Sankoh suspends all mining activity

Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh, head of a commission set up to oversee the management of Sierra Leone’s strategic resources, has announced the suspension of mining operations, media and government sources reported.

“All mining licenses are cancelled as from January 24 and none will be issued until my commission looks into the new mining laws,” AFP quoted Sankoh as saying after a trip to diamond-rich Kono District. “Anyone who contravenes the order will be arrested,” he said.

Julius Spencer, the minister of information and broadcasting told IRIN on Monday that the government was in the process of preparing a response to Sankoh’s statement.

Under the terms of the Lome peace accord, all previous mining concessions in Sierra Leone were to be null and void, while the exploitation and sale of gold and diamonds were to be forbidden, except when authorised by the Commission for the Management of Strategic Resources, National Reconstruction and Development, which Sankoh chairs.

A recent report by the organisation Partnership Africa Canada provides documented evidence of massive diamond smuggling, much of it through neighbouring Liberia. Diamond-rich Kono has been controlled by the RUF since 1998.

Sankoh has rejected the report’s claims, according to AFP.