By IPS Correspondents
LONDON, Jan 31 2001 (IPS)

Diamonds are at the heart of a new commercial war breaking out between a group of African nations and a powerful international lobby led by the US and Britain.

The stuff of wedding rings has become a matter of international conflict following evidence, some of it disputed, that diamonds are being traded for arms by rebels in Sierra Leone, Angola and several other African countries.

The moves to counter these “conflict diamonds”, as they have come to be called, have been routed through the UN.

But the debates within the UN are being displaced now by moves within the trade itself to tackle these “conflict diamonds”. Political differences are tying in with commercial disputes.

The measures being proposed to counter conflict diamonds have commercial implications that go far beyond freeing diamonds from political conflict.

They will mean the strengthening of the monopoly of De Beers over the international trade in rough diamonds.

A UN panel proposed an embargo in December on diamond exports from the Gambia on the ground that these exports are only a re- export of diamonds smuggled in through Sierra Leone by the rebel Revolutionary United Front, which has armed control of the diamond mines of Sierra Leone.

The panel mentioned the Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger and even South Africa as countries where individuals and companies are trading in these conflict diamonds. The diamonds are reported to be offered on sale at substantial discounts from market prices.

Liberia has been threatened with sanctions by the US. That came after the UN panel said in its 64-page report that Liberian President, Charles Taylor, is “actively involved in fueling the violence in Sierra Leone.” The bulk of these conflict diamonds from Sierra Leone find their way to the market through Liberia, the report says.

Liberian foreign minister, Monie Captan, vigorously denied during a UN debate that Liberia is buying diamonds from Sierra Leone rebels and training them.

He offered to process all diamond exports from Liberia through its central bank. A vote on sanctions is due in the UN in February.

The trade in conflict diamonds is no more than four per cent of the total trade in roughs. “But this is large enough to upset the delicate pricing of rough diamonds in several markets,” Umesh Mehta, a diamond dealer in Antwerp told IPS. A four per cent of an

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