UNITA still netting millions through illegal diamond sales

A UN panel dealing with sanctions against Angolan rebels has recommended the need to tighten regulations governing the activities of arms brokers and to consider establishing an international register of companies involved in sanctions busting. The Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions - dealing with sanctions against UNITA rebels - issued the addendum to its final report on Wednesday, following its investigation of companies accused of busting UN sanctions against UNITA. The report said although UNITA diamond trading had been driven deeper underground by the sanctions, there were still major weaknesses in the system to control diamond trading, in part because of the many available alternate routes that traders could use. The addendum concluded: “Although the attitude of impunity may have lessened, the intentions of sanctions busters to continue to derive profit from this cruel war remains firmly intact.” The UN Security Council was to hold both consultations and an open meeting on Thursday to discuss the Monitoring Mechanism’s report. In its final report submitted in December 2000, the Monitoring Mechanism said the level of UNITA’s diamond output for 1999 and 2000 could not be estimated, but would almost certainly be larger than US $150 million in 1999. This estimate was derived from the idea that a larger supply would be visible on the markets, rather than on any estimates derived from diamond industry intelligence, as was the case before the sanctions, the report said. “Since sanctions, information on the value of UNITA’s diamond trading has gone underground. As part of the industry is well aware, UNITA diamonds are not, and some sources say never have been, traded primarily into open markets; they are sold direct to cutters and could be stockpiled by buyers. Such trades would never be visible on the world markets,” it added. The report also said that UNITA’s capacity to produce major quantities of diamonds were seriously hampered by the military situation and that its production in 2000 “is certainly likely to be lower than in 1999” because it had lost access to some mines. “Lower production, though, could be offset against trading from the UNITA stockpile, and a professional assessment of the stockpile is that UNITA is likely to maintain a small but high value stockpile, concentrating on the better stones. . . The question is not whether UNITA has access to diamonds, but how easily it can move them to markets. A strategy of mining and stockpiling high-value stones would ensure that UNITA can always find buyers,” the report concluded.