Rubies Are Swelling the War Coffers of Cambodia’s Feared Khmer Rouge Rebels

The war coffers of Cambodia’s feared Khmer Rouge continue to swell thanks to thousands of rubies that start their long trail to the world’s most famous shops in this booming Thai border town.

The rubies, packed into small plastic bags, come from the gem-rich Pailin area, controlled by the Khmer Rouge, just over the border in Cambodia.

The Khmer Rouge, which slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people during its bloody reign, were overthrown when Vietnam invaded Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1978. They have been battling ever since to regain power, and, with an estimated 20,000 fighting troops and 15,000 porters, it is an expensive war.

Every day an estimated $1.6 million is traded in gems in the two tiny markets in Bo Rai, and dealers judge the Khmer Rouge’s cut to be worth a million dollars a month.

“For the Khmer Rouge the Pailin gem business is like a license to print money. It is like their own personal bank and it is full of hard currency,” said one Bangkok-based diplomat.

Pailin rubies are considered to be among the best in the world. The Cambodian war has only boosted their value.

“The gems business has always been surrounded by romance and mystery, and the Pailin stone has that little bit of extra magic,” one international dealer said.

“They are dug out by hand by the workers as shells go whistling overhead. People get killed getting them. Right or wrong, that gives the rubies glamour,” he added.

Life is far from glamorous for the 9,000 miners, who walk daily across the border along a steeply rising dirt track, and for the 60,000 who stay in the Pailin mining area for up to two months.

The risk of becoming a war victim comes way down in the list of dangers for the miners, mostly Thais and Burmese, who face malaria and typhoid as they hack out the earth looking for the one ruby that might make their fortune.

Even before a single ruby is mined from the scores of new digs that start up almost daily, the Khmer Rouge vaults fill up.

To start work on a single cubic yard of earth requires a Khmer Rouge license costing 6,000 baht ($240)--a small fortune to most who swarm up and down the hill over the border.

Making their way into Cambodia past the Thai army checkpoints poses no problems. They carry Thai identity papers and are waved through. As they make the steep climb to the summit before plunging down the other side into the ruby-rich area, the track is flanked by makeshift stalls where local traders wheel and deal.

The stalls are only a couple of miles from the markets in Bo Rai, but that can work out to about 100-baht-a-kilometer profit for every 1,000-baht stone.

“I buy a stone off one of the miners for 1,000 baht and sell it in the market for 1,300 baht,” said one woman trader, who like most people on the shadowy side of the gem trade asked to remain anonymous.

She refused to say how many gems she bought each day, but said: “With around 9,000 people a day going back and forth there is plenty of business for everyone to make money.”

For the workers lacking the funds to buy a digging site, or preferring not to risk all on the hopes of finding enough of the rubies, there is the backbreaking job of “human fuel tanker.”

Laden with a 20-kilogram (44-pound) drum of diesel fuel on their backs, they make the long, slow torturous journey into the mining area to supply fuel for the growing number of mechanical diggers that are taking over.

Their profit depends on how strong they are. The profit margin rises the farther they can carry their load into Cambodia. The hardy few who reach deep into the Pailin area--12 miles--can sell their load for 1,200 baht ($48).

Gem experts estimate that there is about a 15-year supply of quality rubies in Pailin, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Intelligence services have received unconfirmed reports of Cambodian troops building up for an attack on the area in December.

“Tactically the Pailin area is nothing special, but from a cash point of view that is something different. It is money Phnom Penh could do with,” one intelligence expert said. “Wars are expensive.”

It is even more expensive for the Vietnamese-backed Phnom Penh government, which apart from the Khmer Rouge is also fighting two non-Communist guerrilla factions under Prince Norodom Sihanouk and former Prime Minister Son Sann, who boast of around 23,000 fighting troops between them.

While the Pailin rubies offer glamour to the jewelry-bedecked rich in the world’s major capitals, their real value here is to keep financing Cambodia’s war.