"Conflict, uncertainty hang over Mogok’s gemstone industry" 10 October, 2024

Mogok, a hill town in northern Mandalay Region bordering Shan State, came under attack during the second phase of Operation 1027, named for the day in October 2023 on which it was first launched...

But the conflict has brought mining shuddering to a halt, with most civilians having fled the town. It has also slowed the trade of already-mined stones, as the Mandalay-Muse highway remains closed, the military blocks telecommunications access across Mogok and demand from Chinese buyers slows...

In a report published in December 2021, environmental watchdog Global Witness said Myanmar’s ruby industry generated around $400 million annually at full production. Around 90pc of Myanmar’s rubies and other gemstones (not including jade) come from Mogok...

In its December 2021 report, Global Witness found that tens of thousands of informal miners had flocked to Mogok to fill the void left when the last official mining licences expired in 2020, but faced extortion and exploitation at the hands of the military and other armed actors. 

Gemstone traders interviewed by Frontier described a free-for-all in Mogok after larger companies left... “Before, miners would only get paid a fixed salary, and wouldn’t even get 1pc of a gemstone’s worth, but nowadays, they can earn as much as they work.”...

Alongside new opportunities to earn money, however, those involved in the trade faced new risks. The military, said traders, used the lack of a licensing framework as a premise to extort money and arrest people at mining sites as well as local gemstone markets and roadside pop-up markets known as htar pwes... the military would sometimes seize miners’ motorcycles and charge exorbitant fees for their return, or demand bribes from bosses for the release of arrested miners...

...the gemstone market worsened after the TNLA’s ally, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, attacked Laukkai in November last year, during the first phase of Operation 1027... The town, which sits on the border with China’s Yunnan province, had become a hotspot for lucrative online scams run by Chinese criminal syndicates, but the MNDAA’s offensive drove them out... The assault on Laukkai also dented prices...

Traders told Frontier that with the TNLA now in control, they would like to see it establish just and equitable protocols governing Mogok’s mines... For the time being, however, smaller traders are mostly worried about their safety and survival...