MES AYNAK, Afghanistan — It was another day on the rocky hillside, as archaeologists and laborers dug out statues of Buddha and excavated a sprawling 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery. A Chinese woman in slacks, carrying an umbrella against the Afghan sun, politely inquired about their progress.
She had more than a passing interest. The woman represents a Chinese company eager to develop the world's second-biggest unexploited copper mine, lying beneath the ruins.
The mine is the centerpiece of China's drive to invest in Afghanistan, a country trying to get its economy off the ground while still mired in war. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine – the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan by far – gets its foot in the door for future deals to exploit Afghanistan's largely untapped mineral wealth, including iron, gold and cobalt. The Afghan government stands to reap a potential $1.2 billion a year in revenues from the mine, as well as the creation of much-needed jobs.
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The ruins, including the monastery and domed shrines known as "stupas," will likely be largely destroyed once work at the mine begins.
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But under an informal understanding with the Kabul government, it has given archaeologists three years for a salvage excavation. Archaeologists working on the site since May say that won't be enough time for full preservation.
"That site is so massive that it's easily a 10-year campaign of archaeology," said Laura Tedesco, an archaeologist brought in by the U.S. Embassy to work on sites in Afghanistan. Three years may be enough time just to document what's there, she said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/chinese-copper-mine-afghanistan-mes-aynak-_n_783315.html
The angle on this article is the archeological destruction.. what I find just as interesting is that China is so far ahead of the US in getting access to the Afghan mineral wealth. For all we know we could be at war with China in ten or twenty years, so is this what our soldiers are dying for? To open a new market for CHINA???
Anyhow.. hopefully the archeologists have enough time to find and save a few artifacts before China blows it all up to get at the copper.