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US funds run Pakistan emerald mines
By Chris Brummitt in Shamozai
4:00 AM Wednesday Jun 23, 2010
Dusty and exhausted, the miners emerge from tunnels, blinking in the sunlight of this formerly Taleban-controlled valley.
They carefully drop their emeralds into a hole in a padlocked wooden box and trudge home to their villages down below.
A year after the Pakistani Army ousted the militants from the Swat Valley, emerald miners again work in this mountaintop mine once used by insurgents as a base - a sign of progress in a region struggling to recover from conflict.
Mining - for gems, marble, granite, chromite and coal - is one of the only industries, save for smuggling, in many parts of the northwest.
The United States is helping the industry as part of a US$7.5 billion ($10.5 billion) package to Pakistan that it hopes will create jobs, dry up support for extremism and stop militants from returning.
"It is a big job, but a good job. A rich job," said Hikmat Ullah, gesturing toward what he says are hectares of untapped reserves beneath the rocky, arid soil. "One hundred metres down the hill, 100 metres up the hill, east and west. There are veins going everywhere."
The mining business in Pakistan is worth an estimated US$200 million a year - a mere blip compared to the nearly US$1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in neighbouring Afghanistan.
On Pakistan's other flank, India also has a much more sophisticated billion-dollar mining industry. But the potential for growth in Pakistan is large, especially in a region with little else.
The key in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be to overcome the difficulties of developing industry in the region, despite US funding.
Production at Shamozai is threatened because of an ownership dispute that alleges Ullah mined hand-in-hand with the militants when they were in control, handing them over a chunk of the proceeds. Ullah denies the charges.
Swat's two other emerald mines remain closed amid allegations of chronic corruption and mismanagement that miners and gem traders say have dogged the industry since the early 1980s.
At Shamozai, Ullah employs around 30 men who work tunnels that zigzag some 18m into the mountain, following the emerald deposits wherever nature has left them. At the face, one man wields a pneumatic pick, while his partner sifts through the debris, trained eyes scanning for a flash of green in the light of his headtorch.
They earn more than US$100 a month, a good salary in rural Pakistan.
Aside from emeralds, gems locked away in Pakistani mountains include pink and golden topaz, aquamarine and many others. Because of a lack of skilled labour, most Pakistan stones are exported to Bangkok or Amsterdam, where teams of cutters polish and make them into much more valuable gems.
A major focus of the US aid is developing that side of the industry in Pakistan. It has trained dozens of men and women from the tribal regions in cutting and polishing. It is also establishing a centre for gem certification in Peshawar, the main northwestern town, which would dramatically increase the value of the product.
Mining officials in the main town of Mingora could not say when mining would resume at Swat's other two mines. Tenders had been issued, but a suitable company had not been found.
- AP
By Chris Brummitt in Shamozai
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10653679
By Chris Brummitt in Shamozai
4:00 AM Wednesday Jun 23, 2010
Dusty and exhausted, the miners emerge from tunnels, blinking in the sunlight of this formerly Taleban-controlled valley.
They carefully drop their emeralds into a hole in a padlocked wooden box and trudge home to their villages down below.
A year after the Pakistani Army ousted the militants from the Swat Valley, emerald miners again work in this mountaintop mine once used by insurgents as a base - a sign of progress in a region struggling to recover from conflict.
Mining - for gems, marble, granite, chromite and coal - is one of the only industries, save for smuggling, in many parts of the northwest.
The United States is helping the industry as part of a US$7.5 billion ($10.5 billion) package to Pakistan that it hopes will create jobs, dry up support for extremism and stop militants from returning.
"It is a big job, but a good job. A rich job," said Hikmat Ullah, gesturing toward what he says are hectares of untapped reserves beneath the rocky, arid soil. "One hundred metres down the hill, 100 metres up the hill, east and west. There are veins going everywhere."
The mining business in Pakistan is worth an estimated US$200 million a year - a mere blip compared to the nearly US$1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in neighbouring Afghanistan.
On Pakistan's other flank, India also has a much more sophisticated billion-dollar mining industry. But the potential for growth in Pakistan is large, especially in a region with little else.
The key in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be to overcome the difficulties of developing industry in the region, despite US funding.
Production at Shamozai is threatened because of an ownership dispute that alleges Ullah mined hand-in-hand with the militants when they were in control, handing them over a chunk of the proceeds. Ullah denies the charges.
Swat's two other emerald mines remain closed amid allegations of chronic corruption and mismanagement that miners and gem traders say have dogged the industry since the early 1980s.
At Shamozai, Ullah employs around 30 men who work tunnels that zigzag some 18m into the mountain, following the emerald deposits wherever nature has left them. At the face, one man wields a pneumatic pick, while his partner sifts through the debris, trained eyes scanning for a flash of green in the light of his headtorch.
They earn more than US$100 a month, a good salary in rural Pakistan.
Aside from emeralds, gems locked away in Pakistani mountains include pink and golden topaz, aquamarine and many others. Because of a lack of skilled labour, most Pakistan stones are exported to Bangkok or Amsterdam, where teams of cutters polish and make them into much more valuable gems.
A major focus of the US aid is developing that side of the industry in Pakistan. It has trained dozens of men and women from the tribal regions in cutting and polishing. It is also establishing a centre for gem certification in Peshawar, the main northwestern town, which would dramatically increase the value of the product.
Mining officials in the main town of Mingora could not say when mining would resume at Swat's other two mines. Tenders had been issued, but a suitable company had not been found.
- AP
By Chris Brummitt in Shamozai
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10653679
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