U.N. Extends Liberia Diamond Embargo for Another Six Months

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a further six-month extension of an embargo on Liberian diamonds and has called for strengthened efforts to impose control on the West African country's diamond producing areas.

The vote follows a report delivered last week by a panel of outside experts for the U.N. that said the country has lost any chance of the removal of sanctions on its diamond exports due to a mining deal it signed with a foreign firm which has no mining experience.

The deal was secretly signed in January with the West Africa Mining Corp, a new company that is 90 percent-backed by the London International Bank Ltd., a private investment firm. The agreement would lead to a "de facto monopoly over much of Liberia's diamond-producing regions" and exclude other dealers from competing for diamond purchases, the experts reported to the U.N.

Liberian diamond exports have been banned by the Security Council after the U.N. body found that President Charles Taylor, who fled into exile in Nigeria in 2003, was financing civil war in the area through illegal trading in arms for diamonds and Liberia's other natural resources.

The Security Council said it welcomed the progress made by the National Transitional Government of Liberia in training diamond mining officials, but noted with serious concern "the increase in unlicensed mining and illegal exports of diamonds and the National Transitional Government of Liberia’s agreement to, and lack of transparency in, granting exclusive mining rights to a single company."

The Security Council said it was inviting the National Transitional Government of Liberia "to consider, with the assistance of international partners and for a specific time period, the possibility of commissioning independent external advice on the management of Liberia’s diamond and timber resources, in order to increase investor confidence and attract additional donor support."