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529 Aiding Burma: Gems and Japan

This from the press release accompanying HRW’s letter to Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura on the eve of the Mekong Meeting:

Significant amounts of Japanese aid were distributed in Burma through organizations created and controlled by the Burmese military government, such as the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA). In the fiscal year 2006, Japan gave a total of 26 million yen (US$240,000) in grants to the USDA despite that organization’s repeated harassment and attacks on opposition political figures, including Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy supporters.

The organization is also calling for a smart boycott of Burmese gems. Burma supplies 90 percent of the world’s rubies, and is the world’s top jade producer:

Human Rights Watch advised consumers to ask retailers about the origin of the jewelry they sell, and to decline to purchase from retailers who are not able to offer informed answers or who are unwilling to identify the country of origin of the jewels in writing, such as on the sales receipt.

Retailers should require their suppliers to identify the country of origin on any invoices and to guarantee that gemstones were not mined in Burma, Human Rights Watch said. Retailers should also seek to verify the accuracy of their suppliers’ claims.

Sound advice. Those of us who can’t afford rubies or jade will just have to go on wearing our red shirts.

7 Comments »

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1. I thought boycotting diamonds was the smart thing to do but apparently Burma has a tighter control on the ruby trade than anyone has on the diamond trade. It’s very difficult to truly verify the country of origin, per some people I’ve asked, though there’s some lefty-Canadian unionized diamond source that my lefty friends favour. Damn social norms that tell women to wear jewellery.

   Comment by SP — January 21, 2008 #

2. Ah, yes, the Canadian “Polar Ice” diamonds, engraved with a tiny polar bear. Your lefty friends must be true Fabians. Those babies run 7x the price of ordinary diamonds retail. I once looked at a $1,000 diamond in NYC. A diamond of the same quality from Canada cost $7,000.

   Comment by The Skeptic — January 21, 2008 #

3. Yikes. I just remember teasing said friend for getting a diamond engagement ring and she said something about a union-mined Canadian brown diamond, no word of polar bear engravings 😉

   Comment by SP — January 21, 2008 #

4. She has a very nice husband.

   Comment by The Skeptic — January 21, 2008 #

5. …and a liberated one – they bought each other the same ring.

   Did you know that (according to trusty old Slate) the engagement ring became popular in the early 20C as a sort of guarantee that the man wouldn’t run out on his fiancee if she got pregnant, because he had sunk all that money on the ring, or something.

   Comment by SP — January 21, 2008 #

6. A dude ‘liberated’ for wearing a diamond? I’m not sure. Certainly fly. Good for him. I wouldn’t have the guts.

   I didn’t know that about the origins of the diamond engagement ring. But I always suspected something like that. You know, sweet talk is cheap, diamonds aren’t, so put your money where your mouth is. Or something.

   That said, I’m anti-diamond, unless you’re a drill manufacturer or a money launderer. The possibility that someone lost his arm so your finger could shout “I’m expensive” troubles me, as do the artificially inflated prices. They’re pretty little stones, but come now…

   Comment by The Skeptic — January 22, 2008 #

7. Liberated for not turning the engagement ring into a sign that “she’s bought and paid for” and “look at how much money her fiance has.” Here’s the Slate article, btw: http://www.slate.com/id/2167870/

   I’m anti-diamond too. It helps that I don’t find the little sparklies as pretty as most people seem to.

   Comment by SP — January 22, 2008 #

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