Matthew Green, Reporter, writer and video journalist

Rocks from a hard place

By Matthew Green and Kate Holt
Copyright The Financial Times

View the Rocks From A Hard Place Photofile

The flame from Azrat Mohammed's lamp casts a pale circle in the tunnel, illuminating crystals embedded in the rock. Dipping his fingers into a tin, the miner scoops out a handful of the same home-made explosive that Taliban fighters use to make roadside bombs.

Mohammed packs the charge with the help of a younger assistant. The biggest risk is one they cannot control: rival diggers working in a nearby shaft might detonate their explosives first, cause a rock fall, and leave them entombed. fuses finally set, the pair trudge back towards the daylight. At Mohammed's command the mountain will shake and – with luck – liberate a clutch of glinting emeralds.

Seams of gems thread the flanks of the Panjshir Valley, but their seekers often find death instead of riches. Mohammed knows of perhaps a dozen miners killed in recent years; blown up or crushed by boulders. Sparks and flammable chemicals can make a lethal mix, but batteries for torches cost money and the miners love to smoke. "Some people die instantly in the blasts," says Mohammed, 45. "others take time to succumb to their burns."

Mohammed is one of hundreds of miners who risk their lives searching for emeralds that will adorn wealthy foreigners. His reward: a little over $100 a month. The real profits are reaped by smugglers and middle-men trafficking stones to Pakistan and then the Middle East, Europe and the US.

Wahidullah Shahrani, Afghanistan's mining minister, is on a mission to make the industry safer, fairer and more profitable – and bring his country's trove of emeralds, lapis lazuli, tourmaline, rubies and aquamarines to the attention of top designers. "Until now it's been a huge lost opportunity," says Sophia Swire, a UK development consultant who has played a leading role in devising a new strategy. "But soon Afghanistan will come to be known around the world for its high-quality."

Precious stones mined in Afghanistan have been prized since antiquity, but recent history provides a glimpse of the challenges the reformers face. Pyrgoteles, the Greek gem-carver, is said to have engraved a portrait of Alexander the Great in Afghan emerald in the fourth century BC. Lapis lazuli formed the inlay in Tutankhamun's death mask. Powder from the stone tinted eye-shadow worn by Cleopatra.

The boom in Panjshir had humbler origins. Legend has it that a mute shepherd guiding his flock into the mountains several decades ago spotted an emerald in a stream. "Everyone in Afghanistan has heard of the mines here," Mohammed says. "I wanted to try my luck."

His quest unfolded against the backdrop of a bigger drama. The valley was the redoubt of the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, a guerrilla whose defence against Russian invaders earned him the nickname "The Lion of Panjshir." Miners say Soviet bombs did them an inadvertent favour by bursting open veins of emeralds. And while Panjshir is one of the few parts of Afghanistan insulated from the current insurgency, the miners have learned to create the same blasts that militants use to flip Nato vehicles.

Not only miners are at risk. Stories circulate of a child who killed himself, several siblings and their mother by playing with matches near chemicals stored in the family home. Another accident blinded one of Mohammed's friends.

The blasts often shatter emeralds to smithereens, driving buyers to despair. Haji Mohamad Gull, the manager of Afghan emerald in Kabul, picks out a speck-sized crystal from a gravelly heap. "This was the best one, but it was destroyed in an explosion," he says. "When I see stones like this my heart is filled with pain."

Smugglers pose an even bigger problem. Afghan traffickers and Pakistani traders deprive the government of revenues, yet the hollowed-out state is powerless to prevent profits bleeding across the border. "There's no control," says Bashir Abbasi, of the state-owned Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company.

Pakistan's burgeoning gem industry directly employs at least 40,000 people, officials say, compared to the mere 5,000 seasonal jobs available to Afghan miners. Afghanistan earns an estimated $50m a year from exporting various kinds of uncut stones, almost all through illicit channels. Pakistan, by contrast, exports $350m of jewellery alone. Shahrani wants to redress the balance. He was appointed a year ago by Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, to take charge of a ministry plagued by corruption allegations. He plans to slash taxation to reduce the incentive for smuggling, provide miners with proper explosives and open a "Kabul Rock School" training centre. Women will be offered bead-cutting lessons, while men like Mohammed will be granted formal mining leases.

"They're very keen that the government should recognise their ownership," Shahrani says. "They consider themselves being involved in some type of criminal activity."

For Afghanistan's allies, desperate to find ways to create jobs and reduce Kabul's dependence on aid, the gem industry is an alluring prospect. Gary Bowersox, a US gem-hunter who surveyed Panjshir's 174 working emerald mines in 2009, says the potential is vast. "They've just scratched the surface," he said. "We've no idea once they get down deeper what they're going to find."

But Shahrani belongs to a government dominated by vested interests with little interest in reform. As the insurgency spreads, bigger questions over Afghanistan's future may eclipse the miners' struggle.

Mohammed knows little of Shahrani's plans. Soon he will venture back underground in search of an emerald big enough to fund a pilgrimage to Mecca. "All I want is health, wealth and to go on the Haj," he says. "If I can have these things then I will be happy."

Back to Top