HMONG GOLD
Since their recruitment by the CIA in the Vietnam war, the Hmong people of Laos have been victims of retaliation and persecution by Laotian soldiers. Now they search for gold.
The Hmong people were recruited by the CIA to deal with the difficulties of the jungle, being more aware of the terrain. Yet in the years following the war, the US government denied working with the Hmong. For their involvement with the CIA the Hmong people were persecuted, many were killed and others forced to flee into the jungle, the mountains and to US ally Thailand. Some of the refugees resettled in Western countries but most were imprisoned and later deported back to Laos, as Thailand was fearful of being seen as Hmong rebel sympathisers by Vietnam and Cambodia.
During the early 1990's gold was discovered in north and eastern Laos. The government realising they couldn't mine the gold themselves, accepted offers from Rio Tinto and subsequently Oxiana to mine these areas. To further boost profits and by way of apology for years of persecution the government allowed the Hmong people to mine themselves, for a percentage of any gold they found. This artisanal mining though, has lead to many casualties and devastation of the landscape in the north and east of the country.
Crude machines built by the Hmong miners float up and down the river, with steel barrels cut in half attached to a conveyor belt, dragging up rocks from the riverbed. Once at the top of the conveyor, the rocks are crushed by large mechanical jaws with smaller rocks spat out down the chute.
Since the rocky river bed has been removed, the water levels have dropped considerably with the water seeping away in to the earth. Not only this but pockets of sulphurous gases once trapped below the river bed have been released, bubbling up and partially dissolving in the water. This has led to a more acidic pH level of the water, with fish and wildlife in and around the Nam Ou river suffering due to these toxic conditions.
The smaller crushed rocks are then further broken down by hand with hammers. The stones that come from this are then fed into a grinding machine, producing a sandy sediment.
At this stage a small ball of mercury is added to the substrate - with gold adhering to mercury. Once the mercury is covered in gold, the miners simply burn it off with a naked flame. Inhalation of the mercurial vapours has led to organ failure of an undocumented number the miners. The residual liquid is discarded back into the water table causing further contamination.
The limestone hillside in Lak Xao is peppered with tunnels, with miners sat below ground in extreme humidity, chipping away at the rock face with basic tools. Sacks are filled with the small rocks and lifted to the surface, where they the begin the same process, being further broken down to once again have mercury added.
The sheer amount of tunnels, lack of supports and the crumbling dry limestone earth leaves them extremely unstable. Fatalities due to cave-ins are frequent, particularly with dynamite blasting at a nearby larger scale mine. Another hazard is the amount of unexploded ordinance in Laos due to American bombers returning to Thailand from bombing raids in Vietnam. They would often dump unused bombs onto Laos jungle to lose the weight and have enough fuel to make it back safe - this has left Laos the most bombed country never to have been in a war.
Another method of obtaining the raw material is to dive in the river, again filling sacks with rocks to be broken down later. Divers wear a face mask with compressed air pumped in from the surface.
Sepon gold mine in Savannakhet is the largest mining operation in Laos, operated by Australian mining company Oxiana Resources. An area of 27.6 square kilometres of forest was cleared to create the mine, which resulted in several villages being removed - the former residents were not rehoused. In 2006 the Laos government received $71 million from Oxiana, whilst Oxiana's profits in the same year from mining in Laos were $553.