Gem dealers push to ban Myanmar rubies

Firm nets $300 million in sales
The smuggling bypasses the state-owned Myanmar Gem Enterprise that oversees the industry and runs the gem auctions in the city of Yangon.

The Myanmar Gem Enterprise said it generated sales of nearly $300 million in fiscal year 2006-2007, according to Human Rights Watch.

The agency did not respond to questions from The Associated Press sent by e-mail.

Dealers in Bangkok estimate the generals earn at least $60 million annually from gems, but some say the amount could be as high as 10 times that.

Whatever the figure, a growing number of dealers want to deny the junta any windfall from rubies.

But imposing sanctions will be fraught with problems, particularly since as many as 90 percent of the world’s rubies come from Myanmar. Most go to the United States, Europe and Japan. Myanmar also exports jade, sapphires and pearls.

The industry would almost have to ban the trade in rubies altogether for the embargo to work, said P.J. Joseph, a teacher at the Asia Institute of Gemological Sciences, a school and lab in Bangkok.

“Things are stacked against the embargo working. The generals are pretty used to divide and rule, and it will be difficult to get all countries involved. China, India and Southeast Asia are the key,” he said, adding that these would probably not join.

Embargo hurts small companies
Arnold Silverberg, who owns AJS Gems in Bangkok, said an embargo hurts all the mom and pop businesses in the industry.

“The amount of money the generals get from gems is minuscule compared to the money they get elsewhere. The generals don’t give a damn, they have all the money in the world,” he said.

Silverberg said those pushing the boycott “are just trying to make themselves feel good. But we’re starving the people, not the generals. I feel bad for the Burmese people.”

Jewelers of America supports the ban of Myanmar rubies, advising its more than 11,000 members to “to source their gemstones in a manner that respects human rights,” the group’s president, Matthew A. Runci, said in a statement released last month.

Sanctions didn’t work well before.

American companies stopped buying rubies in 2003, when the United States banned imports of all Myanmar products under a law enacted in reaction to the ruling generals’ human rights abuses.

The following year the U.S. Customs Department created a loophole, exempting gems cut or polished in other countries from the ban. More than 90 percent of Myanmar’s gems are exported in rough form.

Most colored stones from Myanmar are cut and polished in Chanthaburi, Thailand, a global gem center. Often those that arrive cut and polished are done over because the skill level in Myanmar is inferior to Thai workmanship, dealers in the southeast Thai town say.

But even during the total ban on Myanmar gems, many passed under the radar by being sold as coming from Vietnam or Sri Lanka. When the loophole was introduced they started being Myanmar rubies again.

Despite such problems, Leber, the Illinois dealer, disagrees with the boycott opponents. “It’s not a question if it’s going to be effective. It just feels wrong to sell rubies from Burma.”

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