Jade, a dangerous and opaque Burmese production

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Jade stones are examined after extraction from a mine in Burma. AP / Aung Shine Oo

By: Claire Fages Follow

More than 160 artisanal miners have been found dead, prisoners of mudslides in an open-air jade mine in Burma. The production of this precious stone is more and more dangerous and opaque.

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Jade is a green and opaque stone, like its production in Burma which provides 90% of the world supply. The Asian country may have been admitted to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, in 2014, no one can know exactly what is produced in the country. In its report to the EITI, Burma gives the figure of 31,700 tonnes for 2017-2018, valued at 118 billion kyat, the Burmese currency, or $ 87 million.

The statements of the extractive companies do not correspond to government data. The National Resource Governance International Institute expert group estimates that three-quarters of production would not be counted. Its value would rather be between $ 3.7 billion and $ 43 billion. A very wide range!

Jade sold in China finances the civil war

There are many reasons for this opacity. Almost all the jade extracted in Burma comes from the region of Hpakant where the drama took place, that is to say in the state of Kachin, plagued for years by a civil war between the separatists and the army Burmese. The precious stones go underground to China and finance the protagonists of the conflict.

► Read also:  Burma: more than 160 dead in a landslide in jade mines

A sadly classic scheme, but one that has nonetheless entered modernity. The online trade in rough jade stone is flourishing in Ruili, Yunnan, across the Chinese border. It further promotes smuggling and fraud on the quality of the stones.

Burmese authorities have tried to limit the uncontrolled extension of surface jade mines, sometimes hundreds of meters deep, by deciding in 2016 a moratorium on new licenses and by limiting their area to 2 hectares.

Illegal miners in old mines

Many large mines have closed. But as they are no longer monitored, the land is invaded by hundreds of clandestine miners who excavate mine tailings in search of precious stones, ignoring the danger in the monsoon season as at this time. They were victims of the giant mudslides.

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