Say goodbye to Burmese rubies and sapphires

[mike04456]

The US is about to ban all imports from Burma (Myanmar) for human rights reasons:

http://professionaljeweler.com/archives/news/2003/072103story.html

My feeling on this is pretty much summed up by this quote from gem dealer and author Richard Hughes (whom I know):

"I care very much about Burma," says Richard Hughes of Pala International, Fallbrook, CA. "I would love to see the regime overthrown for all of the reasons stated in the bill. But my guess is that these sanctions will have little effect on the government, whereas they''ll have a largely negative effect on the people they are designed to help."

 

[winyan]

Say goodbye to Tanzanite as well, Tanzania is closing it's borders to export of the uncut rough.

Hmmm, this is getting interesting.

win

 

[mike04456]

President Bush signed the embargo today, which goes into effect immediately. Let's hope the military kleptocracy in charge of Burma has enough sense to back down. A lot of average Burmese have their livelihoods at stake here.

 

[Hest88]

I have such mixed feelings about economic sanctions, but Burma certainly had it coming.

A poster once asked about the morality of buying diamonds over precious stones, given the potential for receiving blood diamonds. I pointed out to her that blood diamonds were merely well-publicized; precious stones from such countries as Burma were also supporting questionable regimes.

Eh, maybe this will make the sale of Canadian diamonds shoot up.

 

[Iceman]

I will be in Tanzania next year , guess I should line my pockets with Tanzanite

I dont see the demand for it like I use to in this area where I live. I guess out of sight out of mind

 

[elmo]

I too have doubts about the effectiveness of any ban...as the article says, don't most of the Burmese goods go through Thailand? Until Thailand bans imports from Myanmar (a cold day in Bangkok?

), how will this be enforced?

 

[AGBF]

On 7/29/2003 8:31:42 AM elmo wrote:

"I too have doubts about the effectiveness of any ban...as the article says, don't most of the Burmese goods go through Thailand? Until Thailand bans imports from Myanmar (a cold day in Bangkok?

), how will this be enforced?"

I'm not sure it needs to be enforced. If vendors are unable to claim they have Burmese rubies, the rubies will lose a lot of their cachet. No one wants a Thai ruby...everyone wants a Mogok and in "Pigeon's Blood Red" (although no one is quite sure what color that is).

 

[gemexplorer]

Banning or not -- US or anyone cannot stop the porous entries between Burma and Thailand. The gems will be come and go and there are other nations that may not be following the guidelines of the Sanction from the US.

And there are no known mechanism to "authenticate" the origin of the Burmese ruby - unless the government can use the process to enable to identify the origin of each stone - Yes, that can be done. For all gems have their own trace-minerals where like a human DNA element with the minerals , or a pattern of the minerals present in them.

I still have the greatest question of so called "blood diamonds" if Debeers had not been the single greatest blood diamond buyers in years past. I am just a bit cynical on all these "monitoring" system.

This sanction agians Burma ruby will only hurt the common folks - never the regime.

 

[valeria101]

As far as I know, any gem seller worth his salt thrives on stocks: so the counterbalence of what you say is that prices can be furter hyked on the claim that "stocks are dwindling" due to the ban... One never knows... What do you say? I have seen this done with ruby specimens from Burma already.

 

[NewYorker]

I feel so badly for the people of Burma. I don't think banning is the answer though. Why don't we just go over there and overthrow the gov't like we did in Iraq? Oh, yeah, I forgot, because there's no oil there.

 

[mike04456]

An interesting discussion of the issue here:

Thoughts on the US Embargo Against Burma