It is generally agreed that economy is the basis for social development. But we would be wise to remember that economy cannot stand alone and that natural resources are in their turn the basis for economy, not the other way around. It doesn’t matter how much investments we pour into projects if the necessary natural resources are not available. Investments cannot create energy, chemical elements, nor minerals. And when natural resources dwindle, like in so many cases today, economy suffers.
On the other hand, countries with abundant natural resources are – all other things being equal – in a better position to flourish economically. But they need not do so. All sorts of problems can prevent a country from utilizing its natural resources, like colonial plundering, ethnic conflicts, ignorance, or lack of investments. Indeed, most developing countries exhibit some of these characteristics where abundant natural resources are offset by external factors or by their social or governmental systems.
In the case of Afghanistan, we see a mixture of all the above mentioned as well as several other factors, preventing Afghanistan in using its vast natural resources for economic development.
To reverse this trend we need to develop the geological politics of Afghanistan, i.e. to rethink policy according to Afghanistan’s natural resources. Geological politics is a national plan for the development of the economy of the country, based upon the measurement of important natural resources. Such development will in turn also develop politics and culture, eventually changing the life of the whole population for the better.
We therefore need a real and practical plan for using economic minerals and geological resources to develop businesses locally and with international cooperation, to develop the country´s economy and culture, in order to improve political decision-making, and in the end to strengthen the Afghan state in order to increase regional stability.
This definition of geological politics may not cover all countries around the world, but it may be valid for most countries with abundant natural resources and social or government systems detrimental to the well-being of the people.
With Afghanistan, we see many types of problems like ethnics, languages, religions, social positions, directions, political parties and etc. If you can solve one or two of these problems, the remaining ones will take center stage as the country’s main conflicts, eventually reviving the defunct conflict once again, and the cycle of these conflicts repeats itself over time again and again.
By the strategy of geological politics, however, we are able to eliminate and destroy all these kinds of problems and to create new values for life so that all have the same gain and loss, the same social rights and role relative to the geological resources and amounts of products, in order to live peacefully together as one nation.
This way, a dynamic long-term policy can be forged, based upon laws of nature; not upon ethnics, religion, race, party, or other type which have failed over time or were just good for one group or a special type of people or nation for a short time. The majority of political systems in control of such countries right now are dictatorships, running into increasing problems with their own populations, like the people of Middle East standing against these different political systems and overthrowing one after another by "Arab springs" or "Arabic revolutions".
As an example of how the Afghan government can use the country's resources, I will suggests that for a start it could use the energy of the large coal energy resources in central Afghanistan to melt the Hajigak iron ore rocks, only about 10 km distance from one another. This would be a realistic plan based upon the country's geological resources and other options available to the Afghan government today (almost all countries are ready to help the Karzai regime).
A good forge for melting material would be the tungsten (or molybdenum) that has a melting point (3,422 C or 6,192 F [33], and the melting point for hematite (that make about 62% of Hajigak mine) is between 1,475 - 1,565 C). Tungsten is thus having special characteristics to make it as crucible in that it has the highest melting point of all metals, high strength against high temperature, good conductivity for heat and electricity and high absorption capacity for radioactive radiation and X-rays. Its uses are in medical, printing, connectors, technical research, and many others areas of industry. It will be found in Badakhshan, Baghlan, Bamyan, Wardak, Gazni, Zabul, Kandahar and Farah provinces in type of veins, shear zones and skarn that has hosted in Proterozicum age [34]. So, after this, the country will own the largest steel industri in the Middle East and in the south of Asia, able to create thousands of jobs, and each job will in turn create new trade relations and a new consumer culture!
Correspondingly, we can identify other geological resources that products depend on, the utilization of which can be used as a means to develop local economy and culture.
