Day 825: Pausing To Reflect On Mongolia's Economic Retreat

This is the eleventh article in eleven days on Mongolia penned by me. The focus has been on parallel stories that have unfolded in Mongolia since 2011. Three men's freedom has been put in ever greater jeopardy while Mongolia's economy, particularly its currency and foreign direct investment, have faltered. The legal case against former SouthGobi executives Justin Kapla, Hilarion Cajucom Jr., and Cristobal David - all detained 825 days or more - has shown flaws in Mongolia's legal system: that even breaches by its own prosecutors and judiciary of its own sovereign laws of due process can result in imprisonment. Almost equally shocking is reviewing investment analyst reports from 2011 and early 2012 about the Mongolian economy that could have been. Mongolia has not only fallen short of its potential but it succeeded in ticking the boxes of nearly every potential economic, political and social risk buried in the short "although this sounds great this is how things could go wrong" sections of glowing investment reports on the country.