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Myanmar’s army has tightened its grip on the country’s jade trade, using industry to finance the February 1 coup that rocked the country, according to a new report released on Tuesday, naming the son of army chief Min Aung Hlaing directly the company’s profiteers.
Global Witness said corruption in the country’s jade sector “reaches the highest level of soldiers,” and February 1 coup the business only improved with its multi-billion dollar industry that mostly goes to China.
“The revelations about the military’s control over the multimillion-dollar jade trade are indicative of Tatmadaw’s broader way of capturing valuable sectors of the country’s economy. , A Myanmar policy adviser on the watchdog, which reveals the links between human rights violations and the environment.
The report warned that the coup could turn the jade industry into a “fund” for soldiers and a source of political patronage to promote the military regime if sanctions and other measures are not taken.
With a force of over 400,000, the Myanmar Army, also known as Tatmadaw, has been the most influential political actor in the country since its independence in 1948. With the exception of brief democratic leadership, the generals have ruled the country for decades.
He has been accused of committing atrocities against his people for years, including 2017 in Rohingya violence which forced hundreds of thousands of Muslim minority groups to flee to Bangladesh. The United Nations and rights groups have said they are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Recently, he recovered another armed conflict with ethnic rebels In early 2020 it began relocating ten thousand more people from within, before Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government came to power in February.
Since the coup, opposition politicians and activists and ordinary people protesting against the seizure of power have begun to crack down. According to the defender of the Association of Supporters of Political Prisoners (AAPP), state forces have already killed 883 people and arrested or detained punishment [can sentencing be done by forces?] More than 5,000.
The coup only exacerbated the link between corruption and violence that marks the military’s role in the jade industry, the report says. He warned that ownership could “open up more floods of military corruption” and plunge the jade mining region into “more illegality,” while at the same time enriching military officials and their families.
Sons of generals
The 2021 Global Witness report develops the previous 2015 exhibition, in which some of the top generals established their ties to the industry. Among the companies that continue to work in the jade trade is Kyaing International Gems, partly owned by the son of General Than Shwe, a powerful man who ruled Myanmar for almost 20 years until 2011.
The latest report also found that General Min Aung Hlaing’s son, Aung Pyae Sone, is involved in the industry, the author of the Dietz study told Al Jazeera in another interview.
Dietz said Aung Pyae Sone plays a military role in controlling dynamite imports to Hpakant, the heart of Myanmar’s jade mining industry.
The use of dynamite is key to getting it out now, as today’s mechanized mining involves blasting open pit mines using explosives before the machines are sent to pick up debris.
“Tatmadaw controls the main roads to Hpakant, so dynamite traders have to pay for a purchase from the Northern commander to ask for permission,” to transport the explosive, Dietz said.
“Then the commander of the North gives these bribes to Aung Pyae Sone,” he said of the son of the supreme military commander. A tycoon from Myanmar he was recently sentenced to U.S. punishment along with his sister Khin Thiri Thet Mon.
Kachin from the Jachin mining town of Hpakant, this afternoon (June 14) Citizens protesting against Myammar’s military dictatorship.
Photos: CJ pic.twitter.com/rv6bOdMxDc
– Myanmar Now (@Myanmar_Now_Eng) June 14, 2021
Dietz said the involvement of the Min Aung Hlaingen family in the jade industry will not be surprising “but this winning industry speaks to the way it has helped maintain the power and influence of military elites and maintain conflicts across the country, as well as trying to innovate the NLD industry.”
“Min Aung Hlaing is a man who has committed some of the worst crimes against humanity the world has seen in recent years, and now he has led a coup that has plunged Myanmar into a crisis that threatens to return the country to its darkest days. Military rule,” Dietz said.
Tackling reform
For years, military officials, as well as the companies they controlled and their business allies, ignored the country’s licensing rules while the newly-removed Aung San Suu Kyi civilian government continued its efforts to implement reforms.
In 2016, the NLD suspended all new jade licenses because it promised changes in the turbulent sector.
At the time, the Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) military conglomerate was the largest licensing company for jade and gem mining. The company, which controlled 1,100 active permits at the time, acquired 639 of them in the first months of 2016, before the NLD took over “in a frantic seizure of resources”.