In this definition a geologist is not just a geologist in the traditional sense, as a tool for whatever interest may prevail, because today he/she is having also an ethical responsibility to defend against people that use the natural products and phenomena with only their own desires and interests in mind. In another word; only a geologist with a knowledge of the Earth´s materials also knows about the quantities and qualities, effects and values of the minerals in a broader sense. What is needed now is that the geologists come out of the closet and into the battlefield, confronting people responsible for current misuse of materials.
Otherwise, statesmen will continue to use nature wrongly against their own people, their country, and its economic progress and development.
Most of us know about economic problems (financial crisis), atomic problems (North Korea, Pakistan and Iran for example) and climate change, but most of the Worlds population do not recognize the main role of natural materials in relation to even daily products, and politicians are using the products against other nations.
Who discovered and produced the uranium? And who utilized it in the production of nuclear energy or nuclear bombs? And who measures the power of these things? Of course scientists, basically geologists, but who will use it? Statesmen or political leaders who know nothing about it!
So who is to blame? What is defining a terrorist? If a person officially or unofficially helps political leaders to kill civilians or to eliminate and destroy a nation, is he/she not a terrorist? And if not, so what do you call him/her?
Most people of Asia believe and accept the unchangable character and eternity of many things. But their views do not necessarily agree with the laws of Nature. When confronted by the laws of nature, we must necessarily forget these ideas, habits, and every law and system, so far based upon sand, and we must understand and adapt to the conditions of the present and the future!
Now is the time to change the Worlds political structures and systems of leadership. There are two ways:
With this goal in mind, geology must be divided into many specific parts, like mineral and non-mineral resources, and sub-parts of each of them, for example with minerals divided into metallic and non-metallic, fuel and non-fuel etc. Each of these parts must be managed by professional groups, but governed according to the overall purpose to create a self-sufficient and a self-reliant government and to define a unique nation for a country, like Afghanistan.
Each the defined committees, responsible for each part of geology, must publish the results of their research and their proposals for resource policy into an organic system, organised within a center, for everybody understanding and sharing a common knowledge, in order for a democratic government to make decisions on the production and use of ressources.
But unfortunately, we know, it never happened in Afghanistan in the past. The people of Afghanistan have been accepting as well as a fact that all mines in Afghanistan belonged to the King and his family or his clan (until 1978), and after that to one party by the name of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), owning all mines and geological resources, and giving grants, licenses, and concession permission to the USSR, which transported oil and gas from northern part of Afghanistan to the USSR. Sometimes the pipelines broke down, because the pressure was very high because the USSR wanted to transport the resources very fast. After that, the clan-party or ethnic party came to the power (the Mujahedin government in 1992). They explored some of the mines, especially in the northern and northeastern parts of the country, and with very brutal methods, namely by way of dynamite explosions, obtaining very small quantities in relation to the mass exploded. For example one pound or one kilo produced from many tons of lapis - the rest is exploded into dust.
Fig.(4-A) Detonated dynamite shoots rocks and dust out of an emerald mine in the mountains above the Panjshir Valley village of Khenj, Afghanistan [35].
For now (2011), all natural resources of Afghanistan are owned solely by the government, and now these mines are put to sale and auction so that the future owners (mostly foreigners) have a free hand to explore and use the mines without any scientific, economic, and political controls, all because of the unprofessional Karzai government and its corrupt ministers, thinking only of themselves and their position.
The problem is that the corrupted Karzai government has a focus on economic minerals like copper, zinc, aluminum, iron, manganese, chromium, cobalt, gold, lead etc. It is feared, that the mines of these minerals may become empty, if the government find success to their business.
The present situation in Afghanistan is very complex. But if the government of Afghanistan wants to establish itself as an independent one, which is a prerequisite for the future economy and politics of this country, they must recognize the mineral demands of the World market and then produce and export it themselves. I will call these minerals “strategic minerals”, in that they may be the basis for saving the country from widespread or multiple affinities.
Another problem is the unusable education system; meaning that school and other education systems materials are not fitting with the real situation of the country. The task of the government is therefore to educate young people into modern technology. This would be a guarantee for an independent and self-dependent future Afghanistan.
