...Produced by the UK-based NGO Global Witness, ‘Jade and the Generals’ follows the group’s undercover investigation in 2015, which revealed the gem trade to be worth up to $31 billion in 2014 alone, equal to 48% of Myanmar’s official GDP at the time.

The country’s rich natural resources fell prey to the country’s corrupt military, which, in the 1990s, consolidated the mining industry into the hands of a few well-connected elites.

According to Global Witness, the families of former military dictator Than Shwe, former ruling party general-secretary Maung Maung Thein and the former top general in Kachin State, Ohn Myint, hold multiple concessions that made them $220 million at the official government jade sale in 2014, and $67 million at the same event in 2013.

The money helps fuel the military’s ongoing conflict against the Kachin Independence Army/Kachin Independence Organisation (KIA/KIO), contributing to the country’s struggle to realise lasting peace...