Efforts to curb illegal diamond trade continue

The Chairman of the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee on Sierra Leone said at the end of a two-day hearing on the role of diamonds in that country’s conflict that more would be done to improve the effectiveness of the sanctions regime.

“We are looking for a global certification scheme to control the illegal diamond trade,” Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, the Committee’s chair, told reporters in New York on Tuesday.

In early July the Security Council imposed a ban on the purchase of Sierra Leone diamonds that do not have a government certificate in a bid to prevent the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) from being able to finance their nine-year civil war.

“This constitutes an important step towards ensuring that the exploitation of diamonds will benefit the people of Sierra Leone and support its development, rather than fuel a destructive war,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in his latest report on the UN mission in Sierra Leone dated 31 July.

Howard Jeter, the United States deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said that an effective certification system for Sierra Leone diamonds could serve as a model for future systems in other diamond-exporting countries.

“Rough diamonds moving outside of these legitimate channels would be forced deeper underground,” Jeter said. “Retailers would be empowered with the knowledge needed to differentiate between diamonds that had moved through legitimate channels and those of questionable origin.”
During the hearing the United States and Britain publicly accused Liberia and Burkina Faso of fuelling the war in Sierra Leone by helping the RUF sell diamonds and buy arms.

Stephen Pattison, the head of the British Foreign Office department dealing with this issue, gave details of recent meetings between RUF rebels and presidents Charles Taylor of Liberia and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso.

RUF rebels Sam Bockarie, Gibril Massaquoi and Edward Kanneh accompanied Taylor on a trip to the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, on 5 June, Pattison said. Massaquoi was carrying diamonds to pay for Burkina Faso’s “material support” after being picked up in the Kono diamond area in Sierra Leone in a Liberian helicopter, he added. On 10 June, Massaquoi flew again to Monrovia carrying diamonds to buy equipment and obtained six trucks to transport material back to Sierra Leone, Pattison said.

Liberia’s diamond production in recent years is estimated at between 100,000 and 150,000 carats, worth less than US $10 million, but it has exported six million carats of diamonds worth US $300 million, a senior US official said. The United States estimates that the RUF earns on average US $30-50 million per year, the official added.

Liberian Foreign Minister Monie Captan demanded that the Western powers present “concrete evidence” of the allegations which could be examined by a panel of eminent persons. Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the UN, Michel Kafando, also called for proof but said his government was “ready and willing” to receive investigators from the United Nations or any other source.

In response to questions from journalists, Chowdhury said that he would draw the attention of the committee to the reports of sanctions violations by Liberia and Burkina Faso. “The linkage with the arms trade is very important and we will go into this aspect very closely,” Chowdhury said.

He added that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had announced the creation of a five-person panel of experts which would submit a report to the committee by the end of October.

The open meeting was attended by members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), other interested states, regional organisations, representatives of the diamond industry, human rights groups as well as individual experts in diamonds and arms.