De Beers pledges to sell “rebel free” diamonds

Diamond mining conglomerate De Beers pledged on Tuesday to sell only diamonds which it can guarantee do not come from rebel areas, according to a company spokesperson.

“We closed our buying offices in Angola, DRC and Guinea in mid-October,” Tracey Peterson, De Beers senior communications officer told IRIN. “We want to ensure that we are not buying diamonds on the open market in Africa,” she said.

Peterson added that the objective of the pledge was to support international efforts to bring peace to African countries in conflict and to ensure that the legitimate diamond industry was not undermined by the small minority of diamonds used by rebel movements to fund their activities.

Sierra Leonean Minister of Mineral Resources Mohamed Deen has welcomed the De Beers pledge but urged the company to extend the ban to include all illegally mined or smuggled gemstones.

“The Sierra Leone government is also concerned about the smuggling during peace time of diamonds which do not go through legal government channels,” Reuters quoted Deen as saying.

Meanwhile, RUF leader Foday Sankoh said that the moratorium he imposed on diamond mining in January had failed. “The government failed to provide me with the structure of my commission to carry out my work,” Sankoh told reporters in Freetown on Wednesday.

Under the terms of the Lome peace agreement Sankoh was made chairman of the government commission responsible for the management of natural resources with the protocol rank of vice-president.