Report: CAR to Resume Diamond Exports

(IDEX Online News) – The Central African Republic (CAR) is expected to resume rough diamond exports shortly, according to reports in AllAfrica.com. The move would bring a partial end to sanctions imposed on the country’s diamond production since May 2013.

The CAR is estimated to have a stockpile of approximately 168,000 diamonds.

The decision to allow the CAR to resume diamond production was ratified at the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) intercessional meeting, which met recently in the Angolan capital of Luanda.

Joseph Agbou, the CAR’s minister of geology and mining, said the country would ensure the diamonds are mined from compliant zones – defined as suitably under government control, not subject to rebel-based or army group activity and allows the free movement of goods and persons – according to AllAfrica.com.

Joris Heeren, deputy head of the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments that the EU had worked hard to monitor the CAR, and that the KP’s decision to lift the ban on the CAR’s diamond exports was an important step.

Exports from the CAR were embargoed   because of military conflict in the country. “We face a situation where conflict diamonds continue to fuel rebel activities to remove elected officials from office," said Welile Nhlepo, who was chair of the KP at the time.

A recent report by The Enough Project, a Washington DC-based organization that works to end genocide and crimes against humanity, alleged that the two main rebel groups in the country – the ex-Séléka and the Anti-Balaka – are still using the proceeds from the illicit diamond trade and taxation to fund their activities and that there is a high likelihood of conflict diamonds entering the KP-approved diamond trade.