People like this are evidently not what Afghanistan needs in order to develop its natural ressources, economy and culture.
Afghanistan is rich in minerals, discovered and undiscovered. It is generally a good idea to distinguish between mineral resources and mineral reserves. The term "resource" refers to hypothetical and speculative, undiscovered, sub economic mineral deposits or an undiscovered deposit of unknown economics. "Reserves" are concentrations of a usable mineral or energy commodity, which can be economically and legally extracted at the time of evaluation [36].
By this definition it is stupid that the Afghan government and special mining minister Mr. Wahidullah Sharani today poses like a salesman, offering the minerals of the country (both reserves and resources) to companies and industrials of the World, like in China, US, India and Iran!
Copper and iron as a feed for industry was used directly proportional to the increase in demand and consumed by the population before and after the World War II until today, and therefore many mineral mines around the world are depleting rapidly [36]. So, it is rational for the large industries around the World to re-open mines like in Afghanistan (c.f. contract between Afghan government and Chinese industry about the Aynak mine in the Logar province south of Kabul).
Some website as [37] published: “There is a massive copper deposit located in Balkhab district of Saripul (North Afghanistan) province, Sharani told reporters in Kabul today at a joint press conference with U.S. deputy under secretary of defense Paul Brinkley. It is valued at billions of U.S. dollars and one of the biggest untapped copper mines in Afghanistan.” And continued: ”This new copper discovery is bigger than current Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, southeast of Kabul, according to a report published by the GSA today (1/31/2011).”
And now the mine minister of the Afghan government is trying to sell the largest iron mine in the area (Hajegak or Aajagak) in Bamyan province West of Kabul to some industries, who may pay like USD 400 million per year to Karzai’s government!? This mine has 1769.9 million tones with ca. 62% hematite, [38] se table (1), which means best quality iron ore. Not a good deal at all!
Table 1. Identified iron resources at Hajigak following Afghan-Soviet exploration in the 1960s [38].
Maybe the policy of the Afghan government is characteristic for the corruption system polluting the Hamid Karzai government. They do not understand yet, that the cause of strife and war today, and during the past 30 years in Afghanistan, is about the ownership of the mineral resources and reserves around this country. The Karzai regime also does not know that their ownership may give them power to industrialize and develop on the commercial market, or minimum they may use it to their advantage as a powerful political bargaining chip.
It is not difficult to develop the mines in Afghanistan, which is what apparently the Karzai regime fears when giving them away to foreigners; actually, they can use the coal mines as wheels or energy supply to melt the iron mine that is deposited almost in the same area (about 10 km apart).
If we look around in our homes, almost everything is made from mineral products, and in most of them you can see the metals. The great industrial nations, the powerful political regimes, and the strongest military establishments around the world, owe their independence to their supplies of diversified mineral resources and their self-control in using it. We can see some countries like in the Middle East being based upon just their petroleum reserves, but each has self-control over their reserves.
The Karzai regime, on the other hand, does not know anything about the multifaceted role of Afghan mineral resources, especially economic minerals, about the values, costs, long-term capital investment, reserves, distribution, ownership, and international flow of minerals, being some of the factors of these minerals.
Actually, this regime does not have a real plan for economic development. For example, if you ask them about the next five years economic plan for the country, maybe they will be reporting on education at least five years ago, or telling you about imported stuffs as an ambition of theirs, for example imported electricity from Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, or oil and gas from Iran or Turkmenistan, or other stuffs from Pakistan and so on, in contrast to which the Afghan export is only rugs and fruits to some countries!
The Karzai regime does not realize that the real and potential resources of the country can be used and organized for change, and the mining ministry has only some general information about mineral resources many years before (1960s).
The vast scale of Afghanistan´s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists, maintaining that the USA has measured nearly $ 1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
After this announcement, the Afghan Mining Minister Wahedullah Shahrani flew around the world to sell these potential resources, instead of making an efficient plan (I’m really confused when hearing that Mr. Wahedullah Shahrani was educated as an economist in England?). This enormous potential could gradually change Afghanistans future to a rich one, giving it an important role in the area and maybe in the world.
