Targeting ‘conflict diamonds’ in AfricaSecurity Council seeks to enforce sanctions against rebels, arms suppliersBy Michael Fleshman For generations, diamonds have been marketed around the world as tokens of power and love, adorning royal sceptres and lovers’ fingers alike. For some however, diamonds have a more utilitarian appeal. Easily concealed, immensely valuable and largely untraceable, stones from rebel-held mines have raised billions of dollars on world markets to finance insurgencies in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). For years these "conflict diamonds" have allowed rebel leaders to arm and equip their armies in violation of UN weapons and financial sanctions. But in recent months, the Security Council has mounted a determined campaign to halt the trade in conflict diamonds – launching investigations into the illicit trade in uncut diamonds from the three countries, naming individuals and countries suspected of trafficking in the stones and pressuring the secretive diamond industry to adopt measures to keep the gems out of the international marketplace. Against a widening debate about the humanitarian and economic impact of comprehensive trade sanctions on civilians and neighbouring states, the Council’s diamond campaign is part of an ongoing UN effort to make sanctions more selective, better targeted and more rigorously enforced instruments for the maintenance of international peace and security (see box). Diamonds and the RUF The Security Council initially focused on Angola, where UN investigators found that bartered diamonds allowed rebel leader Jonas Savimbi to re-equip his UNITA forces and resume the Angolan civil war in 1998 despite years of UN arms and financial sanctions (see box). The recent return to war in Sierra Leone lent added urgency to the effort. For nearly a decade uncut stones from rebel-controlled mines have financed the brutal campaign of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) to take power in the diamond-rich country. Under the terms of a 1999 peace accord, the RUF agreed to return the diamond fields to government control and its leader, Mr. Foday Sankoh, was placed in charge of mining operations in an interim, national-unity government.
In May 2000, RUF guerrillas re-ignited the conflict rather than surrender to UN peacekeepers the diamond fields that are the financial lifeline of their insurgency. On 5 July the Security Council, "expressing its concern at the role played by the illicit trade in diamonds in fueling the conflict in Sierra Leone," banned all sales of diamonds from Sierra Leone until the government established a certification system for legal exports. The Council also required states to prohibit the importation of Sierra Leonian stones, citing Liberia among Sierra Leone’s neighbours as a principal conduit for smuggled RUF diamonds, thus continuing the Council’s new willingness to name those suspected of profiting from African conflicts. "In adopting this draft resolution today," Sierra Leone Ambassador Ibrahim Kamara told Council members, "the Security Council will, for the first time, go to the root of the conflict in Sierra Leone … which is, and remains, diamonds, diamonds, diamonds." Mali Ambassador Moctar Ouane, however, was sharply critical of the resolution’s mention of Liberia, telling the Council that "this reference is unacceptable to ECOWAS," the West African regional body that has spearheaded international peacekeeping efforts. Noting that Liberian President Charles Taylor, along with other ECOWAS leaders, had played a role in the release of UN personnel captured by rebel forces, he explained, "We are concerned about the repercussions on the peace process of the finger-pointing at Liberia." On 6 October the Sierra Leone government announced that it had put in place the required certification procedure. But with many mines still under rebel control, Sierra Leone is unlikely to export sizable numbers of "clean" stones in the immediate future. Enlisting industry support In an effort to enlist the support of the diamond industry, the chairman of the Security Council sanctions committee, Canadian Ambassador Robert Fowler, traveled to Europe in 1999 for the first of a series of meetings with industry representatives on conflict-linked diamonds. It was an ambitious mission. It is extremely difficult to distinguish one uncut diamond from another, making it easy to mix illicit diamonds with legal stones. Moreover, the principal world market for uncut diamonds, Antwerp, is legendary for the laxity of its regulations on the handling of the stones – making it virtually impossible to determine their origins and ownership. According to a study on diamonds and conflict in Sierra Leone by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Partnership Africa Canada, Antwerp dealers routinely settle multi-million dollar transactions in cash and rarely offer receipts.
