Global Policy Forum

By Eric Onstad

A diamond watchdog seeking to stamp out trade in "conflict diamonds" threatened to expel Ghana on Tuesday over allegations it was certifying gems coming from war-ravaged Ivory Coast, the chairman of the group told Reuters.

The Kimberly Process's annual meeting of 46 governments and the European Union in Botswana, organised to weed out the illicit gem trade that fuels civil wars, gave the African nation three months to stop the flow of black market diamonds, Chairman Kago Moshashane of Botswana said in an interview.

Under an agreement, which is due to be formally adopted on Wednesday, Ghana will be given the window to halt the bogus certifications after which a review mission by the Kimberley Process will determine if it has been successful. "When we send a review mission after three months, we have given the chair the authority to suspend Ghana if they have not done anything," he said on the second day of annual closed-door meetings of the group, which helps police the diamond trade.

If thrown out, Ghana would not be able to certify its diamonds and would have to reapply to rejoin the group, said Moshashane, also deputy permanent secretary in Botswana's ministry of minerals. Ghanaian officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

DICAPRIO

The effort to close the loopholes that make the illicit trade possible come ahead of a potential wave of negative publicity next month, when a new Hollywood movie "Blood Diamond" starring Leonardo DiCaprio will be released.

Ivory Coast is a focus of the meeting since it is the last source of black-market diamonds being smuggled out by rebels following earlier civil wars in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which were partly fuelled by gems. Up to 200,000 carats of rough diamonds, worth $23 million, a year from the north of Ivory Coast are smuggled, mostly into Ghana, where they are certified as legitimate despite a United Nations embargo, non-governmental organisations (NGOS) say.

Ghana will not have to halt its diamond exports during the interim period, a measure urged by the NGOs. The western African nation also will be given technical help to boost monitoring during the probation period, delegates said.

Botswana, the world's biggest producer of high-quality diamonds and current chair of the Kimberley Process, won praise for pressuring Ghana to comply with the restrictions.

But others were disappointed by the transition period. "It's not as fast as we would like. We were very much hoping that immediate action would be taken, that Ghana would volunteer to suspend its exports," said Corinna Gilfillan, a delegate who represented Global Witness, a U.S.-based NGO.

The certification scheme by the Kimberley Process -- under which governments monitor exports -- has helped cut the amount of conflict diamonds to less than 1 percent from as high as 15 percent 10 years ago, NGOs say. The diamond industry says conflict diamonds never accounted for more than around 4 percent of total world production of raw diamonds, worth around $12 billion a year.

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