Militants stripping Swat of resources

Ashfaq Yusufzai and Isambard Wilkinson, Foreign Correspondents

• Last Updated: April 03. 2009 8:30AM UAE / April 3. 2009 4:30AM GMT

MINGORA, PAKISTAN // Militants are funding a campaign of violence with profits made from the illegal mining of emeralds and felling of timber in the volatile valley of Swat in northern Pakistan.

Swat, which holds one of Asia’s two largest known deposits of high-quality emeralds, has been brought under the control of militants following a peace deal struck between the Pakistani Taliban and the government last month.

The gemstones are sold as quickly as possible at rates sometimes as low as US$50 (Dh184) per carat, far below their market price. They are then smuggled to Jaipur, India, before being transported to Bangkok, Switzerland and Israel, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We receive one-third of the income. The rest goes to the workers,” said Muslim Khan, Swat’s Taliban spokesman.

“We know that all the minerals have been created by Allah, the Mighty, and the Merciful for the benefit of his creatures. We should avail the opportunity. We have hired local workers who are making good money.”

The government has not challenged the Taliban’s control of the valuable emerald mines.

“The next target of the Taliban could be emerald mines at adjacent Shangla and Charbagh, Shamozo and Gojarkili Malam Jabba areas of Swat,” said Mohammed Shah, a geologist from the University of Peshawar.

Using primitive methods for extracting the stones, the Taliban’s work is fast, inefficient and on a rapacious scale.

“We have given instructions to the workers to lessen the amount of destruction,” said Wahidullah Khan, a Taliban solider at the mine, about a kilometre south of Mingora, Swat’s capital.

When fully operational, the mines yielded a quarter of a million carats of emeralds between 1978 and 1988, according to official statistics.

“There is no survey to suggest the worth and amount of the emeralds in Swat, but it can be safely said that they are in the billions of dollars,” said Karim Shah, director of the Gems and Gemological Institute of Pakistan.

A Swat-based mining development officer for the federal government, who requested anonymity, said: “The Taliban have already strengthened their network and if they continue selling the emerald they will become very strong and it will become impossible for the government to dislodge them”.

However, the rush to extract emeralds has benefited some locals.

Shad Ali, 24, who works at the mines, said: “I earn at least 1,000 rupees [Dh46] per day. After I get a gemstone during digging, I take it to the Taliban office here. It’s weighed there and a third [of its value] is given to me.”

Mr Ali said it has proven to be a “blessing” for more than 1,000 poor people in the area who have benefited from the mining.

Another source of the militants’ income are Swat’s once thick forests, which are already on the verge of extinction.

“The Taliban are mercilessly cutting the forest, applying the same [primitive] mechanisms as they do in the case of emeralds”, said Abdul Jamil, a local timber trader.

Government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the field staff of the forest department had abandoned their duties in Sept 2007 when police surrendered almost all their stations, along with weapons and ammunition, to militants in the forest-covered areas of the, valley.

“The losses suffered by forests in the last one year were more than the losses of the last two decades,” said a government official.

Officials recovered 170 cubic metres of timber from militants after an exchange of fire two months ago but police did not investigate further.

“The start of the military operation and the ensuing conflict in Swat and Shangla ‘coincided’ with the ruthless felling of timber in the surrounding hills blanketed with pine forests,” said Syed Irfan Ashraf, a journalist who visited Swat.

“Besides the exploitation of thick pine forests and precious emerald mines, archaeological artefacts have also been a huge source of revenue for the local black economy,” he said.



iwilkinson@thenational.ae