Diamonds and gems: Afghanistan’s goods stagnant under Taliban regime

Ahmed Adel

Afghanistan is facing huge economic and financial complications under the Taliban’s control of the country since mid-August, which prompted the movement to find an alternative such as the trade of drugs and precious stones to overcome the severe economic crisis that Kabul has entered.

Lapis Lazuli

According to the Teen Vogue website, Julie Abouzelof, who calls for disclosing the sources of diamonds, owns an online crystal store, and sells precious stones, said that the Lapis Lazuli stone is a celestial blue stone used for decoration, and most of it comes from the mountains of Afghanistan.

Abouzelof, who is located in Hawaii, discovered that the rare stone from Afghanistan had turned into a source of funding for the Taliban after it took control of the country and is seeking to gain international legitimacy.

She confirmed that “the stone is extracted almost exclusively from the depths of the earth in the valleys of Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan, and is currently being used to finance the Taliban,” which prompted her to stop selling it on her Instagram site.

Stagnant goods

According to the site, stone sellers cannot be sure that their resources go to the Taliban treasury, but with the movement’s control of power and the start of exploiting gem mines again, its sales decreased after a number of online stores stopped importing it for fear of the Taliban seizing funds.

The report indicated that even under the control of the previous government, the Taliban were imposing taxes on stone mining in the areas they controlled, and the report quoted a source in Badakhshan that 70 percent of the profits from the stone benefited the Taliban in 2016.

Abouzelof said she was committed to the Kimberley Process, a global initiative to encourage transparency and oversight in the industry to prevent the sale of conflict diamonds, which the United States also committed to in 2003.

Struggle for Lapis Lazuli

In 2016, the Guardian newspaper said that the Taliban was getting significant funding through illegal mining operations for Lapis Lazuli, which is one of the gems in Afghanistan.

The newspaper added that there is a state of conflict taking place to control the Lapis Lazuli mines in Badakhshan province in the far northeast of Afghanistan, which were helped by the conditions in which the exploration movement flourished in an unprecedented way, according to a report issued by the London-based Global Witness.

Badakhshan is located on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, and it has witnessed a sharp deterioration in the level of security in recent years, with the Taliban controlling parts of the region.

Global Witness said local leaders in the region, who gained fame during the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s, ignored imposing security after struggles for control of Lapis Lazuli resources, as well as the nearby mines that produce tourmaline, another gemstone.

In 2015, the UN Security Council warned that the consequences of the Taliban’s criminal activities would be dangerous for peace and security in Afghanistan and beyond, because it encourages obstruction of local reconciliation processes with the Afghan government.

Security Council warning

The Security Council’s warnings came after a team of experts in the Sanctions Committee revealed that the Taliban is enhancing its financial resources resulting from drug cultivation, heroin manufacture and smuggling, as well as millions of dollars in proceeds from the manufacture of precious stones and marble, and their marketing inside and outside Afghanistan, in addition to money laundering for the benefit of several parties.

The Group of Experts informed the Security Council in an extensive report that Taliban involvement in criminal activity, including drug trafficking, illegal mining, collusion with transport gangs and kidnapping for ransom, is on the rise.

The Taliban controls the marble-rich southern Helmand province, where it controls 35 percent of the onyx marble industry and smuggles it out of the country, giving it access to the global market using forged certificates of origin.

The report stated that the movement is depriving the Afghan government of obtaining revenues from this industry in the richest Lapis Lazuli mines in the country, and that the sapphire industry in Jegdalek district in Kabul province is a resource for the movement in exchange for providing security, preventing government forces from controlling the area around the mines, and imposing taxes on that.

The amount of sapphire revenue in Jegdalek is estimated at about $16 million annually. The illegal operations also include the transportation of illegally extracted emeralds from northern Afghanistan.