Wall Street Journal - May 12, 2000
Diamonds Appear to Be at Center Of Widening Sierra Leone Crisis
By ROBERT BLOCK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- What appears to lie behind the breakdown of the peace process in Sierra Leone and the return of chaos to West Africa is U.S. and British determination to wrest control of Sierra Leone's rich diamond mining areas from Revolutionary United Front rebels.
Washington and London have spearheaded efforts for several months to break the financial power base of the RUF, which controls the country's eastern diamond-producing areas, by trying to centralize the diamond trade. The efforts were aimed at strengthening Sierra Leone's democratically elected president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, and shoring up a nine-month-old fragile peace process.
At the urging of the U.S. and former colonial power Britain, Mr. Kabbah signed a peace deal in July with RUF leader Foday Sankoh, ending eight years of civil war. Under the pact, Mr. Sankoh received amnesty for the gruesome military campaign he led, which included chopping off people's arms, and the RUF received eight cabinet posts that include control of Sierra Leone's state diamond corporation.
Despite the deal, diamond traders and industry insiders say the RUF continued to smuggle gemstones through neighboring Liberia, ruled by President Charles Taylor, a longtime rebel ally. For many months, diplomats and United Nations officials in Sierra Leone have suspected Mr. Sankoh of playing a double game: participating in the transitional government, while keeping his war options open. They believed Mr. Sankoh was disarming only part of his forces and using the cash from illegal diamond sales to enable him, if he saw his ambitions for power frustrated, to go back to the bush.
The key role of mining interests in the fighting is nothing new in Sierra Leone. Rival mining companies, security firms and mercenaries from South Africa, Britain, Belgium, Israel and the former Soviet Union have poured in weapons, trainers, fighters and cash, backing the government or the rebels in a bid to gain access to the country's high-quality gems.
On March 22, the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development, sponsored a meeting between international diamond mining and marketing companies and officials from the Sierra Leone transitional government, including Mr. Sankoh and senior RUF officials. The aim of the two-day workshop was to help the government effectively manage the diamond trade.
According to one participant, Andrew Coxon of South Africa's diamond giant De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., it was clear the RUF disliked the idea. "The RUF was under the impression that they were sitting on billions of dollars," he says. "I am quite sure none of them had any interest in sharing that income."
The scale of the RUF smuggling operation, according to figures recorded by the Diamond High Council in Antwerp, Belgium, a hub of the world diamond trade, is worth at least $30 million a year. According to the council, the value of uncut diamonds officially exported from Sierra Leone dropped to $31 million last year from $66 million in 1998. At the same time, the value of diamond exports from Liberia, a country with few diamond deposits, jumped to $298 million in 1999 from $268 million in 1998. Russia is also suspected of laundering its gems through Liberia to take advantage of West Africa's duty-free access to Antwerp's cutting rooms.
Mr. Sankoh appears to have also sold diamonds in the nearby Ivory Coast. One senior African diamond buyer says Mr. Sankoh personally sold several million dollars of diamonds to a Lebanese trader.
Fed up, the U.N. announced it was prepared to end the RUF game. Last month, the U.N. military commander in Sierra Leone, Maj. Gen. Vijay Jetley of India, said his forces expected to take over all diamond areas under RUF control by the end of June. It amounted to a direct challenge to Mr. Sankoh. Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, who recently visited Sierra Leone, shares this view.
"I think what helped trigger this was that the U.N. was beginning to move into the diamond areas," Mr. Axworthy said. "We were awfully close to taking supervisory control over that region. So they were clearly trying to protect their sources of money, wealth and weapons."
A further development that appeared to embolden the RUF was the scheduled withdrawal of four battalions of Nigerian peacekeepers last week. The Nigerians, part of the old West African intervention force that attempted to impose peace in Sierra Leone before the U.N. arrived, were among the toughest troops in the country. Under threat and sensing the U.N. vulnerable, the RUF took U.N. peacekeepers hostage and are poised to attack the capital.
The Associated Press reported that on Thursday, Sierra Leone soldiers and pro-government militia drove rebel forces farther from the capital, an army spokesman said, as the government moved to head off a feared guerrilla offensive on Freetown.
The fighting near the town of Newton, 25 miles east of Freetown, came as U.N. peacekeeping troops and pro-government forces geared up for a RUF, advance on the nervous capital, where thousands of frightened villagers have sought sanctuary in recent days.
The battle near Newton pitted the recently rearmed Sierra Leone Army and the pro-government Kamajors -- a militia made up of traditional hunters -- against RUF rebels, said army spokesman Prince Nicol.
In Washington, President Clinton on Thursday dispatched the Rev. Jesse Jackson as a special envoy to the region in an effort to halt "a return to all-out war." The president also directed American military officials to hasten efforts to ferry in more international peacekeepers.
Mr. Clinton said he spoke Thursday with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the two agreed a stronger international response is necessary.
"We intend to support the commitment West African nations have made to send additional troops to Sierra Leone to restore peace," he said.