New regional stance on “conflict” diamonds

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) will take a collective stance to cushion the possible harmful impact on the legitimate diamond trade of stones traded from war zones, ‘The Namibian’ reported on Thursday. It said the announcement was made by the head of the SADC’s Mining Sector Coordination team, John Chanda, at a news conference this week ahead of the SADC summit at the weekend. The economies of five members of the SADC - South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola - rely heavily on diamonds and concerns had been raised about diamonds from Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it said. Chanda said mining ministers from the region had already met to explore ways of averting “the devastating consequences of a boycott of diamonds” from the region which could also harm diamond-producing countries such as Namibia, Botswana and South Africa which have an organised trade in the gems. He also underscored the fact that the mining sector as a whole continued to be the backbone of most SADC economies accounting for 60 per cent of foreign exchange earnings and contributing about 10 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.