But with the suspension of the new licenses, the abuses of the system were prolonged, allowing the industry to continue to operate within a “poorly defined and enforced” legal framework, the report says.
Instead of releasing military adherence, the rules paved the way for the military to take control of Myanmar’s jade mines, even for five years of civilian control.
And now that the military is completely back in power, any chance of real reform in the short term is “dead,” Global Witness said.
Companies identified as part of the MEHL conglomerate include Myanmar Ruby Enterprise, Myanmar Imperial Jade Co Ltd and Cancri (Gems and Jewelery) Co. Ltd. Shortly after the military coup, the U.S. imposed sanctions on all three companies.
Covered in secret
Until recently, the military’s involvement in the jade mining industry was hidden, Myanmar activist and poet Me Me Khant told Al Jazeera.
Since the Global Witness report in 2015, there has been a growing awareness of “exploitations in the jade sector,” he said.
“The cost of the military’s profits in the jade sector is enormous. Hundreds die every year from landslides, corruption, lack of regulation and illegal exploitation,” Me Me Khant said as an example. died in the 2020 landslide About 175 miners in Hpakanten.
Other issues have also been reported, including drug addiction and the prevalence of HIV / AIDS among miners, he added.
Land-loaded trucks at Hpakant jade mine in Kachin state, November 26, 2015 [File: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters]“Arms trade”
Although Myanmar’s military dominates the jade industry, Global Witness research has also seen an increase in ethnic armed groups and militias increasingly involved in trade.
Participants included the Kachin Independence Organization / Army (KIO / A), the United Wa State Party / Army (UWSP / A) – political parties of ethnic groups and their armed wing – and the Arakan Army (AA), among others.
“Tatmadaw, armed militias and ethnic armed groups like KIA, UWSA and AA were literally found to be extracting more and more quickly and destructively, despite being in conflict elsewhere in the country,” Dietz said.
“Bitter enemies increased their cooperation with the Myanmar military before they could finish their licenses before they could get out, sometimes joining mine on illegally expired plots.”
Hpakant’s Jade money is being channeled into the arms trade, exacerbating violent conflicts in northern Myanmar, the report found.
It has been identified that UWSA in particular fulfills part of its tax obligations related to JAD by providing KIA with “weapons created in its factories,” and then the KIA reported that it was selling weapons to AA.
The United Wa State Army, pictured, has been identified as complying with the tax obligations associated with the Kaden Independence Army by donating weapons produced in its factories, and the KIA then sold the weapons to the Arakan Army. [File: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters]
The AA also partnered with the KIA to raise jade payments to support the war against the military in Rakhine and Chin states, the report said.
However, no clear evidence has been found that the Myanmar military is also using jade money to buy weapons directly, Dietz told Al Jazeera.
“But in the end all the money is fungible.”
“Very illegal”
Global Witness estimates in its latest study that 90 percent of Myanmar’s jade is smuggled out of the country, almost all to China, “underlining the illegal nature of the industry.”
Prior to the suspension of the licenses, about 50-80 percent of the jade was smuggled, transactions that were made without entering the formal system of Myanmar.
“Kachin State’s resources have been plundered, and few benefits are directed to the people or state of Kachin, where jade income can be used to support serious needs such as health care and education,” the report says.
While a Myanmar citizen was fighting the country’s military authorities, activist Me Me Khant called on the international community to impose sanctions on top military chiefs and companies involved in the jade and other jewelry industry.
He also called on the international community to persuade China to stop trading jade with Myanmar.
“Massive awareness-raising campaigns on the issue should be carried out to discourage consumers, especially those within China,” he said.
But while there is a military dictatorship, the likelihood of cutting off illegal jade trade would not be possible, Dietz of Global Witness said.
“Right now the priority of the international community should be to end the coup and help the democratic and legitimate government return to power,” he said.
Global Witness also calls on the international community to immediately ban the import of all extracted jade and gems from Myanmar.
In the long run, the international community must advocate for a future legitimate government to eliminate the military and other armed groups from the jade industry, placing natural resource governance at the heart of peace talks.
“There will be no peace or democracy while men in arms control the great wealth created by one of Myanmar’s greatest natural treasures,” Dietz said.
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