Myanmar’s multi-billion dollar jade trade
Myanmar’s multi-billion dollar jade trade contributing to ethnic armed conflict, new film shows ahead of landmark peace talks
Civil society calls
for “21st Century Panglong” conference to prioritise a
new approach to natural resources as part of peace-building
efforts
(Yangon, Myanmar, 17 May 2017) –
Myanmar’s massive jade business is helping to drive deadly
armed conflict and threatens the peace efforts that Daw Aung
Sang Suu Kyi has made her government’s top priority, a new
film from NGO Global Witness shows today.
As the country
prepares for a landmark national peace conference on 24 May,
Jade and the Generals shows how a fair peace deal
could see powerful army families and companies losing out on
vast profits from jade. Kachin State in the north is home to
mines which produced jade worth up to $31billion in 2014 -
it is also the site of some of the worst fighting. The film
includes powerful testimony from refugees and local leaders
calling for end to the fighting and reform of the trade that
is driving it.
“100,000 people have now been driven
from their homes by airstrikes, shelling and other military
offenses in Kachin State. This is the latest injustice to be
inflicted on a population which has seen its environment
destroyed and its most prized assets stolen by those who
control the jade trade,” said Paul Donowitz, Global
Witness’ Campaign Leader. “Local people are increasingly
desperately calling for peace – to deliver it, the
government must remove the incentives to keep fighting.
Kachin’s jade riches need to be managed in the interests
of its people, not men with guns.”
The film launch
coincides with a call from influential Kachin and
transparency and natural resource-focused civil society
groups for the forthcoming peace talks to focus on fair,
transparent and accountable management of natural resources
in order to forge lasting peace. The signatories are calling
for issues including allocation of resources, environmental
and social safeguards and the fair sharing of benefits to be
high on the agenda.
“Most of the jade companies are
connected to the army. It is very obvious that the army is
protecting the jade business and trying to control the
land,“ said Reverend Samson, the General Secretary of the
Kachin Baptist Convention, in an interview in the
film.
Global Witness has previously shown how the
families of notorious military figures including former
dictator Than Shwe and ruling party bigwigs and former
ministers Ohn Myint and Maung Maung Thein are major players
in the jade industry. Both army units and the ethnic armed
groups which oppose them take huge revenues from taxation
and extortion. Meanwhile, local communities suffer the
social and environmental cost of jade mining, feeding
distrust and resistance of the central government and making
peace more difficult to achieve.
In July 2016 reformers
in the new civilian-led government implemented a suspension
of jade licensing
“This licensing freeze allows space
for an overhaul of the industry and the government should
maintain the suspension until the sector can be reformed”
stated Paul Donowitz. “With the right measures in place,
reformers in government can ensure Kachin’s jade trade is
on a path towards finally delivering benefits to local
people and much needed funds to the government, whilst
protecting this precious environment. If the ban is lifted
too early, this opportunity will be lost”
The peace
talks must also urgently focus on the role jade plays in
incentivizing and fueling conflict.
“Myanmar’s
government has promised that its first priority is to end
the ethnic armed conflicts,” said Donowitz. “If it is to
succeed, it is crucial that both sides agree on a new
approach to the country’s most valuable natural resources.
That means getting the men with guns out of the jade trade,
and taking concrete efforts to stop natural resources being
used to consolidate the military’s grip on
power.”