Diamond Mining Continues in Cote d’Ivoire

Posted in News by Admin on December 24th, 2009

From the shade of a makeshift shed, Mohammed Conde watches his workers turn over the red soil with shovels and pickaxes: Diamond mining at Bobi in Cote d’Ivoire persists despite a United Nations (UN) ban on exports.

Diamond extraction is the main activity in this large village in the heart of the wooded savannah in the country’s northwest. The open-pit mine, the region’s largest, extends around two-thirds of a mile (over a kilometer).

Hundreds work here in spite of a UN embargo on rough diamonds, initiated in 2005 based on the argument that the trade financed New Forces (FN) rebels behind a failed 2002 coup against President Laurent Gbagbo.

Before the embargo, “we extracted diamonds in 25 villages in the Seguela district [260 miles or 420 kilometers northwest of Abidjan] compared to only ten today,” said mine operator Conde.

“Rough diamonds don’t sell so well any more; the big Israeli and South African investors have left because of the embargo,” Conde said. “Ivorian diamonds no longer put food on the table.”

Money from diamonds still feed around 5,000 people — compared with 20,000 before 2005 — according to figures from the mining development group Sodemi. For diamond expert Michel Yobouet, “one of the great weaknesses” of the embargo is that “it covers exports, not extraction.”

Legally extracted diamonds “are still sold illegally on the international market,” accounting for around $25 million, said Yobouet, a member of the Kimberley Process (KP), the global diamond watchdog.

Cote d’Ivoire diamond production is, in fact, on the increase, according to the KP, which monitors and hopes to eliminate the trade in so-called “blood diamonds,” which have financed many African conflicts.

Placed under the authority of powerful FN commander Issiaka Ouattara known as “Wattao,” one of ten such commanders who control the north, ex-rebels from Bobi insist their involvement in the diamond trade is history. Since the signing of a peace deal in 2007, “we’ve turned our backs on the ‘diams’,” as the trade is known, a local FN official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

Nevertheless, the trade continues.

Mamadou Diomande describes himself as “the boss’s special envoy” in reference to the mysterious buyer he works for.

“Before the embargo, diamonds landed in Belgian diamond workshops via Abidjan,” he said. “Diamonds mined from Bobi now transit via Mali, Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone before ending up in Israel or Belgium.”

A UN experts report published in October — the most recent time the embargo was renewed — noted “the absence of effective border controls,” which aids in the trafficking of contraband to neighboring countries. The government says that the best way to end the smuggling would be to lift the embargo.

The embargo “has penalized us greatly and no longer has any reason to exist,” said a senior official from Sodemi, citing the end of the civil war and repeatedly delayed elections, which are now due to be held in February.

“A lifting of the embargo would allow for the traceability of diamonds that is sought by the Kimberley Process,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

Moreover, Cote d’Ivoire needs to modernize its diamond industry, President Gbagbo said recently, warning that “we’re not going to content ourselves with the small-scale exploitation of a product as important as diamonds.”