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04/01/2006:

"From Guatemala to Colombia: The Regional Integration of Gold and Bullets"

This article analyzes the role of militarization as a part of the control of territory, natural resources and people, and raises doubts about the so-called war on drug trafficking in mining districts. A comparison is drawn between Plan Colombia and the current situation in the gold mining region of San Marcos, Guatemala.

In San Marcos, the same region where the People of Sipakapa maintain their resistance to Canadian-US company Glamis Gold’s Marlin gold mine, the participation of United States military forces in searches for weapons and opium poppy crop fumigations has recently been announced as part of the Plan Maya Jaguar.

Just as terrorism apparently abounds around oil fields, it seems as though the worst hotbeds of drug trafficking are located where powerful mining interests are to be found. Whatever the pretext, the recent news from the highlands of San Marcos in Guatemala should be cause enough for reflection about what really lies behind militarization and the so-called regional integration initiatives, which amount to nothing more than the continuation of the historic process of exploitation and control in Mesoamerica: control of territory, control of resources and control of Peoples.
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