Global Policy Forum

Johannesburg - The rights group Global Witness has challenged the diamond transnational De Beers and its London-based Central Selling Organisation to publicly clarify how they have changed their purchasing operations to ensure they no longer buy UN embargoed Angolan diamonds. "Up until the embargo it was no secret that they were buying up Angolan diamonds," Charmian Gooch of Global Witness told IRIN on Thursday. "What they are not telling anybody now is how they are altering their buying structures. If they are serious about this, in part they must recognise they have to become more transparent."

An estimated 70 percent of all rough diamonds are sold through the Central Selling Organisation. Angolan diamonds are of a particularly high quality and easily distinguishable. But De Beers policy in the past had been to buy up gems on the open market to prop up diamond values, and among those were alluvial diamonds from mines controlled by the UNITA rebel group.

In an attempt to end UNITA's main source of revenue, a UN Security Council resolution in July last year embargoed unofficial Angolan diamond sales. De Beers insist they have complied "with both the spirit and the letter" of the resolution. Senior De Beers officials met the chairmain of the UN Angola Sanctions Committee, Robert Fowler, during a fact-finding tour in May to examine the loopholes to the sanctions policy and offered reassurance of their collaboration. "We are absolutely committed to cooperating fully with the UN. We are not in the business of responding to the allegations of Global Witness," De Beers spokesman Andrew Lamont told IRIN on Thursday. "Our priority is to address the concerns and offer full cooperation to the UN." Lamont said that Fowler had welcomed De Beer's cooperation, "and we have given concrete support to what he is doing." He added: "Certainly there are significant problems in controlling the flow of Angolan diamonds," but, "in Angola we are working with the Angolan government and we don't buy diamonds from UNITA."

Fowler ended his tour with a list of recommendations to tighten sanctions implementation, extending responsibility to governments and the trade industry. "Global Witness welcomes the overall aim of the recommendations," Gooch said. "The routes (for smuggled diamonds) are endless, trying to control that is not really useful. But when the diamonds enter the market place they are distinguishable. Putting the emphasis on the trade is a very good step forward."