The previously unknown deposits include huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial meals like lithium – so big that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, United States officials believe [39]. This source continues that an internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and tablets.
The figure below (5) shows where some of the economic mineral sources in Afghanistan are located (click to enlarge).
Fig.(5) Geographical map in which the principal mineralized areas are marked and with an estimation of the potential values [39].
The total value of the minerals in this figure is $ 908 billion, and it was Monday June 14, 2010, when most of the major news media of the World announced: “The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials [40]. Later the Afghan government pretended that the US claim about the mineral resources is not a discovery, and that before this announcement, the main information about the mineral resources in Afghanistan within the archive of the mining ministry, that in fact the value of minerals in Afghanistan is more than $1 trillion (recently Wahidullah Sharani, the Afghan mining minister, has emphazised that the minerals in Afghanistan has a value of $3 trillion [41]. For example only three billion cubic meter coal filled the northern area in Afghanistan. Before that, [42] Bloomberg, Eltaf Najafizada (1/31/11) published: “Afghan Minister Wahidullah Sharani said geologists have discovered untapped mineral deposits worth an estimated $3 trillion.”
This huge economic potential is of course amazing. Conversely, it affected Karzai’s corrupt team, and the Karzai government could also be strenghtened by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control over the resources. Just in 2009, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine [43]. This newspaper added more about competition and challenge between USA and China, and USA worrying: At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistans mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in the Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said. The New York Times writer gave this information about the Afghan capacity to use this big wealth: Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley (photo in Fig. 6) said. “No one knows how this will work”. Jack Medlin, a geologist of USGS said “This is a country that has no mining culture. They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”
Fig (6) Mr. Paul A. Brinkley serves as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense and Director of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations.
Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge. “No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley.
This newspaper claimed that the Pentagon is helping Afghan officials to arrange start seeking bids on mineral rights by fall (2011), officials said. “The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this, “Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.” Again, we have the amazing fact that Mr. Wahidullah Sharani, minister of Afghanistan Mining Ministry is claiming that he was taught economics in some London university!
After the mineral wealth news the Karzai team becomes more and more avaricious as how to theft this huge mineral wealth, by using their governing positions, whilst the Afghan economy is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the USA and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
Afghanistan is one of the richest countries of the World in mineral resources, but this country uses the minerals like ancient people used flint, chert, quartz, obsidian, quartzite, soapstone, and limestone, for utensils, and for carving. Clay as today in Afghanistan was widely and extensively used, first for pottery and then for bricks. In another word, Afghanistan is satisfied with the ancient and primitive knowledge about the use of economic minerals. Therefore, the mineral resources have remained largely intact.
There are no intentions or plans for change. The Afghan governments are made and woven out of the people by the delusioned will from which they come to government and power, but remain busy with their personal desires or private business, or involved with their ethnic or religious or political collusion, so that they forget others, which is why today all people are calling this government a corrupt one!
---
[33] C. R. Hammond (2004). The Elements, in Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 81st edition. CRC press. ISBN 0849304857.
[34] USGS-Mines and Mineral Occurrences of Afghanistan 2002.
[35] http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/emeralds-of-afghanistan/.
[36] Economic Mineral Deposits Meda L. Jensen & Alan M. Bateman, 1981).
[37] http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/8469
[38] Afghan-Soviet exploration in the 1960s.
[39] The New York Times published June 13, 2010.
[40] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources.
[41] From Ariana TV news 17-7-2011.
[42] Bloomberg, Eltaf Najafizada (1/31/11).
