Crackdown on 'blood' diamonds
African leaders trading gems for arms ust be punished, says UN panel

The Guardian (UK)
Ewen MacAskill and David Pallister
20 December 2000

The United Nations is finally to mount an onslaught on the trade in
"blood" diamonds from Africa, according to a report into the links
between gems and arms leaked to the Guardian.

The uncompromising report recommends a series of punitive measures
against west African countries linked to the civil war in Sierra Leone.

The 58-page report also points a finger of blame at Switzerland, a
transit point for almost half the rough diamonds entering Britain.
Switzerland is listed as "country of origin", even though it produces no
diamonds of its own.

The UN panel recommends that a first-ever international embargo on
diamonds should be applied to Sierra Leone's neighbours, Liberia and
Gambia.

The panel singles out Charles Taylor, the president of Liberia, saying
he "is actively involved in fuelling the violence in Sierra Leone, and
many businessmen close to his inner circle operate on an international
scale, sourcing their weaponry mainly in eastern Europe".

It adds: "In short, Liberia is actively breaking [UN] security council
embargoes regarding weapons imports into its own territory and into
Sierra Leone. It is being actively assisted by Burkina Faso. It is being
tacitly assisted by all the countries allowing weapons to pass through
or over their territory without question, and by those countries that
provide a base for the aircraft used in such operations."

Additional measures against Mr Taylor include the immediate grounding of
all Liberian-registered flights and a travel ban on him and his inner
circle.

Widening the net, the panel proposes giving Guinea and the Ivory Coast
six months to introduce proper certification schemes proving their
diamonds are clean. If they do not, they too will face an international
diamond embargo.

The panel also wants increased scrutiny of diamond exports from Uganda,
the Central African Republic, Ghana, Namibia, Congo-Brazzaville, Mali,
Zambia and Burkina Faso.

The report is due to be published in New York tomorrow after being
scrutinised in the UN security council, which will meet again next month
to discuss implementation.

The diamonds and arms trade have long been intertwined in Africa. In
March, Robert Fowler, the Canadian ambassador to the UN, carried out an
initial investigation into diamond smuggling by the Angolan rebel
movement Unita, which led to the naming of individual businessmen
involved in illicit trade.

The diamond industry, afraid of consumer reaction against "blood"
diamonds, has promised tougher scrutiny but the UN report concludes that
this is inadequate.

The report estimates that the rebel movement in Sierra Leone, the
Revolutionary United Front, which has gained notoriety for chopping off
the arms and legs of victims, deals each year in diamonds worth between
£25m and £125m, more than enough to sustain its forces.

Ranged against it is the Sierra Leone army supported by a UN force and a
British contingent. The bulk of the RUF diamonds leaves Sierra Leone
through Liberia, the report said. "Such trade cannot be conducted
without the permission and involvement of Liberian government officials
at the highest levels."

The report castigated the failure of the industry world-wide to come up
with a proper method for determining the origin of diamonds and for
tracking their movement. The report found that in 1999 Britain imported
£107m in rough diamonds.

"Of this, Switzerland was recorded as the 'country of origin' for 41% or
£44.2m. Switzerland, as a non-producer of diamonds, could only have been
the country of provenance, importing the diamonds from another country,"
it said.

It added: "Those diamonds bound for the UK thus become 'Swiss' simply by
virtue of having passed through a Freilager [free trade area]." The
country of origin is lost.

The panel welcomed the scheme started this year in government-held areas
of Sierra Leone which certified that diamonds were mined in legitimate
areas. But the panel concluded that the scheme has to be extended
worldwide.