2023-11-16 16:47:42
The European Commission proposed on Wednesday November 15 to ban diamond imports from Russia. It is accused of financing part of its war against Ukraine thanks to the lucrative trade in these precious stones, which represent a turnover of around four to five billion euros per year.
The diamond trade has been at the heart of controversy since the end of the 20th century. A financial source for armed groups during civil wars in Africa, this trafficking is also accused of promoting human rights violations.
Countries involved
During the Angolan civil war (1975-2002), the Maoist-inspired anti-colonial movement Unita exploited diamond mines and sold them abroad to finance its military equipment. The United Nations estimates that of the 4 billion euros collected by Angola thanks to the diamond trade between 1994 and 1998, 93% ended up in Unita’s coffers.
In Sierra Leone, during the civil war from 1991 to 2002, United Liberation Front rebels exchanged diamonds for weapons, notably through the company of the president of neighboring Liberia, Charles Taylor. The Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic are also diamond-producing countries plagued by long and bloody civil wars, while the Republic of Congo serves as a hub to circumvent sanctions.
The Kimberley Process,
At the end of the 1990s, several NGOs, including Global Witness and Impact, denounced these “blood diamonds”, extracted from mines in war zones, sold illegally and clandestinely for the benefit of armed groups. Following their reports, the UN is investigating alleged links between the presence of gems and armed conflict. In May 2000, South Africa launched a negotiating platform, the Kimberley Process, to create a diamond certification system.
Bringing together 81 countries, which cover more than 99% of world production, the process led in January 2003 to procedures to control the import and export of rough diamonds and ensure that they do not finance attempted movements. rebels “to overthrow legitimate governments”.
The thorny question of traceability
However, two limitations hamper this process. First of all, the traceability of diamonds proves difficult because the trade lacks transparency. « The governments concerned have failed to create an independent monitoring system capable of verifying whether essential customs controls are in place.denounced Human Rights Watch in 2018. Stones can change hands dozens of times between the mine and the market.
Thus, in the Central African Republic, where the illegal exploitation of gems finances the Séléka rebels, an embargo was put in place in 2013 then partially lifted in 2016. However, in 2017, Global Witness revealed the existence of a network of young smugglers who sell blood diamonds from Central Africa via Facebook and Instagram.
Subsequently, the Kimberley Process adopted a narrow definition of blood diamonds. This one does not “applies only to rough diamonds, which excludes from its scope totally or partially cut or polished stones”, notes Human Rights Watch. Additionally, the restrictions only apply to armed groups, not governments that commit human rights violations or promote forced child labor.
This is particularly the case in Marange in Zimbabwe, where the army killed 200 people in 2007 to take control of a diamond mine and then administered it using child labor. Despite the overwhelming evidence against the regime of President Robert Mugabe, an embargo was only imposed from 2010. Less than a year later, exports were authorized again.
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