([43] The New York Times, published June 13-2010.
afgeopol@gmail.com
On the other hand, countries with abundant natural resources are – all other things being equal – in a better position to flourish economically. But they need not do so. All sorts of problems can prevent a country from utilizing its natural resources, like colonial plundering, ethnic conflicts, ignorance, or lack of investments. Indeed, most developing countries exhibit some of these characteristics where abundant natural resources are offset by external factors or by their social or governmental systems.
In the case of Afghanistan, we see a mixture of all the above mentioned as well as several other factors, preventing Afghanistan in using its vast natural resources for economic development.
To reverse this trend we need to develop the geological politics of Afghanistan, i.e. to rethink policy according to Afghanistan’s natural resources. Geological politics is a national plan for the development of the economy of the country, based upon the measurement of important natural resources. Such development will in turn also develop politics and culture, eventually changing the life of the whole population for the better.
This definition of geological politics may not cover all countries around the world, but it may be valid for most countries with abundant natural resources and social or government systems detrimental to the well-being of the people.
With Afghanistan, we see many types of problems like ethnics, languages, religions, social positions, directions, political parties and etc. If you can solve one or two of these problems, the remaining ones will take center stage as the country’s main conflicts, eventually reviving the defunct conflict once again, and the cycle of these conflicts repeats itself over time again and again.
By the strategy of geological politics, however, we are able to eliminate and destroy all these kinds of problems and to create new values for life so that all have the same gain and loss, the same social rights and role relative to the geological resources and amounts of products, in order to live peacefully together as one nation.
This way, a dynamic long-term policy can be forged, based upon laws of nature; not upon ethnics, religion, race, party, or other type which have failed over time or were just good for one group or a special type of people or nation for a short time. The majority of political systems in control of such countries right now are dictatorships, running into increasing problems with their own populations, like the people of Middle East standing against these different political systems and overthrowing one after another by "Arab springs" or "Arabic revolutions".
As an example of how the Afghan government can use the country's resources, I will suggests that for a start it could use the energy of the large coal energy resources in central Afghanistan to melt the Hajigak iron ore rocks, only about 10 km distance from one another. This would be a realistic plan based upon the country's geological resources and other options available to the Afghan government today (almost all countries are ready to help the Karzai regime).
A good forge for melting material would be the tungsten (or molybdenum) that has a melting point (3,422 C or 6,192 F [33], and the melting point for hematite (that make about 62% of Hajigak mine) is between 1,475 - 1,565 C). Tungsten is thus having special characteristics to make it as crucible in that it has the highest melting point of all metals, high strength against high temperature, good conductivity for heat and electricity and high absorption capacity for radioactive radiation and X-rays. Its uses are in medical, printing, connectors, technical research, and many others areas of industry. It will be found in Badakhshan, Baghlan, Bamyan, Wardak, Gazni, Zabul, Kandahar and Farah provinces in type of veins, shear zones and skarn that has hosted in Proterozicum age [34]. So, after this, the country will own the largest steel industri in the Middle East and in the south of Asia, able to create thousands of jobs, and each job will in turn create new trade relations and a new consumer culture!
Correspondingly, we can identify other geological resources that products depend on, the utilization of which can be used as a means to develop local economy and culture.
In this definition a geologist is not just a geologist in the traditional sense, as a tool for whatever interest may prevail, because today he/she is having also an ethical responsibility to defend against people that use the natural products and phenomena with only their own desires and interests in mind. In another word; only a geologist with a knowledge of the Earth´s materials also knows about the quantities and qualities, effects and values of the minerals in a broader sense. What is needed now is that the geologists come out of the closet and into the battlefield, confronting people responsible for current misuse of materials.
Otherwise, statesmen will continue to use nature wrongly against their own people, their country, and its economic progress and development.
Most of us know about economic problems (financial crisis), atomic problems (North Korea, Pakistan and Iran for example) and climate change, but most of the Worlds population do not recognize the main role of natural materials in relation to even daily products, and politicians are using the products against other nations.
Who discovered and produced the uranium? And who utilized it in the production of nuclear energy or nuclear bombs? And who measures the power of these things? Of course scientists, basically geologists, but who will use it? Statesmen or political leaders who know nothing about it!
