Paging Code Pink....No Blood for Gold...No Blood for Gold...No Blood for Gold
Well, since the heroin funding went so well in Afghanistan, why not gold in Mali? In fact, the US will probably send in troops to defend the mines for al qaeda!
We used to go over to an Australian-American run gold mine in southern Mali to pick up mail from their mail plane. While there they would invite us to lunch in the cafeteria, so we got to talk to the engineers a good bit.
They told us that when digging with heavy machinery 60 feet below the surface level they often came across small hand dug tunnels. These were dug 300 years ago by slaves - one tribe held as slaves by another and used to mine the gold.
They would take the gold north into the desert to Timbuktu to buy the truly precious stuff....SALT! Timbuktu had a mythical reputation as the place of gold, but in fact, there is no gold in Timbuktu.
Only salt, which was more valuable than gold to the miners of southern Mali. The salt was dug up in slabs from the dry lake beds. These slabs, the size of a coffee table, are still strapped to the sides of donkeys or camels and hauled south to be broken into fist sized chunks and sold in the markets of Sikasso, Bamako, Kadiolo and other towns. It is coarse and looks like tan & brown road salt.