Boycott Swat's ‘blood emeralds'

“Never buy emeralds,” I was once told by a millionaire: “They're so easy to fake you might just as well go for green glass.” Being spectacularly impecunious at the time, I just thought how right F.Scott Fitzgerald was that “the rich are different from you and me, they have more money”. But here is a deadly serious reason not to buy emeralds now. Your necklace or cufflinks could be paying for the Taleban mortars, roadside bombs and suicide belts used against British troops in Helmand and in the Taleban's “holy war” for nuclear-armed Pakistan that saw its thuggish militias move heavy weapons last week to within 60 miles of Islamabad.

The “blood emeralds” of Swat, a mountain valley in Pakistan, have joined Afghan opium as a source of Taleban lucre in the months since Pakistan's Government struck its “peace deal”, the Malakand Accord, that effectively surrendered this large swath of North-West Frontier Province to the Taleban.

Swat is rich in orchards, timber - and gems. Armed Taleban have seized two of Swat's emerald mines, declared them the property of Allah, and set gangs to mine them round the clock. The profits are split between the Taleban and the miners, making these coveted jobs in an area where fighting has destroyed the tourist industry and much else. That, say Taleban leaders, is why they have opened up the mines - to provide the locals with employment and a better life. Rubbish: these heavily guarded mines are Taleban cash cows where, as the Taleban admit, only those with strong Taleban sympathies get work.

Estimates differ as to the quality of Swat emeralds. Some Pakistanis claim they are magnificent. Jean Claude Michelou, the emerald dealer who advises the World Bank on developing Pakistan's gemstone sector, says that most are tiny and used mostly for what jewellers call “baguette accents” to ornament rings or watches. The smaller they are, the harder it is to trace their origin. But the bottom line is that Swat emeralds net the Taleban about £2 million a year. Their journey to Dubai and the German, Thai and Indian markets must be blocked.

It can be done, and fast, by extending to emeralds the international Kimberley Process of verification, which successfully and swiftly curbed Africa's diamonds-for- guns trade. It helps that, after the “blood diamonds” campaign, jewellers have united to shun tainted gems. In 2006 industry leaders formed the Responsible Jewellery Council; it boycotts Burmese rubies and jade and has just finalised a code of practice for gem mining. But what we buy matters too. Going for green glass right now would deprive the Taleban of money for murder.

Rosemary Righter