So who is to blame? What is defining a terrorist? If a person officially or unofficially helps political leaders to kill civilians or to eliminate and destroy a nation, is he/she not a terrorist? And if not, so what do you call him/her?
Most people of Asia believe and accept the unchangable character and eternity of many things. But their views do not necessarily agree with the laws of Nature. When confronted by the laws of nature, we must necessarily forget these ideas, habits, and every law and system, so far based upon sand, and we must understand and adapt to the conditions of the present and the future!
Now is the time to change the Worlds political structures and systems of leadership. There are two ways:
- Geologists must be leaders, or
- The people and their leaders must learn geology.
With this goal in mind, geology must be divided into many specific parts, like mineral and non-mineral resources, and sub-parts of each of them, for example with minerals divided into metallic and non-metallic, fuel and non-fuel etc. Each of these parts must be managed by professional groups, but governed according to the overall purpose to create a self-sufficient and a self-reliant government and to define a unique nation for a country, like Afghanistan.
Each the defined committees, responsible for each part of geology, must publish the results of their research and their proposals for resource policy into an organic system, organised within a center, for everybody understanding and sharing a common knowledge, in order for a democratic government to make decisions on the production and use of ressources.
But unfortunately, we know, it never happened in Afghanistan in the past. The people of Afghanistan have been accepting as well as a fact that all mines in Afghanistan belonged to the King and his family or his clan (until 1978), and after that to one party by the name of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), owning all mines and geological resources, and giving grants, licenses, and concession permission to the USSR, which transported oil and gas from northern part of Afghanistan to the USSR. Sometimes the pipelines broke down, because the pressure was very high because the USSR wanted to transport the resources very fast. After that, the clan-party or ethnic party came to the power (the Mujahedin government in 1992). They explored some of the mines, especially in the northern and northeastern parts of the country, and with very brutal methods, namely by way of dynamite explosions, obtaining very small quantities in relation to the mass exploded. For example one pound or one kilo produced from many tons of lapis - the rest is exploded into dust.
Fig.(4-A) Detonated dynamite shoots rocks and dust out of an emerald mine in the mountains above the Panjshir Valley village of Khenj, Afghanistan [35].
For now (2011), all natural resources of Afghanistan are owned solely by the government, and now these mines are put to sale and auction so that the future owners (mostly foreigners) have a free hand to explore and use the mines without any scientific, economic, and political controls, all because of the unprofessional Karzai government and its corrupt ministers, thinking only of themselves and their position.
The problem is that the corrupted Karzai government has a focus on economic minerals like copper, zinc, aluminum, iron, manganese, chromium, cobalt, gold, lead etc. It is feared, that the mines of these minerals may become empty, if the government find success to their business.
The present situation in Afghanistan is very complex. But if the government of Afghanistan wants to establish itself as an independent one, which is a prerequisite for the future economy and politics of this country, they must recognize the mineral demands of the World market and then produce and export it themselves. I will call these minerals “strategic minerals”, in that they may be the basis for saving the country from widespread or multiple affinities.
But not, if the mining minister of Afghanistan travels around the World, announcing mine auctions or mines sales, a typical example of the actions of what I call "the Mafia of mines"!
Actually, the Karzai mining minister seems ignorant about the fundamental role of the iron ore industry during the last 60 years growth of the steel industries around the World, so important for many countries for developing their economy and policy.
Another problem is the unusable education system; meaning that school and other education systems materials are not fitting with the real situation of the country. The task of the government is therefore to educate young people into modern technology. This would be a guarantee for an independent and self-dependent future Afghanistan.
But the education minister is satisfied with the old and unrealistic system, the regime is thinking only in terms of quantity, like how many are made able to read, no matter what they read. What is needed is evidently a new period with actual changes in curriculum, by which educated Afghan people will be able to communicate and integrate with the education systems of the developed World, in the end also with World economy. The present international aid with the Afghan education system is doing the exact opposite of this: They are creating only necktie Talibans, like the present minister for education in Afghanistan, Farooq Wardak, who presently changed the name of a Kabul high school from a female name to a male one!
