The Colombian Suroccident is a rich territory, with fertile soils that guarantee a permanence and variety of crops, with important natural reserves and with people belonging to a diversity of this region. Other activities have developed mining that traditionally have been done artisanally, activity that has recently been criminalized and stigmatized; Leaving a free panorama to be the large mining megaprojects that are carried out in these territories. For this reason, the multinational of South African origin AngloGold Ashanti together with the Canadian B2Gold, in February 2008 announced that he would extract gold, copper and molybdenum in two municipalities La Vega (Cauca) and Mocoa (Putumayo).

This region has one of the most serious problems in Colombia, the internal armed conflict that has left millions of displaced persons, deaths and of course the misery of war. Faced with such a panorama, it would be believed that no capital would invest in this region, but it is not the case of AngloGold Ashanti because it seems to respond to similar patterns of those acted in other countries (also with internal armed conflict as in Africa), where , international organizations have documented the commitment of this mining company with irregular armed structures in order to guarantee their income and the development of large-scale farms, being able to negotiate with the State in more advantageous conditions for them. A comparative analysis of the municipalities in which there are profound interests of the multinational with the municipalities in which there has been a positioning of paramilitarism, which has directly and systematically attacking the civilian population through different actions (extrajudicial executions, arrests illegal, torture, dispossession of belongings, enforced disappearances and forced displacement), shows that more than 70% are coincided.

In this area there is a strong presence of The Public Force (Police, Army and Armada), as well as the paramilitary bands also make presence, which, financed by drug trafficking, dispute the territory with the Front 29 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Front Commonsos del Sur Del National Liberation Army (ELN).

About Mocoa (capital of the department of Putumayo) include copper and molybdenum deposits, which consis have 4 contracts on hectares and 2 applications on 3,961 hectares.

At present, in addition to the requests for granting and titles granted, the Minister of Minas determined in February From 2012 at least mining strategic areas in Cauca, which correspond to a little more than 105,000 hectares. They are areas with mining potential where different companies will have to compete to explore and exploit minerals and the government will choose which better conditions present.

The definition of these areas excluded Among others, areas protected environmentally, but non-protected and traditional territories of indigenous people. Therefore, the conflict in the Cauca and Putumayo not only revolves around the armed actors, but also of this mining activity.

This multinational (AngloGold Ashanti) It has granted at least titles and is waiting for 250 more presented applications, which clearly compromises not only the sovereignty of these traditional indigenous peoples, but also the environmental deterioration that can be presented with this activity, as well as practices traditions that They develop peasants, indigenous and Afro-descendants.