Report: Myanmar jade sector vast slush fund for elites

Myanmar’s military is colluding with drug kingpins and cronies to rob the country of tens of billions of dollars worth of jade every year, according to a new report released Friday.

The murky jade industry netted “military elites, drug lords and crony companies” up to $31bn last year, almost half Myanmar’s GDP, said the report by environmental transparency group Global Witness.

Their 12-month investigation found the illegal industry is far bigger than previously estimated, and that almost none of the money made from jade makes it into state coffers or the hands of ordinary people.

Much of the jade is transported across Myanmar’s eastern border to feed voracious demand from China.

“The sums of money involved are almost incomprehensibly high and the level of accountability is at rock bottom," said the report, titled Jade: Myanmar’s Biggest State Secret.

It added that "Myanmar's jade industry may well be the biggest natural resource heist in modern history,” with $122.8bn worth plundered from the country over the last decade.

Next month Myanmar will go to the polls in what has been billed as the country’s first free and fair election in decades. It will be seen as a test of the reforms of President Thein Sein, who leads the semi-civilian regime installed by the previous military junta.

The Global Witness report will bolster critics who say that the elections will do little to loosen the powerful military’s grip on political and economic life in Myanmar.

More than 16 million kilograms of jade were extracted in 2014. The mining town of Hpakant in conflict-torn Kachin state has the country’s richest reserves, with over 35,000 acres of deposits.

Civil war has blighted the resource-rich state, which holds the most valuable jade in the world, for decades. In 2011, a 17-year cease-fire between the government and the Kachin Independence Army broke down, leading to clashes that have displaced over 100,000 people.

The report paints a picture of a thriving illicit industry amid ongoing conflict and makes clear that despite political and economic reforms that began in 2011, the military and their associates maintain a firm grip on the country’s lucrative natural resources.

“These networks cream off vast profits while local people suffer terrible abuses and see their natural inheritance ripped out from beneath their feet," the report said. "These injustices are stoking unrest in an already unstable and volatile region.”