Afghanistan is rich in minerals, discovered and undiscovered. It is generally a good idea to distinguish between mineral resources and mineral reserves. The term "resource" refers to hypothetical and speculative, undiscovered, sub economic mineral deposits or an undiscovered deposit of unknown economics. "Reserves" are concentrations of a usable mineral or energy commodity, which can be economically and legally extracted at the time of evaluation [36].
By this definition it is stupid that the Afghan government and special mining minister Mr. Wahidullah Sharani today poses like a salesman, offering the minerals of the country (both reserves and resources) to companies and industrials of the World, like in China, US, India and Iran!
Copper and iron as a feed for industry was used directly proportional to the increase in demand and consumed by the population before and after the World War II until today, and therefore many mineral mines around the world are depleting rapidly [36]. So, it is rational for the large industries around the World to re-open mines like in Afghanistan (c.f. contract between Afghan government and Chinese industry about the Aynak mine in the Logar province south of Kabul).
Some website as [37] published: “There is a massive copper deposit located in Balkhab district of Saripul (North Afghanistan) province, Sharani told reporters in Kabul today at a joint press conference with U.S. deputy under secretary of defense Paul Brinkley. It is valued at billions of U.S. dollars and one of the biggest untapped copper mines in Afghanistan.” And continued: ”This new copper discovery is bigger than current Aynak copper deposit in Logar province, southeast of Kabul, according to a report published by the GSA today (1/31/2011).”
And now the mine minister of the Afghan government is trying to sell the largest iron mine in the area (Hajegak or Aajagak) in Bamyan province West of Kabul to some industries, who may pay like USD 400 million per year to Karzai’s government!? This mine has 1769.9 million tones with ca. 62% hematite, [38] se table (1), which means best quality iron ore. Not a good deal at all!
Table 1. Identified iron resources at Hajigak following Afghan-Soviet exploration in the 1960s [38].
Maybe the policy of the Afghan government is characteristic for the corruption system polluting the Hamid Karzai government. They do not understand yet, that the cause of strife and war today, and during the past 30 years in Afghanistan, is about the ownership of the mineral resources and reserves around this country. The Karzai regime also does not know that their ownership may give them power to industrialize and develop on the commercial market, or minimum they may use it to their advantage as a powerful political bargaining chip.
It is not difficult to develop the mines in Afghanistan, which is what apparently the Karzai regime fears when giving them away to foreigners; actually, they can use the coal mines as wheels or energy supply to melt the iron mine that is deposited almost in the same area (about 10 km apart).
If we look around in our homes, almost everything is made from mineral products, and in most of them you can see the metals. The great industrial nations, the powerful political regimes, and the strongest military establishments around the world, owe their independence to their supplies of diversified mineral resources and their self-control in using it. We can see some countries like in the Middle East being based upon just their petroleum reserves, but each has self-control over their reserves.
The Karzai regime, on the other hand, does not know anything about the multifaceted role of Afghan mineral resources, especially economic minerals, about the values, costs, long-term capital investment, reserves, distribution, ownership, and international flow of minerals, being some of the factors of these minerals.
Actually, this regime does not have a real plan for economic development. For example, if you ask them about the next five years economic plan for the country, maybe they will be reporting on education at least five years ago, or telling you about imported stuffs as an ambition of theirs, for example imported electricity from Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, or oil and gas from Iran or Turkmenistan, or other stuffs from Pakistan and so on, in contrast to which the Afghan export is only rugs and fruits to some countries!
The Karzai regime does not realize that the real and potential resources of the country can be used and organized for change, and the mining ministry has only some general information about mineral resources many years before (1960s).