The South African diamond marketing cartel De Beers alone mines about half the world’s annual diamond output. It also controls as much as 80 per cent of global diamond sales through its Central Selling Organization, which purchases and stockpiles diamonds from other suppliers to keep availability low and prices high. De Beers was known to be a major purchaser of diamonds from Angola, Sierra Leone and other African conflict zones, although such stones are estimated to make up only 4 per cent of world output. De Beers had successfully resisted boycott pressures from anti-apartheid activists in the 1970s and 1980s and there seemed little reason to believe that the UN would be more successful. In contrast to previous efforts, however, there was growing consumer awareness of the link between diamonds and African conflicts in the US and Europe, where the overwhelming majority of diamond jewelry is sold. NGOs, including Partnership Africa Canada and Global Witness, had begun to campaign against "blood diamonds" in industrialized countries. Graphic press reports tying diamonds to the RUF’s particularly brutal insurgency in Sierra Leone began to appear in glossy Northern fashion magazines, threatening the industry’s expensively nurtured image in its core consumer base. The industry was more receptive, therefore, to Security Council calls for a global tracking system for uncut diamonds that would identify the origins of the stones, confirm their legal export from the country of origin and establish a paper trail of ownership. Addressing industry leaders at the World Diamond Congress in Antwerp on 18 July, Ambassador Fowler emphasized that the Council was eager to avoid damaging the legitimate diamond trade. But, he cautioned, "the diamond industry must take the lead, and be seen to be taking the lead, in demonstrating publicly that its products are conflict-free. To do otherwise would be to court commercial catastrophe." His message, apparently, was heard. On the following day the two principal industry associations, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association, adopted a joint proposal to establish a global certification programme for uncut diamonds. They declared that "the solution to the conflict diamonds problem is a moral imperative above all others." The resolution noted that private sector action against the stones "can be made into a positive enhancement of the diamond industry without the necessity for negative imagery." Complementing UN and private sector efforts, the world’s leading diamond producing countries, at the behest of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, have held a series of conferences in recent months to develop a common regulatory framework for the proposed certification programme. Known as the Kimberley Process, after the South African diamond-mining centre, the meetings have examined both the technical and procedural aspects of an effective regulatory regime. Given the difficulty of identifying conflict diamonds, industry and government proposals would create a documentary record of the stones from miner to retailer and require sealed shipping containers and standard customs procedures by both exporting and importing governments. The industry’s proposed certification scheme would require:
Diamonds for development Yet major diamond-producing countries remain worried about the impact of the conflict diamond campaign on the legitimate trade. Following a 21 September meeting of diamond producing states in Pretoria, participants acknowledged that "the trade in conflict diamonds is prolonging wars in parts of Africa, is frustrating development efforts and is causing immense suffering." The group pledged to work with the industry to find a "workable solution" to the problem of conflict diamonds, but also noted that such stones "make up only a small fraction of the overall market" and that "the legitimate diamond trade makes a critical contribution to economic development worldwide." Diamonds are particularly important in Africa, where 7 of the world’s 10 largest exporting countries are located. South Africa, Namibia and Botswana alone produce about one third of the world’s annual output. The UN General Assembly on 1 December adopted a resolution, introduced by South Africa, endorsing an "intergovernmental process" for the certification and handling of uncut diamonds but cautioned against measures that would impose "undue burdens" on producing states or damage the legitimate trade. Concerns about the form and impact of international regulations on the industry had delayed introduction of the resolution for over a week. South African Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka failed to attend a 28-30 October meeting in London to discuss UK proposals for an international treaty on diamond sales. The reason for her absence, South African UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told Africa Recovery in early December, was that, "the London conference was called to discuss a formal treaty," on conflict diamonds. "If you go the [UN] treaty route you open it up to 189 countries, most of whom have nothing at stake." For South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Angola, he continued, "the diamond industry is our lifeline. Many thousands of people are affected. So it’s important for us to protect the industry as such." A meeting of diamond producing, processing and importing countries is scheduled for Namibia early in the New Year. Diamonds and guns How effective the proposed regulations will be in keeping conflict diamonds off the fingers of consumers is also a subject of debate. Ambassador Fowler told Africa Recovery in July that, while no controls can be 100 per cent effective in blocking items as small and as valuable as gems, they would help. Certification and vigorous enforcement "will lower the price UNITA and the RUF get for their diamonds and increase the risk to dealers, who face confiscation on the spot of uncertified uncut stones and a lifetime ban on trading in all the major centres." The campaign, he asserted, has already hurt the rebels. "The traders know we’re watching, and those who still buy are demanding a higher risk premium." Some experts are not so sure. Mr. Jakkie Cilliers, the head of the non-governmental South African Institute of Strategic Studies and co-editor of a new book, Angola’s War Economy: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, told reporters in New York in early November that the real issue is arms, not diamonds. "If the major powers were serious about ending African conflicts they would halt the trade in arms. But the major powers produce arms, so they go after diamonds instead. They have a conflict of interest." Mr. Cilliers also disputed an argument by some human rights groups that the conflicts in Angola and Sierra Leone are being fought not for political power but solely to control and exploit diamonds and other natural resources. UNITA took up arms against the Angolan government long before it seized the diamond fields, he noted, with military and political support from white-ruled South Africa and the US. With the end of the Cold War, he asserted, the movement had to seek more market-based sources of revenue. "This is nothing new." Other analysts argue that the issue is not whether to sanction guns instead of diamonds, but to use all available means to deny rebels the arms and money needed for war. They note that adoption of an international convention regulating the trade in small arms has long been on the UN agenda, with a major conference on the conventional arms trade scheduled for July 2001. What is needed instead, they assert, is the comprehensive approach to peacemaking advocated in Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s 1998 report on the causes of conflict in Africa, which combines diplomacy, peace-building, economic development and targeted sanctions to disarm the combatants and create and sustain a culture of peace.
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