RE:Might they ban gold?You can`t compare oil and gold mining . There are no illegal oil drillers or producers . There are thousands of illegal miners and many are employed by politicians who think they have rights to the mines . The mayor of Marmato for example feels he has rights to the 5 mines owned by Gran Colombia in Marmato . He still has his people working in them . You can see them on youtube hauling ore out of the mines on their backs and using mercury to process the gold . There will be no votes to shut down the illegal miners . Gran Colombia could have done a much better job intergrating the illegals into the mines they took over . Instead they closed the mines so the illegals moved back in . They have no choice . It`s that or starve . GCM could still deal with them and it would end the trouble but they show no sign of doing that . Anyway Colombia just ststed in Washington they are open for business . They can hardly start by kicking out the multi-nationals . They still belong to NAFTA and would have to compensate these companies .