The mysterious tale of the Qataris in the Gobi

The road to Khanbogd is not for the timid.

This weekend I went to Khanbogd, a little village in the Gobi Desert, to do some reporting on how the village is going to be affected by the massive copper/gold mine that is going to open next to it. It’s a tiny town in a really remote place: from the provincial capital, Dalanzadgad (already pretty out of the way), it’s more than four hours on a bumpy dirt road. My translator had called the mayor before we got there and he agreed to meet with us when we got into town. We arrived as it was getting dark, and went to the tiny city hall building. The mayor was walking out, and said he didn’t have time that night but would meet with us first thing next morning.

So we set about finding dinner, and discovered that there was no restaurant open in town (it was about 8 pm on a Saturday night). But there was a ger camp for tourists about 5 km (3 miles) from town, we were told, and we could probably get dinner there. Our driver got directions, and we set off to find it. We were warned that the road was bad, and that was an understatement. It really wasn’t a road at all, at best a path through incredibly boulder-y terrain. It was like being in a Jeep commercial, except it was completely dark outside. It obviously took a good amount of time to drive three miles through that sort of terrain, and it was feeling like one of the more remote places I’d ever been.

Sign in Khanbogd's center

When we found the camp, some of the staff came out with flashlights to help us find the restaurant. We walked in, and were amused to find that the only other patron was the mayor. But oddly, there was a table laid out for a small banquet. The waitress told us we could eat there, but first we’d have to wait about a half hour — and we couldn’t wait in the restaurant, we’d have to wait in a cabin outside. Hmm, OK. “The cabin is warmer and more comfortable, anyway,” we were told. Well, it was neither, but OK. After about a half hour, the waitress came and got us and brought us back to the restaurant.

Now, at the banquet table were three or four Arab men — one of them clearly in charge — in dishdashas and keffiyehs (i.e. Gulf-style garb), along with the mayor and a translator. They were being attended to by at least ten other Arab men who seemed to have cooked the food in the restaurant’s kitchen, and were eating a big-pile-of-rice-with-meat dish; it was Ramadan and they were eating their big after-dark meal.

Now, the presence of some rich Arabs with servants in the middle of nowhere certainly piqued our attention, and the fact that they were dining with the mayor was even more intriguing. But if they didn’t mind us seeing that, what the hell were they hiding from us for 30 minutes?

The mayor didn’t speak English, but the Arab spoke English and had a Mongolian-English translator. My Mongolian companions were probably even more curious than I was and we ate in silence as we tried, as subtly as possible, to eavesdrop. During dinner they seemed to just be discussing the ger camp, but after they finished (not long after we got there), the mayor and the Arab, his son and the translator moved to a smaller table, apparently to discuss whatever real business they had. “I have 15 trucks… three diesel tankers,” the Arab said. “We have a new president… do you have the environmental permits for that?” the mayor asked (through the translator).

The cultural center, not yet finished. Does not appear to have cost close to $300,000, incidentally.

The next day we got some more of the story, from people in town and the mayor. These guys were from Qatar, and they have been coming to Khanbogd to spend Ramadan — the entire month — for the last three years. No one knew why. I talked to the mayor, and he said that the main guy was a defense ministry official who first came to Mongolia for the annual Mongolian-Qatari joint military exercises, liked the natural beauty of Khanbogd, and so “signed a deal” to spend the next 30 Ramadans in Khanbogd. In return he had paid $300,000 to build a new cultural center. (I later happened to meet the Mongolian colonel in charge of foreign relations for the ministry of defense, and he said they were not Qatari defense officials.) Not wanting to cop to eavesdropping, I didn’t ask about the diesel tankers and environmental permits. No one in town bought the official explanation, but didn’t know anything more themselves.

So all of this left me with way more questions than answers, but they boil down to: who were these guys and what were they doing in Khanbogd? There is no obvious connection to the copper/gold mine. But there also is no obvious connection to anything else, either. The lesson, I guess, it that it’s a big, big world, and the more I learn about it the less I know.