by SAMYA KULLAB
Associated Press
A Buddha statue inside an ancient temple is seen in this 2010 file photo taken in the Mes Aynak Valley, south of Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)
MESS AINAK, Afghanistan (AP) — The ancient Buddha sits in silent meditation in a cave carved into the russet cliffs of rural Afghanistan. Below a few hundred meters is what is believed to be the largest copper deposit in the world.
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are counting on Beijing to turn this wealthy bloodline into revenue to save the cash-starved country amid severe international sanctions.
The warrior standing on the rocky hillside may have thought about destroying the Tao Buddha. Twenty years ago, when the Islamist hardline Taliban first took power, they blew up giant Buddha statues in another part of the country, sparking outrage from the world that they were remnants of infidelity that must be removed.
But now they intend to protect the remains of the Mes Aynak copper mine.
Doing so is key to unlocking billions in Chinese investment, said Hakumullah Mubariz, the site’s Taliban security chief.
“Protecting them is very important to us and the Chinese,” he said.
The Taliban’s stunning reversal illustrates the power of Afghanistan’s untapped mining sector. Successive authorities have seen the country’s estimated $1 trillion worth of mineral resources as the key to a prosperous future, but no one has been able to exploit them amid ongoing war and violence. Now, several countries, including Iran, Russia and Turkey, are seeking investment to fill the vacuum left by the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.
But Beijing is the most assertive. In Mes Aynak, it could become the first major power to implement a large-scale project in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, potentially redrawing the geopolitical map of Asia.
In 2008, Hamid Karzai’s previous government signed a 30-year contract with a Chinese joint venture called MCC to mine high-grade copper from Mes Aynak.
Studies have shown that the site holds up to 12 million tons of minerals. But the project was bogged down by logistical and contractual issues, and it never made it through some of its initial test silos when Chinese staff left in 2014 amid ongoing violence.
Just months after the Taliban seized the capital in August and consolidated its power over the country, the group’s newly appointed acting minister of mines and oil, Shahbuddin Dilawar, urged his staff to re-engage with Chinese state-owned enterprises.
Dilawar has held two virtual meetings with the MCC in the past six months, according to company and department officials. He urged them to return to the mine, with the terms unchanged from the 2008 contract.
In the coming weeks, MCC’s technical committee will be established in Kabul to address remaining hurdles. Repositioning the workpiece is key. But MCC is also seeking to renegotiate terms, notably tax cuts and slashing the contract’s 19.5 percent royalty rate by nearly half, or the percentage it should pay the government for every ton of copper sold.
“Chinese companies think the current situation is ideal for them. There is a lack of international competitors and there is a lot of support from the government,” said Ziad Rashidi, head of foreign relations at the foreign ministry.
China’s ambassador to Afghanistan said talks were ongoing, but that’s about it.
The acquisition of rare minerals is key to Beijing’s status as a global manufacturing powerhouse.
For Afghanistan, the Mes Aynak contract could generate $25-300 million in annual revenue for the country, a 17 percent increase, and $800 million in fees over the life of the contract, according to government and company officials. That’s a substantial sum as the country grapples with widespread poverty.
But there is a problem.
In Mes Aynak, a 2,000-year-old Buddhist city sits uncomfortably next to a potential economic engine. Afghanistan’s turbulent modern history has hindered archaeological exploration and mine development.
Discovered by French geologists in the 1960s, the site is considered an important stop along the Silk Road for centuries in the early AD.
After the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s, the Russians dug tunnels along the mountain to survey copper mines; the cavernous boreholes are still visible. These were later used as al-Qaeda hideouts, and at least one was bombed by the United States in 2001.
Looters then looted many antiquities from the site. Still, archaeologists who came here in 2004 did part of the excavation and found the remains of a huge complex.
To the alarm of the non-Taliban technocrats in his own department, Dillawal worked to save the site. He dismissed plans for surface mining that would be completely razed to the ground. The MCC believes that the alternative to underground mining is too expensive. The Ministry of Culture was tasked with coming up with a plan to relocate the artifacts, most likely to the Kabul Museum.
“We’ve moved some (artifacts) to the capital, and we’re working on moving the rest so that mining work can begin,” Deiraval told The Associated Press.
While the ministry is optimistic about a deal, MCC officials are cautious.
They did not speak formally with the AP, citing the sensitivity of the talks at a time when international sanctions still prohibit dealing with the Taliban.
In the ministry’s tangled halls, hopeful investors lined up, documents ready to make claims over Afghanistan’s untapped mineral resources.
The people knocking on Rashidi’s office these days are Russians, Iranians, Turks and, of course, Chinese.
All are “rushing to invest,” he said. He said China’s interest was “extraordinary”.
The ministry’s revenue has grown exponentially, from $1.2 million in the year before the Taliban took over to $67 million in the six months after the Taliban took power, according to documents seen by The Associated Press. Ironically, for more than a decade, it was the Taliban who hindered Mes Aynak’s work.
An MCC official recalled that the road to the mine was littered with improvised explosive devices aimed at Afghan forces and NATO allies. When his Taliban hosts told him they were safe and ready to go back to work, he jokingly replied: “Isn’t it you who attacked us?”
The men with machine guns around their necks laughed too.
