Blood diamonds

Angola

Angola , the former colony of Portugal , gained independence on November 11, 1975. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) fought a civil war from 1974 to 2001. Contrary to the 1991 Bicesse Agreement , in order to finance a war with the government, from 1992 to 1998, UNITA sold diamonds worth $ 3.72 billion ^[2] .

Realizing the role of diamonds in financing the UNITA movement, in 1998 the UN adopted 1173 and 1176 UN Security Council Resolutions prohibiting the purchase of conflict diamonds from Angola. 1173 The resolution was the first UN resolution directly mentioning diamonds in the context of financing military operations. According to reports, money from the sale of 20% of diamonds mined in the 1980s was used for illegal purposes, and 19% of diamonds were conflicting. By 1999, according to estimates by the World Diamond Council, illicit diamond sales had dropped to 3.06% of world production, and by 2004 to about 1%.

Despite the UN Resolution, UNITA continued to sell or exchange diamonds to meet its military needs. In this regard, the Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler was charged with conducting an investigation to identify the channels of illegal sale of diamonds.

In 2000, Fowler presented a report that listed the countries, organizations and people involved in illegal trade. The report linked diamonds to conflicts in the Third World countries, which led to the signing of the 1295 UN Security Council Resolution, and also initiated the creation in 2003 of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme .

Liberia and Sierra Leone

From 1989 to 2003, Liberia was engulfed in civil war . In 2000, the UN accused the President of Liberia, Charles Taylor , of supporting the United Revolutionary Front (RUF), the rebel movement in neighboring Sierra Leone , with arms supplies and trade in exchange for diamonds. In 2001, the UN imposed sanctions on diamonds trading in Liberia. In August 2003, Taylor was forced to leave the presidency and left for Nigeria, and then was detained and brought before the Special Court for Sierra Leone , the trial took place in The Hague . On July 21, 2006, he rejected all charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes .

It was also reported that during the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa, al Qaeda bought diamonds from Liberia after other al Qaeda assets were frozen. ^[3]

After establishing peace, Liberia is trying to create a legitimate diamond industry. UN sanctions have been lifted and now Liberia is part of the Kimberley Process.

Ivory Coast

Côte d'Ivoire (also known as Ivory Coast) began to develop the nascent diamond mining industry in the early 1990s. In 1999, a coup d'état occurred , a civil war broke out, and conflict diamonds from Liberia and the embattled war Sierra Leone began to be exported through Côte d'Ivoire. ^[4] In order to reduce the illegal trade in diamonds in the country, diamond mining was stopped, and in December 1995, the UN Security Council banned any export of diamonds from Côte d'Ivoire. However, despite UN sanctions, the illegal trade in diamonds in Côte d'Ivoure still exists. ^[5] Raw diamonds are shipped to neighboring states and international trade centers through the northern territories controlled by the New Forces group (fr. Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire), which according to some sources uses the funds received to buy weapons. ^{[6] [7]}

Democratic Republic of Congo

Despite civil wars in the 1990s, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire ) joined the Kimberley Process and now exports 8% of global diamond production. At the height of the civil war in the mid-1990s, the famous Millennium Star diamond weighing 200 carats (40 grams) was found and sold to the De Beers corporation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Republic of the Congo

In 2004, the Republic of the Congo was excluded from the Kimberley Process, since it officially lacked the diamond industry, the state exported a large number of diamonds, the origin of which could not be explained. Also, the Republic of Congo was accused of falsifying certificates of origin of diamonds. In 2007, the Republic of the Congo was re-admitted to the Kimberley Process. ^[eight]

Zimbabwe

The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme does not treat diamonds mined in Zimbabwe as conflicting. Earlier, as a result of indiscriminate mining in Marange and the smuggling of diamonds, the World Diamond Council began to observe the situation in Zimbabwe. ^[9]

In July 2010, the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme recognized diamonds mined in the disputed territory of Marange as legal by allowing them to be traded internationally ^[10] , after an observer report was issued a month earlier. ^[eleven]

In a 1998 A A Rough Trade report, Global Witness was the first to link conflicts in Africa with diamonds ^{[12] [13]} . The UN also recognized the role of conflict diamonds in financing military operations and in 1998 adopted the 1173 Security Council Resolution . In 2008, Fowler described in detail in his report how UNITA financed military operations, which directly led to the adoption of the 1295 UN Resolution in the spring of the same year and the meeting of the leaders of the South African diamond-exporting countries in Kimberley, South Africa, with a view to developing a methodology that would stop the trade conflict diamonds and create a mechanism for presenting buyers with evidence of the non-participation of diamonds in military operations. ^{[14] [15]}

Resolution 1295 states:

18. Welcomes the proposal to convene an expert meeting to define a monitoring system to facilitate the implementation of the measures contained in resolution 1173 (1998), including mechanisms that would increase the level of transparency and accountability in controlling diamonds, starting from the source of their origin and ending with their entry into the stock exchange, stresses the importance of ensuring that the development of such control measures does everything possible to prevent collateral damage to the legitimate trade in diamonds, and greet uet intention of South Africa to host a corresponding conference this year; ^[sixteen]

Kimberley Process Certification Scheme

On July 19, 2000, a resolution was adopted at the World Diamond Congress in Antwerp aimed at countering the sale of conflict diamonds ^{[17] [18]} . According to the resolution, it was necessary to introduce an international certification system for exported and imported diamonds, and the sale of diamonds that did not pass the certification procedure should have been prohibited by law in all countries. All countries had to impose criminal liability for smuggling conflict diamonds, and the person convicted of trading them was no longer allowed to trade on the diamond exchanges of the World Organization of Diamond Exchanges ^[18] . In addition, in some tourist centers (for example, in Dubai ), the owner had to present the Kimberley Process certificate at the airport in order to take the diamond out of the country ^[19] . The Kimberley Process was conducted by African diamond-producing countries themselves.

The theme of bloody diamonds is key in the film of the same name .