The vast scale of Afghanistan´s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists, maintaining that the USA has measured nearly $ 1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
After this announcement, the Afghan Mining Minister Wahedullah Shahrani flew around the world to sell these potential resources, instead of making an efficient plan (I’m really confused when hearing that Mr. Wahedullah Shahrani was educated as an economist in England?). This enormous potential could gradually change Afghanistans future to a rich one, giving it an important role in the area and maybe in the world.
The previously unknown deposits include huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial meals like lithium – so big that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, United States officials believe [39]. This source continues that an internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and tablets.
The figure below (5) shows where some of the economic mineral sources in Afghanistan are located (click to enlarge).
Fig.(5) Geographical map in which the principal mineralized areas are marked and with an estimation of the potential values [39].
The total value of the minerals in this figure is $ 908 billion, and it was Monday June 14, 2010, when most of the major news media of the World announced: “The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials [40]. Later the Afghan government pretended that the US claim about the mineral resources is not a discovery, and that before this announcement, the main information about the mineral resources in Afghanistan within the archive of the mining ministry, that in fact the value of minerals in Afghanistan is more than $1 trillion (recently Wahidullah Sharani, the Afghan mining minister, has emphazised that the minerals in Afghanistan has a value of $3 trillion [41]. For example only three billion cubic meter coal filled the northern area in Afghanistan. Before that, [42] Bloomberg, Eltaf Najafizada (1/31/11) published: “Afghan Minister Wahidullah Sharani said geologists have discovered untapped mineral deposits worth an estimated $3 trillion.”
This huge economic potential is of course amazing. Conversely, it affected Karzai’s corrupt team, and the Karzai government could also be strenghtened by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control over the resources. Just in 2009, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine [43]. This newspaper added more about competition and challenge between USA and China, and USA worrying: At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistans mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in the Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said. The New York Times writer gave this information about the Afghan capacity to use this big wealth: Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley (photo in Fig. 6) said. “No one knows how this will work”. Jack Medlin, a geologist of USGS said “This is a country that has no mining culture. They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”
Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge. “No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley.
This newspaper claimed that the Pentagon is helping Afghan officials to arrange start seeking bids on mineral rights by fall (2011), officials said. “The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this, “Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.” Again, we have the amazing fact that Mr. Wahidullah Sharani, minister of Afghanistan Mining Ministry is claiming that he was taught economics in some London university!
After the mineral wealth news the Karzai team becomes more and more avaricious as how to theft this huge mineral wealth, by using their governing positions, whilst the Afghan economy is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the USA and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.
Afghanistan is one of the richest countries of the World in mineral resources, but this country uses the minerals like ancient people used flint, chert, quartz, obsidian, quartzite, soapstone, and limestone, for utensils, and for carving. Clay as today in Afghanistan was widely and extensively used, first for pottery and then for bricks. In another word, Afghanistan is satisfied with the ancient and primitive knowledge about the use of economic minerals. Therefore, the mineral resources have remained largely intact.
There are no intentions or plans for change. The Afghan governments are made and woven out of the people by the delusioned will from which they come to government and power, but remain busy with their personal desires or private business, or involved with their ethnic or religious or political collusion, so that they forget others, which is why today all people are calling this government a corrupt one!
---
[33] C. R. Hammond (2004). The Elements, in Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 81st edition. CRC press. ISBN 0849304857.
[34] USGS-Mines and Mineral Occurrences of Afghanistan 2002.
[35] http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/emeralds-of-afghanistan/.
[36] Economic Mineral Deposits Meda L. Jensen & Alan M. Bateman, 1981).
[37] http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/8469
[38] Afghan-Soviet exploration in the 1960s.
[39] The New York Times published June 13, 2010.
[40] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/14/say_what_afghanistan_has_1_trillion_in_untapped_mineral_resources.
[41] From Ariana TV news 17-7-2011.
[42] Bloomberg, Eltaf Najafizada (1/31/11).
([43] The New York Times, published June 13-2010.
afgeopol@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment