Global Policy Forum

Scepticism about the campaign to end the trade in 'conflict diamonds' appears to have been borne out by the latest UN report. This says that more than $1 million worth of diamonds are still being smuggled out of Angola every day and that the Unita rebel movement takes at least a quarter of the revenues from its illegal trade to fund its war effort. The trade is equivalent to the annual output from Namibia or Australia, the report says.

The new revelations may end hopes in Africa and abroad that the moratorium on trade in conflict diamonds would be the magic bullet to stop not just the war in Angola, but also in Sierra Leone and the DR Congo. Instead it appears that a diamond gemstone, an easily portable repository of high value, will find a way to be traded, no matter what. The report also implicates "other players" who have taken over mines recaptured from Unita and are engaged in illegal smuggling. Five years ago, while it was still engaged in talks with the government over control of the diamond resources, Unita accused what it called "garimpeiro (diamond digger) MPLA generals" of benefiting from the trade.

Harming economies

The 'conflict diamonds' theme, developed by Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler when he took over the UN's sanctions committee in 1999, was not universally welcomed. Last March, Louis Nchindo, the managing director of Debswana, the Botswana company which is 50% owned by De Beers, said that the international campaign was an exercise in futility that was harming the economies of innocent countries.

At the same time SA Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma commented that "part of the problem" with a UN report issued then was that the committee's informants appeared to be "a few people who have crossed over from Unita to the Angolan government's side". She added that the information was probably limited (SouthScan v15/06 24 March 00).

Fowler, to give him his due, did not believe the idea was a cure-all - he said when he took over that the purpose of the sanctions was to "degrade" Unita's ability to wage war. This, together with the MPLA government's success in the conventional warfare field, it has certainly done.

In addition, because it seemed a simple solution to the rash of civil wars in Africa it became an increasingly popular rallying call outside the continent, and thus served to educate and mobilise popular opinion against the wars. Not just foreign non-governmental organisations have been involved. Even Tiffany's, the leading diamond store in New York, has had something to contribute; it has been posting large advertisements in the US media backing Congressional plans to interdict 'conflict diamonds' (though sceptics have noted that the US market, the largest in the world, has collapsed since the events of September 11, and that all means to publicise diamonds may seem fair).

But at the same time, the drive has obscured some harsh realities - not only relating to the ease of trading this commodity or the dominance of the profit motive among the local diggers and merchants.

The willingness of the world's main diamond trader, De Beers, to back the campaign (and its related plans for the technically sophisticated laser branding of individual stones) was seen by some analysts as a means for the giant to maintain a firm grip on a market which appeared to be slipping away into the hands of smaller players.

Trading empire

The UN's report has also demonstrated the continuing viability of the Unita trading empire. In 1999 the UN noted that centres were being used in Burkina Faso; Cote d'Ivoire; the DR Congo; Mozambique; Namibia; Rwanda; South Africa; Tanzania; Togo; the Ukraine; Uganda; Zambia; as well as Luanda and other Angolan ports.

This week's report says that smugglers are using South Africa, Cyprus, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Zambia as well as other countries to get the rough stones to the Antwerp diamond-cutting centre in Belgium, and to Israel and India. Once again, the report notes, Zambia is exporting more diamonds than it produces. On the positive side, it notes that ties between Togo and Unita have weakened.

The outside world has now switched attention away from the apparently never-ending conflicts of Southern Africa. It is from inside Angola, from its still weak civil society organisations, that signs are emerging of a new drive for peace.

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