A US businessman is trying to broker a deal in Angola in a bid for profit and peace, reports Chris Gordon
Maurice Tempelsman has the ear of presidents, American and Angolan, as well as the Unita leader.
Now the president of Lazare Kaplan International (LKI), who was Jackie Onassis’s partner for the last 15 years of her life, is intervening in Angola’s troubled peace process – with the approval of the United States government. Tempelsman is trying to broker a diamond deal between the Angolan government and Unita in the hope of averting conflict.
His plan is for the two sides to set up a mining consortium, comprising Unita’s mining company Sociedade Generale Miniero (SGM) and Endiama, the parastatal.
LKI, the largest American diamond manufacturer, would buy the diamonds and facilitate financing, according to the Washington Post. Tempelsman wanted the US Export-Import (Ex-Im) bank to provide financial support for the project, which would be used to buy deep mining equipment.
This proposal is virtually identical to a 10-year agreement Tempelsman brokered in Russia late last year. LKI agreed to build a cutting factory in Russia and to sell the polished product. In exchange, the Russian supplier, Almazy Rossii-Sakha (ARS) would supply rough diamonds valued at a minimum of $45-million a year. Ex-Im provided the guarantees for a $60-million loan made to ARS to buy mining equipment.
Whether this same deal can succeed in Angola is unclear. It is the only way the US can offer Savimbi a guaranteed additional income, but the plan has several drawbacks. It will not give Unita the same level of guaranteed or immediate income as the alluvial mines. Part of the plan is to mine a kimblerlite pipe, and the lead time for these mines is long – three to five years. Plus, the quality of Angola’s kimberlite pipes is variable, with many quite low grade.
US sources say the Angolan government rejected Tempelsman’s intervention at first but agreed to consider it last month as the scope of the crisis in the peace process became clear.
But if anyone can broker the deal, it’s Tempelsman. The 67-year-old diamantaire is close to President Bill Clinton and a substantial contributor to Democratic Party funds, directly and through his companies, to the tune of more than $150 000 in 1996. He first met Onassis and John F Kennedy in 1957.
His political influence goes back a long way while his interests in Africa date back to the 1950s. In Angola, Tempelsman has been active in diamonds since 1988 and is close to President dos Santos. His company has offices in Angola, which buy and export diamonds produced by small miners.
LKI started a new venture with Endiama last November, when Templesman met both Dos Santos and Savimbi. At that time, Tempelsman was reported to be urging Dos Santos to consider the idea of an increased share in the Cuango Valley mines for Unita. The Angolan government has agreed two mining concessions for Unita’s diamond company, SGM, and the company is free to negotiate partnerships with foreign mining companies.
Unita wants to keep the valuable Cuango mines, which have provided the organisation with an income of at least $2,5-billion since 1992. This is a concession the government says it will not make.
Also in November, LKI announced it was setting up a cutting factory in Angola to process $40-million-worth of diamonds a year, provided there is stability in the country and it is assured of an adequate supply of diamonds for cutting. The successful conclusion of a deal between Unita and the government would satisfy both requirements.
Tempelsman’s Angolan interests extend to the US-Angola Chamber of Commerce, where he is a director. The ties between commerce and diplomacy in Angola are so tight that the executive director of the chamber is Edward DeJarnette, first US ambassador to Angola. The current US ambassador, Donald Steinberg, is a member of the chamber’s advisory council. Steinberg has supported Tempelsman’s initiative to the extent of lobbying Dos Santos in May this year to consider the proposals. Chester Crocker, architect of the US’s Southern Africa policy under former presidents Reagan and Bush, is another council member.
Whether the links are strong enough to persuade Unita to accept the deal has yet to be seen. Tempelsman met Savimbi last month to put forward the proposals. His strong business ties with the regime of ex- president Mobutu Sese Seko in the former Zaire make him more acceptable to Unita than a company linked solely to the MPLA.
Negotiating a successful diamond settlement in Angola might also improve LKI’s standing in the new Congo, where the government does not favour diamond companies with links to the old Mobuto regime.
So far, there is no indication that Unita will accept a deal and surrender the military option. Unita’s diamond trading faces possible sanctions when the United Nations Security Council meets to discuss the crisis in Angola.
Unless Unita agrees to disarm and quarter its army and surrender the territory it occupies, the UN has signalled it will place draconian sanctions on the organisation’s freedom of movement and financial dealings.
The last time sanctions on diamond trading were attempted was in 1988, when the US government proposed to ban diamond imports from South Africa but the Bill was never passed. SA diamond group De Beers believes sanctions would merely drive diamond smuggling underground and might undercut the market price of rough diamonds. This is especially true of Angola’s high-quality gem output.