Congo admits 'blood diamonds'

2004-06-06 13:16

Brazzaville - The Congolese government on Saturday admitted that a wide network of illegal diamond trafficking was operating in the region but said it was unable to stem the traffic.

"Diamonds are being smuggled in without us or other diamond producing countries able to control the situation," Mining Minister Philippe Mvouo told reporters. "It is difficult to control our borders and we maintain our total innocence."

His statement came after a a fact-finding mission visited Congo between May 31 and June 3 to assess the country's diamond production as part of the so-called Kimberley Process that aims to curb trade in "blood diamonds".

The Kimberley Process, named after a diamond-mining city in South Africa, aims to stop the traffic of rough diamonds that fund insurgencies in unstable African countries.

Launched in May 2000, the Kimberley Process has resulted in the imposition of a certificate system which allows producers, exporters and purchasers to find out easily if the diamond has been acquired through legal or illegal means.

Abbey Chikane, who led the fact-finding mission to Congo this week, deplored the lack of controls on small-scale diamond mines as well as the lack of statistics on production and of registries on sales which do not mention the origin of some of the diamonds traded.

"Small-scale producers, collectors and trading centres must have registries that mention the origin of diamonds," Mvouo agreed. But he added that the problem lay not with diamonds mined in Congo but those that are smuggled into the country.

Congo, which began producing diamonds in the 1960s, has been a member of the Kimberley Process since March 2003. The country's diamond production jumped from 988 000 carats in 1961 to 4.6 million carats in 2003.

- AFP