Could gold mining help Colombia’s armed groups to finally lay down their weapons?
Bram Ebus in Nariño, Colombia. Photographs by Alex Kemman
In Nariño, guerrilla groups are swapping arms for legal mining as part of the country’s peace accord. But as presidential elections loom, armed rivals and delays threaten to derail progress Dressed in civilian clothing with Pasto Indigenous motifs across his sleeves, Royer Garzón, a guerrilla commander and delegate at the peace negotiation table, sits alongside about two-dozen combatants on a small stand beside a concrete sports field in one of Nariño’s state-recognised Indigenous collective ter