June 6 2016
Afghanistan ranks a woeful 166th out of 168 countries in Transparency International’s latest assessment of graft and crooked dealing around the world. And there is no better evidence of just how deep corruption goes than the fate of one of Afghanistan’s greatest treasures, the gemstone lapis lazuli.
A two-year-long investigation by the campaigning NGO Global Witness shows that instead of going to the people, the profits from the trade in this extraordinarily beautiful semi-precious stone are being funnelled into the pockets of senior politicians and top officials, and have also become a major source of income for the Taliban and other insurgent militias.
Lapis is a vivid dark blue, like the sky at twilight or the ocean depths. Often it is flecked with specks of pyrite – fool’s gold – which sparkle like tiny stars.
The greatest reserves of this “blue treasure” are in Afghanistan, where it has been mined from the same small area of a single river valley in the remote Afghan province of Badakshan for more than 6,000 years.