Recommendations for conflict diamonds ban

Environmental and human rights NGO Global Witness has released recommendations to better regulate the notoriously hard to control diamond trade and halt the flow of conflict diamonds mined by the Angolan rebel group UNITA. Controls on the Angolan trade can be improved, the London-based rights group said in a recent statement, and "Global Witness believes that if similar measures to those outlined in the report were implemented in all alluvial diamond producing countries then the problem of conflict and illicit diamonds could substantially be reduced". According to a report to the UN Security Council in October by the Monitoring Mechanism on Sanctions Against UNITA, around US $1 million-worth of embargoed diamonds are smuggled out of Angola each day. An estimated 20 to 30 percent of the traffic - or US $250,000 a day - is controlled by the Angolan rebel movement. The UN Monitoring Mechanism and the Kimberley Process - aimed at agreeing common standards for the international certification of diamonds - are measures that seek to stem the flow of conflict diamonds out of Angola. Among the recommendations for Angola, according to Global Witness, are that the government should immediately publish the diamond producing areas under UNITA control. The NGO, which has been at the forefront of the fight against conflict diamonds, also urged the authorities to "develop detailed profiles of typical UNITA origin diamonds" which should be publically accessible. Diamond production data should also be made available, and a centralised valuation system introduced. The identities of individuals and companies breaking the UN embargo should be publicised, and the informal diamond sector reformed "to remove military involvement in diamond production". "From the evidence seen to date those introducing the new system of controls have decades of official mismanagement and corruption to contend with. The diamond industry should closely examine what is being done in Angola to address the issue of conflict and illicit diamonds and realise that there is now no excuse for inaction or complacency," said Alex Yearsley, a campaigner for Global Witness. But the Global Witness report also warned there were shortcomings with the international certification system agreed under the Kimberley Process. "The international certification system, as it currently stands is crucially lacking in any language or measures that will ensure any independent verification requirements for countries wishing to join the system. The Kimberley Process has also failed to competently address the critical issue of how the system will be monitored for compliance and transgressions. These two essential elements of the system must be included if the system is to have any credibility with consumers or civil society," the report said. The Kimberley Process is expected to receive endorsement by a UN General Assembly resolution in March 2002. Global Witness urged that the resolution must address "the key outstanding issues of the need for statistical data provision, verification and compliance requirements for participating countries and strong internal and external monitoring mechanisms for the international certification system". Access the report at www.oneworld.org/globalwitness/press/controls.pdf