OWN CORRESPONDENT, United Nations | Thursday
DESPITE UN sanctions, Angola’s UNITA rebels still smuggled at least $100m worth of diamonds out of the country last year – and will likely do so again this year, a UN report says.
In an attempt to force UNITA to end the 25-year civil war in Angola, the Security Council imposed a ban in 1998 on rebel diamond exports which were helping to finance the conflict. Five years earlier, the council imposed an arms and fuel embargo on UNITA.
“The sanctions have driven UNITA diamond trading deeper underground and have made UNITA seek new routes for diamond trading,” a UN-appointed panel said in a report Wednesday to the Security Council.
The panel’s initial document, in December, said UNITA was circumventing sanctions through a complex network of arms traffickers, friendly African governments and diamond smugglers who use tax havens to get their gems to market.
Wednesday’s 28-page report said UNITA’s military capacity had been “significantly reduced” as a result of having no fixed arms supply lines and a diminishing revenue from diamonds. Nevertheless, it concluded that the rebels are still very active, conducting guerrilla warfare and attacking civilian targets.
It said UNITA diamond smuggling in 1999 was worth at least $300m. Its minimum estimate for last year was $100m, and this year’s production is expected to be similar.
While UNITA smuggling has dropped, the panel reported an increase in non-UNITA smuggling, “which clearly means that illicit Angolan diamonds are reaching diamond markets regardless of the certificate of origin system” instituted by the government to certify legally mined gems.
Total Angolan diamond production, including UNITA’s mining, was estimated at a minimum of $1.1bn in 2000, it said. The panel said UNITA diamonds were sold during 2000 through three principal means – the auction of diamonds, trading in South Africa, and direct links to diamond dealers.
The United Nations first put the spotlight on illegitimate “blood diamonds” in a March 2000 report that accused the presidents of Burkina Faso and Togo of accepting diamonds from UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi in exchange for illegal weapons or fuel.
The panel said South African police are investigating diamonds “said to originate from the ‘Presidence du Togo’ which were allegedly sold to a South African jeweller by an intermediary. The South African government is also in the process of implementing new controls on diamond imports, it noted.