Kimberley Process Suspends RoC Membership Over Diamond Smuggling

The Kimberley Process has removed the Republic of Congo (RoC) from the legitimate diamond trade, suspending its participation in the process, accusing it of sending millions of dollars in smuggled gems onto the inter-national market. The suspension follows a KP mission to the RoC May 31-June 4 that found the country was dealing in millions of carats of smuggled diamonds from other African countries.

“The findings of the review mission are clear,” Tim Martin, chairman of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, said in a statement. “The Republic of Congo cannot account for the origin of large quantities of rough diamonds that it is officially exporting.” The suspension of the RoC “was necessary to safeguard the credibility and integrity” of the certification process, Martin said.

KP investigators found the RoC was “unable to account for a massive discrepancy between the scale of rough diamond exports and the absence of any reported production or imports”, effectively meaning that almost all the diamonds it sent to market were smuggled into the country, they concluded. The RoC denied the allegations and mines ministry official Louis-Marie Djama said he had not been informed of the suspension, saying such a move would be “arbitrary.” The RoC’s expulsion would throw into question “the credibility of the Kimberley Process,” he said.

“I can’t see what conflict diamonds could come into our country.”

The suspension is the third from the Kimberley process, and the second active one. The Central African Republic was suspended last year because of concerns over fighting there, but allowed back in. Lebanon was suspended in March this year, because its president did not pass into law legislation making the Kimberley Process a legal entity in his country, and remains suspended.

The Kimberley Process was established with industry backing in late 2002 to stamp out illicitly traded diamonds and came in response to growing worldwide concern about conflict diamonds, which fueled and funded wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Congo during the 1990s.