In Afghanistan, there is plenty, but the abundance has become a curse to many Afghans. The Taliban rule is not running the mining sector towards the good of the people. It is being put in a framing to give power structure. Instead of being used as assets of the country, gold, gemstones, coal, copper, and rare minerals are exploited as cash machines. It is expected that the result is the replacement of the revenue extraction with the development, the coercion with the consent and the profits with the armed networks rather than the schools, clinics and the jobs.

Mining can be a provider of bread to a poor country. When carried out correctly, it will create jobs, build highways, bring in investment and fund government services. Outraged, it foments war, corruption and rapacity. Taliban has been propelling Afghanistan along the second path. They have control over mines and get hard currency, patronage and leverage over the local leaders. It also offers them an avenue of rewarding loyal commanders and punishing communities that are viewed to be unfaithful. When the state is turned into a spoil of a cause it is more precious than a ministry.

The fact that Taliban collect taxes is not the biggest problem. Any government generates revenue. The secrecy, the force and impunity that surround the sector are the compounds of each other. Permits and contracts are not subject to any public scrutiny. Residents do not actually have a voice even when the mining is decimating the land or their water of the locals. Those who demonstrate will most probably be threatened or taken in custody. The abuse check does not exist when those who are making the rules are the same armed actors who are making a profit because of the access to the rules.

This is why mining revenues can become used in financing terrorists. Money that comes out of mined resources is simple to hide, transferable and hard to follow having been amassed by the middlemen. An official fee, unofficial fee by way of security, coerced contributions, and kickbacks may serve to benefit a particular mine. The fact that money buys administration is not simply that. It can also finance enforcement networks and protection units, and it can ooze to other militant groups allied with it. The user does not need a spreadsheet to see the logic: the resources are converted into revenue, revenue is coerced to be purchased, and control is coerced by coercion.

In the past, Afghans have gone through this trend. The mines and transit routes were always of interest to the insurgents and warlords. It is centralization and scale that got altered after the Taliban takeover. The Taliban can now mix state authority and discipline of the movements. They can issue orders, dispatch warriors and call their kidnapping legal. That is how it becomes easier to get the money at the source and all the points out at the check points. It also makes it more difficult for the local communities to mount any resistance as they are likely to be perceived as disobedience to the state, as opposed to being a battle against a private company.

The outside world does not view the human price very well. Villages might be deprived of pastureland, agricultural land or river. Without much or no pay, families can be dispossessed off property. Even to informal miners, artisanal mining that had been the livelihood of whole populations can be shut down. Meanwhile, the worst labourers are given the most dangerous jobs in which they are required to work with collapsing caves, inhalation of dust and depressing wages. People become furious when they observe that the foreigners are put under military guard of their possessions. The seed of the future instability is resentment even though it may lie latent in the present.

It also has a strategic cost. Mining economy is not compulsive and thus it does not demand serious and long-term investment. It attracts the opportunists, smugglers and purchasers who prefer discretion. That shapes the whole state. Instead of building plausible institutions to administer contracts, labour rules and environmental regulations, the Taliban establish more security organs to guard places and to oppose resistance. That is not economic development. It is robbery under the pretext of ruling.

It is hard to refute the geopolitical implications. If mineral money benefits the transnational militants, it does not lie within the soil of Afghanistan. The mentioning of al Qaeda and TTP is not the rhetoric flourish, but it is a sign of a greater threat: the funds which can be utilized to train, provide the logistics and recruit the members. Even though money does not change hands directly on transfers, permissive space and facilitators who could share have a similar effect of direct transfers. Home country repression finances can also finance violence overseas.

Then what can be done specifically when most governments lack even a significant leverage in the country of Afghanistan? In the first place, put an end to the pretence to minerals being a way to stability. Lack of transparency and security of their rights will lead to an increase in conflict in the industry. Second, augment due diligence within the supply chains. Buyers, refiners and traders should be obliged to show origin and pay transactions especially of the gold and high value stones. In the cases where the paperwork is blurry, the abstract risk is not involved, but the human and political one. Third, strike on the facilitators: brokers, shipping networks, front companies and financial channels, which turns the raw materials into cash in use. Fourth, promote Afghan civil society and domestic surveillance where possible, e.g., land grabbing and violation of labour. Even in repressive environments, records are significant.

© Eurasia Review