By Tanu Jalloh
Diane Frost was trying to make a case for countries, most of them in Africa, whose diamonds have been exploited by the very countries in the west that pity them after the last decade of wars on the continent. Frost is lecturer in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Liverpool, UK.
In his work published recently titled: ‘From the Pit to the Market: Politics and the Diamond Economy in Sierra Leone’ the sociologist established that Bottom of Form
diamonds have played an important role in the political economy of Sierra Leone. He damned conflict diamonds and attempted to trace them, not only to the insurgencies or arm struggles in many countries across Africa but was also able to prove the extent of involvement by those he referred to as global criminal networks.
What role did Sierra Leone play in the global diamonds trade in the last decade and how has the country being graded in the supply of the gemstones? A diamond is a native crystalline carbon that is the hardest known mineral. It is usually nearly colorless and when transparent and free from flaws it is highly valued as a precious stone.
Critics have almost always blamed poor countries because they were the sources of diamonds. Whether that condemnation was fair, based on the understanding that they [countries like Sierra Leone] were vulnerable to powerful economies whose insatiable quest for jewelries grew to become a social indicator for the display of wealth and show of status, is what I have set out to argue.
It has been proven that during wars conflict diamonds have been used not only by rebels, military groups and others in the case of Sierra Leone and Liberia, but also by groups extending beyond the borders of West Africa: global criminal networks, international terror groups, and 'legitimate' transnational companies. Frost would argue, much in support of my position, that the diamond trade in Sierra Leone has also been subject to exploitation by global business interests, a form of corporate neo-colonialist predation that continues today and which has curbed the country's growth, while recent newspaper headlines also demonstrate the currency of rough diamonds.
Against the wish of its people and government, Frost found out that “Sierra Leone's diamonds have been used to finance factions in Lebanon's civil war, criminal networks in the US and Russia, and al-Qaeda.” He concluded that the marginalisation and exclusion of poor countries like Sierra Leone mean that it, and other such resource-rich nations, remain reliant on aid. The primary diamond processing centers, where they are evaluated, cut and sold are in Antwerp, Belgium; New Delhi, India; Tel Aviv, Israel and New York in the United States of America.
Times may have changed and progress being made to ensure that such resources never become the reason for conflicts. According to the Socialist Party in Britain investigators working with the United Nations (UN) once uncovered a well-organised international network of smuggling involving numerous west and southern African countries, with further links to freight companies supplying arms from the United Arab Emirates to Bulgaria and the Ukraine. Whilst the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone had been provided with former Soviet surface-to-air missiles, at the height of the Angolan war over twenty Ilyushin aircraft could be found landing on one airstrip each evening, each loaded with military hardware.
Thus, it was difficult stopping the trade than it was ending the wars. Whilst pressure groups, such as Global Witness, the UN and other diamond industry regulatory bodies try to introduce an “ethical dimension” into the trade, the dealers themselves fear that those efforts would undermine consumer demand because of the diamond's link with limbless children in West Africa. Provenance certificates, supposedly implying that this and that diamond has no blood on it have been suggested, but such a move would require the co-operation of bankers, pokers and buyers in Tel Aviv, Antwerp and Bombay - the three main diamond centres—and indeed the governments of several countries.
As Herbert Rowe, a political scientist specialising in African affairs at Georgetown University in Washington noted: "Even in the Cold War, superpowers did not allow the wholesale ripping up of the economy, the use of children as soldiers and attacks upon relief groups" (The Guardian, London, U.K., 14/05/2000). He was of course referring to countries like Sierra Leone, still one of the poorest countries on earth and whose population was denied health or education system for ten years, as a direct result of the mayhem that has been set loose because of the greed for the profits that diamonds ping.
Further anti-diamond trade measures have included a boycott of diamonds. But the truth is that- although the trade pings so much misery in its wake - the average piece of diamond-laden jewellery on display in the local high street has only a 4 percent chance of having an illicit source and that the diamond most likely originated in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa or the Russian Federation. The UN found out that any such embargo would hit "innocent" diamond producing and cutting countries such as Botswana and India, the latter with a diamond industry employing 800,000.
The party, made up of people who have joined together because they want to get rid of the profit system and establish real socialism, is solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism and a reformist party with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism, also argued that the fact that only 4 percent of the diamonds that adorn our loved ones are bloodstained and that this 4 percent has caused so much chaos and upset throughout Africa suggests, more than anything, the intrinsic danger of the incentive to make a profit at any cost. All the controls it is possible to impose upon the diamond trade would not distract one iota from the fact that, at whatever human cost, if there are profits to be made from the trade then profits will be made. This is the essential nature of capitalism, even in its more overt and legal forms. If profits can be made, no matter how small, they will be made and to hell with anyone who stands in the way.”
The task is not to try to regulate the diamond trade more efficiently, but to end the system that makes the diamond the commodity it is; to banish forever the system that conditions us into thinking that wearing a shiny stone pings status and respect. Since this journal's inception ninety-five years ago, we have consistently reported the wars and conflicts, the misery and sufferings our class has endured in the name of the profits derived from mineral wealth and its possession by an elite. We expect, for the foreseeable future, to carry on in this tradition until our class truly wakes up.
In his piece titled: How the African Diamond Trade Works, Alia Hoyt, a freelance journalist believes that even though many harsh critics of the current state of the African diamond trade tend to agree that shutting out the diamond industry would have a negative effect on many innocent people in the peaceful nations of Africa that rely on diamond mines for their livelihood, several previously war-torn nations, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, are finally out from under the thumb of diamond warlords.
By now you would find out that Sierra Leone was innocent of the charges levied against her and for which she was being blamed for blood diamonds she never would have loved to surrender to war lords. That role, which she played to halt the diamonds trade in the war period, was evident in the sacrifice she made to bring peace. It was also a testimony to my argument that if the country knew that she was being raped of her integrity and value, she would have resisted. According to Hoyt, 2005 saw a peaceful Sierra Leone export more than $142 million worth of diamonds. She is, however, fearful that at the very least, areas of the Ivory Coast and the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo continue to suffer at the hands of greedy diamond mongers. Sierra Leone is vindicated.
