Gold in the shadow of the Dirty War: Stories from Peru's southern mining frontier

• In Event: Transnational Violence and Corruption: The Challenge to Security Policy

Abstract

In the last decade, informal, surface gold mines have turned hundreds of square kilometers of land in Peru's Azangaro/Ramis River into a cratered moonscape. Miners who excavate pits with giant front-loaders and earth-moving equipment pitch the surface soil and processed mine waste tailings down the river. Further upstream, the Rinconada mine complex has been a commerce point not only for trade in gold and mercury, but also human traffickers and narcotics wholesalers. This paper utilizes interviews with miners and formerly trafficked persons to explore links between state violence of the 1980s in the region, displacement of persons, and reconstitution of state forms in the region in the following decades that have facilitated off-the-books and illicit markets in minerals, chemicals and human labor.

Author

• Heather L Williams, Pomona College