Minister denies Bangui a conduit for illicit diamonds

Central African Republic (CAR) Mines and Energy Minister Andre Nalke Dorogo denied on Thursday that the country was involved in the illicit diamond trade in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), which is based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). "We have never, ever been in contact with them [MLC diamond dealers]," Dorogo said in a news conference in Bangui, the CAR capital. "If they overfly the CAR with their planes loaded with diamonds, do you expect me to hail them and seize their freight from my office?" In a recently published report, the African-Canadian NGO, Partnership Africa Canada (PAC), said Bemba's diamonds were being laundered through the CAR, using the country's certification system. PAC added that whereas the CAR had a "reasonably good" tracking system for locally mined diamonds, it was not being applied, thereby rendering the country an attractive channel for diamond smugglers from other countries. Speaking on Radio France Internationale on Wednesday, Bemba blamed the illegal diamond trade on independent miners who were selling their gems in the CAR. "Certainly some miners sell their diamonds in Bangui, about 500 km from their small-scale diamond production centres [in the DRC], and they are free to sell them to whomever they wish in the CAR," Bemba said. The MLC has been backing the CAR government army since the CAR former army chief of staff, Francois Bozize, and his rebel supporters invaded Bangui on 25 October 2002. The MLC is also playing a vital role in the ongoing fighting in the north and centre of the CAR. In his rebuttal of PAC's charge, Dorogo said, "Those who want to combat the MLC chairman should use other means." Diamonds are the CAR government's second-greatest income earner after timber.