What is a conflict diamond?

Conflict diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council.

How can a conflict diamond be distinguished from a legitimate diamond?

A well-structured 'Certificate of Origin' regime can be an effective way of ensuring that only legitimate diamonds -- that is, those from government-controlled areas -- reach market. Additional controls by Member States and the diamond industry are needed to ensure that such a regime is effective. These measures might include the standardization of the certificate among diamond exporting countries, transparency, auditing and monitoring of the regime and new legislation against those who fail to comply.

Fuelling wars

Rough diamond caches have often been used by rebel forces to finance arms purchases and other illegal activities. Neighboring and other countries can be used as trading and transit grounds for illicit diamonds. Once diamonds are brought to market, their origin is difficult to trace and once polished, they can no longer be identified.

Who needs to take action?

Governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, diamond traders, financial institutions, arms manufacturers, social and educational institutions and other civil society players need to combine their efforts, demand the strict enforcement of sanctions and encourage real peace. The horrific atrocities in Sierra Leone and the long suffering of the people of Angola have heightened the international community's awareness of the need to cut off sources of funding for the rebels in order to promote lasting peace in those countries; such an opportunity cannot be wasted.

Crucial issue in fuelling wars

On 1 December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, unanimously, a resolution on the role of diamonds in fuelling conflict, breaking the link between the illicit transaction of rough diamonds and armed conflict, as a contribution to prevention and settlement of conflicts (A/RES/55/56). In taking up this agenda item, the General Assembly recognized that conflict diamonds are a crucial factor in prolonging brutal wars in parts of Africa, and underscored that legitimate diamonds contribute to prosperity and development elsewhere on the continent. In Angola and Sierra Leone, conflict diamonds continue to fund the rebel groups, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), both of which are acting in contravention of the international community's objectives of restoring peace in the two countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AMPUTATION IS FOREVER

BY GREG CAMPBELL

The RUF began its jewelry heist in 1991, using the support of neighboring Liberia to capture Sierra Leone's vast wealth of diamond mines. Since then, the rebels have carried out one of the most brutal military campaigns in recent history, to enrich themselves as well as the genteel captains of the diamond industry living far removed from the killing fields. The RUF's signature tactic was amputation of civilians: Over the course of the decade-long war, the rebels have mutilated some 20,000 people, hacking off their arms, legs, lips, and ears with machetes and axes. This campaign was the RUF's grotesquely ironic response to Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's 1996 plea for citizens to “join hands for peace.” Another 50,000 to 75,000 have been killed. The RUF's goal was to terrorize the population and enjoy uncontested dominion over the diamond fields.

While the RUF terrorized and looted the countryside, thousands of prisoner-laborers, worked to exhaustion, digging up the gems from muddy open-pit mines. Many ended up in shallow graves, executed for suspected theft, for lack of production, or simply for sport.

The international diamond industry's trading centers in Europe funded this horror by buying up to $125 million worth of diamonds a year from the RUF, according to U.N. estimates. Few cared where the gems originated, or calculated the cost in lives lost rather than carats gained. The RUF used its profits to open foreign bank accounts for rebel leaders and to finance a complicated network of gunrunners who kept the rebels well-equipped with the modern military hardware they used to control Sierra Leone's diamonds. The weapons—and the gems the rebels sold unimpeded to terrorist and corporate trader alike—allowed the RUF to fight off government soldiers, hired mercenaries, peacekeepers from a regional West African reaction force, British paratroopers, and, until recently, the most expansive and expensive peacekeeping mission the U.N. has ever deployed.

Throughout most of the war from 1991 to January 2002, this drama played itself out in obscurity. During the RUF's worst assaults, international media pulled journalists out of the country in fear for their safety. Local citizens were left to fend for themselves against bloodthirsty and drugged child soldiers. Commanders often cut the children's arms and packed the wounds with cocaine; marijuana was everywhere.

Until the deployment of the U.N. mission in 1999, the developed countries also washed their hands of the situation, doing little more than imposing sanctions on diamond exports and weapons sales to the small country. These efforts did nothing to end the RUF's diamonds-for-guns trade because most of the RUF'S goods were smuggled out of Sierra Leone and sold into the mainstream from neighboring countries.

Articles  from United Nations and Amnesty International USA