombinos en Colombia. Antipoda: Revista de. Antropologiı´a y Arqueologia´ (Colombia) 14, 67–93. He was tried and convicted and served 46 months in a posh, Giuliani, G., Marc, C., Schubnel, H.-J., Piat, D.H., Rollion-Bard, C., France-Lanord, C., private prison cell where he still managed to run his emerald Giard, D., de Narvaez, D., Rondeau, B., 2000. Oxygen isotopes and emerald trade empire. Then, thanks to the efforts of his lawyers and associates he routes since antiquity. Science 5453 (287), 631–633. Guerrero, J.B., 1986. La Economı´a Esmeraldı´fera y la Violencia: La Micro-Histo´ ria was exonerated of all charges and indemnified in cash for lost Institucional y Contra Institucional. In: Memo´ rias: V Congreso de Histo´ ria, income and ‘‘moral prejudice.’’ Whether this was represented Armenia. Universidad del Quindio-ICFES, Serie de Memorias de Eventos justice for an innocent and fervent supporter of the state or a Cientı´ficos, pp. 227–247. Guerrero, J.B., 2002. La Madicio´ n de Furatena: Histo´ ria y Mito, Amor y Desamor en la masterpiece of corruption in a deeply flawed judicial system is Guerra de las Esmeraldas. Ensayo Sobre la Cultura Popular de una Regio´ nIn: another matter of intense debate (Cepeda and Javier Giraldo, Pensamiento y Accio´ n 10, pp. 122–130. 2012:111). Gutie´rrez, F., Guerrero, J.B., 2008. Ordenes Subsidia´rios: Coca, Esmeraldas: La Guerra What is incontrovertible is that Carranza was never convicted of y La Paz. Subsidiary Orders, Coca, Emeralds: War and Peace. Colombia Inter- nacional 67, , pp. 102–129. anything again. He was astute in his self-portrayal in the media, Herna´ndez, N.Q., 2013. El U´ ltimo Nego´ cio de Carranza: La Joia de la Corona Podrı´a beloved of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and probably Venderse. El Espectador April 6. appreciated for his anti-subversive activities by an embattled state. Keller, P.C., Forero, H.O., Valdiri, J.W., Carmona, R.A., 1990. Yacimientos Esmeraldı´- feros en Colombia. In: de Retana, J.M.M. (Ed.), El Gran Libro de la Esmeralda. He continued to consolidate his empire throughout his life. He also Editorial La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca, Bilbao, Spain, pp. 107–132. held the peace among the emerald miners. It was not a perfect Lane, K., 2010. The Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder peace. There were occasionally killings or attempted killings of Empires. Yale University Press, London. Langbaek, C.E., 1987. Mercados, poblamiento e integracio´ ne´tnica entre los . prominent figures in the business. There were also several Departamento editorial, Bogota´, Banco de la Repu´ blica. attempts on Carranza’s own life. Once, when his motorcade was Le´vi-Strauss, C., 1949. The Elementary Structures of Kinship. Beacon, Boston. attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, an aged Don Vı´ctor, Macho, I.C., Sinkankas, J., 1990. Histo´ ria Por Fechas de la Esmeralda Colombiana. In: de Retana, J.M.M. (Ed.), El Gran Libro de la Esmeralda. Editorial La Gran dying of cancer, grabbed a gun from his dead bodyguard and Enciclopedia Vasca, Bilbao, Spain, pp. 81–106. returned fire on his assailants (Monroy, 2010). There were new Machuca, B.de.V., Lane, K., Johnson (Trans.), T., 2008. The Indian Militia and strikes of emeralds and new players who wanted military might to Description of the Indies. Duke University Press, Chapel Hill. Marı´n, F., 1979. La Guerra de las Esmeraldas. Ediciones Baal. match their economic power. But these violent individuals and Marx, K., 1964. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. International Publish- individual acts of violence had never devolved into the cycles of ers, New York. selective assassination and vendetta that had characterized the McFadden, R., 1999. U.S. Colonel’s Wife Named In Bogota´ Drug Smuggling: Army three emerald wars. Wife Is Accused Of Mailing CocaineIn: New York Times A1. Monroy, J.C., 2010. Las 7 Vidas de Vı´ctor Carranza. El Colombiano August 29. Near the end of his life, Vı´ctor Carranza sold a concession to his Mun˜oz, G.O., Barriga Villalba, A.M., 1948. Esmeraldas de Colombia. El Banco de la most modern and productive mine to an anonymous group of Repu´ blica, Bogota´, Colombia. foreign investors. He received an astronomical sum up front as well Pacho´ n, D.M., 2008. Embrujo Verde. El Tiempo July 27. Pa´ramo, C.G., 2010. El Corrido Del Minero: Hombres y Guacas en el Occidente de as a substantial share of the expected production of the mine. Boyaca´. Maguare´ 25 (1), 25–109. These profits were divided among the surviving leaders of the Parra, B., 2006. Familia, Poder y Esmeraldas: Relaciones de ge´nero y econo´ mica emerald war, keeping them united by shared economic interest minera en el occidente de Boyaca´ , Colombia. Rev. Colomb. Antropol. 42, 15– 53. (Herna´ndez, 2013). Retana, J.M.M., 1990. El Gran Libro de La Esmeralda. Editorial La Gran Enciclopedia When Vı´ctor Carranza died on April 4, 2013, he left a note for his Vasca, Bilbao, Spain. friend the Bishop Monsen˜or Hector Gutie´rrez Pabo´ n exhorting Rojas, M.E.A., 1974. La Explotacı´on Esmeraldı´fera de Muzo A Traves Del Tiempo: Su Origen Precolombino – Cambios y sobrevivencias en distintos periodos histo´ r- those who survived him to keep the peace (El Tiempo, 2013a). At icos. Bol. Antropol. 4 (13), 87–102. the time of this writing the peace looks fragile and threatened, but Solano, A.M.P., Escobar, P.F.R., Mancera, E.Y.M., 1996. Conflicto Esmeraldı´fero En El it has held. Occidente de Boyaca´. Pontı´fica Universidad Javierana, Bogota´. Steiner, C., 2005. Memories of Violence, Narratives of History: Ethnographic Jour- neys in Columbia. (Ph.D.) dissertationUniversity of California Berkeley. Acknowledgements Taussig, M., 2004. My Cocaine Museum. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Te´llez, P.C., 1993. La Guerra Verde: Treinta An˜os de Conflı´ctos Entre Los Esmer- alderos. Interme´dio Editores, Santa Fe´ de Bogota´. The author wishes to acknowledge the support of California Trouillot, M.-R., 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. State University, Chico for financial support and the Instituto Beacon, Boston. Colombiano de Antropologı´a y Historia (ICANH) for logistical Uribe, M.V., 1992. Limpiar La Tierra: Guerra y poder entre esmeralderos. Ediciones Antropos, Bogota´. support in Colombia.

15 Rumor has it that he was hiding in his water tank, breathing through a straw, but that his whereabouts were given away to the police by his own dog.