Will 'Genocide Gems' Become The New Blood Diamonds?

Human-rights activists are targeting buyers of Myanmars rubies and sapphires.

- Sheridan Prasso

A little more than a year ago, Myanmar’s military carried out what the United Nations has called a campaign of genocide and war crimes against the Rohingya minority, driving almost 1 million people from their homes. The Trump administration announced limited sanctions against some top generals and their units in August, but the abuses have drawn few other punitive actions. Now human rights activists are revving up a global campaign seeking to pressure status-conscious jewelry retailers to stop buying precious gemstones that are mined primarily by military-linked businesses of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The goal: to make these so-called genocide gems as reviled by jewelry customers as the blood diamonds sourced from warlord-controlled conflict areas in Africa.

Starting in November, organizers plan to picket, pass out leaflets, and gather petition signatures outside the stores of luxury jeweler Bulgari SpA in Bangkok, Boston, Kuala Lumpur, London, New York, San Francisco, Washington, and other cities. Bulgari, a unit of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, features Burmese gems— considered among the world’s highest-quality rubies and sapphires—in its luxury jewelry collection. A Bulgari platinum and pavé- diamond necklace is centered by what its website calls a “breathtaking” 180-carat Burmese sapphire, for example, and a “Divas’ Dream” cocktail ring boasts a 4.5-carat Burmese sapphire. “The point of the campaign is to make the Burmese military see consequences for what they’ve done to the Rohingya in Rakhine state,” says Simon Billenness, executive director of the International Campaign for the Rohingya in Washington, who coined the term “genocide gems.”