manuel santos places mining at the center of his development model in bogota the independent expert cleo farrow denounces an incestuous relationship between the multinationals and the colombian political class. know it thought out but it isn't just an impression it's a reality that there exists a very strong link between these companies and the political elite that they serve the interests of the big multinationals that marked in red on the map of the country the land requested for mining concessions of vast area the multinationals bag the major part of the mining rights about seventy percent of the andes is tenure and all covered by requests from mining concessions well you know if they when we see that it's easy to imagine that we're all going to find ourselves expropriated about it where are we going to grow the economy and people's food yet what's going to happen to our regions if that's so that it's a completely irrational gamble that. the mining permits are already allocated but the big companies aren't yet mining the andes gold. the largest reserves lie in the heart of the chord. mountai