From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: NEWS/VN: Vietnam cashes in on "wild west" ruby town
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: N/A
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 14:21:54 GMT


08/15

VIETNAM CASHES IN ON ``WILD WEST'' RUBY TOWN

    By Kathleen Callo
    QUY CHAU, Vietnam, Aug 16, Reuter - The hysteria that followed the discovery
of rubies in Vietnam's impoverished Nghe An province turned the town of Quy Chau
into a scene from the "Wild West" last year.
    Tens of thousands of people flocked to stake claims. Tunnels dug with picks
and shovels collapsed, killing many miners. Gangs armed with AK-47 automatic
rifles, grenades and knives robbed miners. People fought to the death over ruby
finds.
    About 100 Vietnamese died in the "ruby rush" in this remote hilly area
before the government sent troops and police to clear out the prospectors, says
Nguyen Xuan Hanh, an official of a state-run precious stones company.
    "It took them four months to clear everyone out," he said in an interview in
Quy Chau. The government closed the area to foreigners last year, Hanh said.
    Now there are four state-run companies in Quy Chau mining rubies, and things
have calmed.
    Businessmen from Thailand, France, Italy, Australia and Japan regularly
check into the "Huu Nghi" (Friendship) Hotel in Vinh, the provincial capital a
bumpy three hours' drive from Quy Chau, to attend the ruby auction held each
Wednesday.
    One of the four companies, the "Nghe An Precious Stone Enterprise," produced
rubies worth three billion dong ($270,000) last April and May. It expects to
make three times that during the entire year, deputy director Doan Van Cung said
in a recent interview at the mine.
    Nearby, workers hosed down a dry river bed with a water gun that sent stones
rattling downhill, where they were sucked into a giant mechanised nozzle and
pushed through a 150-metre (yard)-long pipe and a series of sieves.
    Cung said business delegations from France, Italy, India and other countries
had visited the mine in recent months, and the company hoped to form a joint
venture with one of them.
    Security is tight, with guards comprising one-third of the company staff,
but freelancers still pan for rubies outside the area controlled by military
checkpoints.
    About 10 men sit by a stream near a rice paddy, each scooping handfuls of
dirt into round, flat baskets, then plunging the make-shift sieves through the
water.
    "I found a few (rubies), but they're small ones," said one sheepish man who
would not give his name.
    A woman sidled up to two visiting foreign journalists and surreptitiously
held out a small plastic bag containing shiny red stones.
    "Want to buy some?" she asked.
    Following the crackdown in Quy Chau, the government made it illegal to sell
rubies outside the state-run auctions.
    But smuggling and the black market flourish. Hanh said many Vietnamese
swallowed rubies to get them past checkpoints. Several Thai businessmen have
smuggled rubies out of Vietnam, local people said.
    Still, Quy Chau's rubies are a boon for Nghe An, one of Vietnam's poorest
provinces, where 85 per cent of the people are rice farmers.
    Vo Sy Hoa, head of the provincial international relations department, told
Reuters in Vinh that rubies were raising the standard of living and were
expected to become a major revenue earner for the local government.
    Other resources -- including gold, bauxite, tin, coal, rare earths and
mineral sands -- have attracted foreign investors to Vietnam, but joint ventures
have sometimes had disappointing results.
    Government officials in Quang Nam-Danang province, south of Nghe An,
recently refused to allow journalists to visit Bong Mieu gold mine, said to be
run by an Australian company and Vietnamese partner.
    The officials had several explanations -- the road was bad, there had been
floods, the boss was out of town.
    The real reason was the Australian company had found the gold mine was
exhausted long ago, during the French colonial period, foreign businessmen in
the provincial capital, Danang, told Reuters.
    They said the Vietnamese state-run company had tried unsuccessfully to get
the Australian firm to build a dike and expensive farming irrigation system --
saying that would provide environmental protection for the operation of the
mine.

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