Sierra Leone
Trade embargo on Sierra Leone diamonds

afrol.com, 6 July - The UN Security Council yesterday evening decided that "all States shall prohibit the direct or indirect import of rough diamonds from Sierra Leone," thus supporting the UK proposition. Diamond trade from areas occupied by rebel forces, terrorizing civil population, is the main financing source of the civil war - or even the main cause of the civil war, as many analysts say.

The resolution was adopted by a vote of 14 in favour to none against, with one abstention (Mali). Mali abstained because the resolution was naming neighbouring countries, such as Liberia as partly guilty in the ongoing illicit trade. The ban would be initially reviewed after 18 months, and  would cover the situation in Sierra Leone, including the extent of the Government's authority over the diamond producing areas, the Council would decide whether to extend the prohibition for a further period and, if necessary, modify it or adopt further measures. 

The two-part resolution also asked the Secretary-General to appoint a panel of five experts to monitor implementation of the ban. By other terms, the Council asked the Government of Sierra Leone to ensure, as a matter of urgency, the effective operation of a certificate of origin regime for trade in the country's diamonds. It also asked relevant international organizations and other bodies to assist the Government to facilitate the full operation of the regime. The Government was to notify the Sierra Leone sanctions committee of the details of the regime when it was fully in operation. 

Expressing its concern at the role played by the illicit trade in diamonds in fuelling the conflict in Sierra Leone, and at reports that such diamonds transit neighbouring countries, including Liberia, the Council asked all states to take the necessary measures to prohibit the direct or indirect import of all rough diamonds from Sierra Leone to their territory. 

It exempted imports of rough diamonds whose origin is certified by the Government of Sierra Leone, and called upon the diamond industry to cooperate with the ban. 

Also by the text, the Council decided that a first review of the prohibition would be conducted not later than 15 September, followed by further reviews every six months after the current action. By other provisions, states would be called upon to enforce, strengthen or enact legislation making violation of the arms and weapons embargo imposed by the Council (in 1998) a criminal offence. 

Difficult enforcement
Earlier embargos on the lucrative diamond trade by rebel UNITA forces in Angola did not have too much effect, as most of the trade was whitewashed through intermediaries. The diamond trade by the RUF rebels is already going through established channels in neighbouring countries. Most of Sierra Leone's diamond trade is controlled by the RUF, and this never gets registered as Sierra Leonean exports. At least 85% of the diamonds are believed to be smuggled out of Sierra Leone already.

In January 2000, the NGO Partnership Canada Africa (PAC) documented the routes of Sierra Leone diamond trade. Numbers were astonishing: 

- While the Government of Sierra Leone recorded exports of only 8,500 carats in 1998, the Belgian Hoge Raad voor Diamant (HRD, the Diamond High Council) records imports of 770,000 carats.

- Annual Liberian diamond mining capacity is between 100,000 and 150,000 carats, but the HRD records Liberian imports into Belgium of over 31 million carats between 1994 and 1998 - an average of over six million carats a year.

- Ivory Coast, where the small diamond industry was closed in the mid 1980s, apparently exported an average of more than 1.5 million carats to Belgium between 1995 and 1997.

Enforcement therefore seems to rest on the will of the neighbouring countries to abstain from the incomes given by covering the dirty trade in Sierra Leone diamonds. However, no compensation for these countries was discussed in the UN Security Council.

The PAC report is clear in its judgment about the connection between the diamond trade and the ongoing civil war in Sierra Leone: "Traditional economics, political science and military history are of little assistance in explaining Sierra Leone's conflict. The point of the war may not actually have been to win it, but to engage in profitable crime under the cover of warfare. Diamonds, in fact, have fueled Sierra Leone's conflict, destabilizing the country for the better part of three decades, stealing its patrimony and robbing an entire generation of children, putting the country dead last on the UNDP Human Development Index."

Sierra Leone government pleased
Sierra Leone ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim M. Kamara, yesterday stated that "by taking up the draft resolution today, the Security Council would, for the first time, go to the root of the conflict in Sierra Leone. The conflict was not about ideology, tribal or regional differences. It had nothing to do with the so-called problems of marginalized youths, or, as some political commentators had characterized it, an uprising by rural poor against the urban elite. The root of the conflict was and remained diamonds." 

- The conflict in Sierra Leone was not a civil war, but a rebel war based on brutality, supported by regional, sub-regional and international surrogates, and, more importantly, financed by the illicit trade in Sierra Leone’s diamonds, he said with an address to neighbouring states. 

- The Security Council had at last realized that the war was cast in gemstones. The Council had also come to realize that in addition to encouraging the Government to negotiate for peace with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, it could have taken effective action to deal with the role of diamonds in the conflict, Kamara continued. 

He said that it was no longer a secret that the first objective of Foday Sankoh, the RUF and their supporters at home, in the neighborhood and abroad, of seizing political power by amputation, rape, arson, killings and other terrorist acts, was only a means to achieve the second and principal objective, namely, the complete control and occupation of the diamond fields of Sierra Leone. The Council and the international community knew why they had reneged on the Lomé Ceasefire Agreement, which they had signed a year ago on 7 July 1999, and why they continued to illegally occupy the diamond areas of the country in violation of that Agreement. 

Last year the Sierra Leone delegation had told the Council that it supported the idea of naming names in connection with the illegal trade in what had been described as “conflict diamonds”. Naming names should be seen as an expression of serious concern at the role played by the illicit trade in diamonds in fueling conflict. It was a peaceful means of applying political and moral pressure on the principal transit route of such trade to help facilitate an early and peaceful end to the conflict. The illicit export of Sierra Leone diamonds was not only the root and fuel of the conflict, but also constituted a major obstacle to its peaceful resolution. 

Sources: Based on United Nations and PAC

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