Myanmar junta gains hold on jade profits amid fighting
BANGKOK — The military takeover in Myanmar has given the junta full control of the country’s lucrative and conflictridden jade mining, providing it with profits and leverage for consolidating power, researchers said.
A flareup in fighting around the mines in Hpakant, in remote Kachin state, also is adding to instability in the border region, independent research group Global Witness said in its report this week.
Army and ethnic guerrilla forces have been fighting in Kachin for years. But they had largely cooperated to share in profits from mining of the world’s richest jade deposits, making the industry a hotbed for corruption instead of a national asset that could be invested for the public good.
Global Witness estimates the annual losses in the tens of millions of dollars.
It and other experts say the Feb. 1 coup has disrupted the de facto cease-fire that had held around the mines, with fighting breaking out even in the jade-producing zone.
“It’s an extremely unstable situation where the rule of law is just completely broken down,” said Keel Dietz, one of the report’s authors.
The civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi made halting progress in cleaning up the industry after taking power in 2016. It suspended issuing or renewing jade mining permits. A new law restricts licenses to a maximum of three years, adding to the incentive to mine illicitly and as quickly as possible.
Now the military, known as the Tatmadaw, controls who can mine and who can’t and can dole out licenses to buy loyalty and try to splinter rival groups, Dietz said.
Global Witness and other groups are calling for stronger sanctions against the junta to help counter what has become a free-for-all rush to dig out as much of the stone as possible.
“It is up to the international community to limit the amount of funding the military can receive from selling Myanmar’s natural resources by preventing the import of those resources and blocking financial transactions that pay for them,” the report says.
In an earlier report, Global Witness documented how the industry is dominated by networks of military elites, drug lords and crony companies. The situation has barely changed, those familiar with the region say.
That has created incentives for both sides in the conflict to maximize production, at a huge cost to the environment. Nearly a half-million people migrate into the region to work in the mines or to pick through mine tailings, hunting for stones that might have valuable jade inside. Hundreds of have died from landslides on the unstable slopes of the open-pit mines.
Profits from the industry are seized by those controlling the mines and trade routes.
The U.S. government and United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on Myanmar Gems Enterprise, on key military-controlled companies and military leaders.