Global Witness report reveals Thai gem retailers sell conflict-linked rubies

[webfact]

 

By Thai Enquirer

 

Thai gemstone companies are selling Myanmar rubies with shady connections to Myanmar’s military, according to human rights watchdog, Global Witness.

 

The Global Witness report, “Conflict Rubies: How luxury jewellers risk funding military abuses in Myanmar,” found that even after the Feb 1 coup, retailers were still participating in selling conflict linked rubies.

“Since 2015, we have documented the links between jade mining, armed conflict and continued military control, even during the decade of liberalisation that preceded the 2021 coup,” the Global Witness report says. “What is less well known is how the military and other armed actors profit from gemstones, including rubies, sapphires and other coloured stones.”

 

Full story: https://www.thaienquirer.com/35925/global-witness-report-reveals-thai-gem-retailers-sell-conflict-linked-rubies/

 

-- © Copyright Thai Enquirer 2021-12-17

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow ASEAN NOW on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[StayinThailand2much]

5 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thai gemstone companies are selling Myanmar rubies with shady connections to Myanmar’s military, according to human rights watchdog, Global Witness.

Damn foreign military!

[Letseng]

How do they so easily distinguish betw. Burmese and Mocambiquan rubies?

 

[simon43]

Wow!  And bears sh*t in the woods!  Who would have thought?

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

“What is less well known is how the military and other armed actors profit from gemstones, including rubies, sapphires and other coloured stones.”

Business as usual...

[rudi49jr]

I was in Guinéé, West-Africa, in 1998, traveling overland from Senegal to Ivory Coast. The road ran parallel to and was quite close to the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia, two countries where armed conflicts had been going on for years at the time, resulting in many refugee camps on the Guinéé side of those borders.

More than once during that trip guys would come up to us and offered us diamonds, which came from Sierra Leone or Liberia, or so they claimed. They could have been so-called blood diamonds, or they could have just been pretty pieces of glass. I declined to buy them either way: I couldn’t tell anyway if they were real or not, and even if they were real, I didn’t much feel like sponsoring some local warlord so he could buy some more AK47’s, or a few cases of ammo or whatever. Besides, people could have died trying to find those diamonds, or slave labor could have been used, and I didn’t want that on my conscience.

[rudi49jr]

8 hours ago, Letseng said:

How do they so easily distinguish betw. Burmese and Mocambiquan rubies?

 

Simple: accessibility. It’s probably quite easy to get Burmese rubies, they’re from right across the border, whereas Mocambiquan rubies are probably quite a lot harder to come by.

[wwest5829]

I have long since acknowledged I do not have enough knowledge to distinguish real gemstones. Sad as I would like to buy at a fair price.

[spidermike007]

Hold on a minute. I thought all Thai businesses engaged in only ethical practices. This comes as quite a shock to many of us. 

[Tim207]

12 hours ago, Letseng said:

How do they so easily distinguish betw. Burmese and Mocambiquan rubies?

 

Impurities in the gems can indicate origin. For instance a common impurity in burmese ruby causes a strong fluorescence in ultra violet light giving an almost glowing sparkle in sunlight. Thai ruby has little of this but contains an impurity that causes a slightly brownish hue. With fairly common equipment the chemical makeup can be fairly easily analyzed.

 

4 hours ago, rudi49jr said:

Simple: accessibility. It’s probably quite easy to get Burmese rubies, they’re from right across the border, whereas Mocambiquan rubies are probably quite a lot harder to come by.

Although in covid times i am not sure, but chantaburi has always had a large number of African gem dealers with work permits importing rough stones to be cut.