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The following is an unauthorized version of the Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone.
This is not the official report. The official report has not yet been released. The report posted here is subject to change by the sanctions committee.
IV. A FINAL NOTE ON DIAMONDS
A. Some Recommendations from Sierra Leone
152. A two-day conference on diamonds, organized by the Network Movement for Justice and Development, the Civil Society Movement of Sierra Leone and several other Sierra Leonean organizations, coincided with the visit to that country of the Panel. This 'Just Mining' conference made several recommendations, which the Panel wishes to draw to the attention of the Security Council. The recommendations were based on widespread public frustration in Sierra Leone with the de facto division of the country into two parts - one with diamonds, controlled by the RUF, and one largely without diamonds, controlled by the government. The conference was vocal in its criticism of UNAMSIL's mandate and/or its inability to change this situation. UNAMSIL, the conference concluded, was actually complicit in dividing the country and in ensuring that the RUF can mine diamonds with impunity. The conference recommended the following:
- that the Government of Sierra Leone engage a private military/security firm to bring about a military solution to the problem as soon as possible;
- that the United Nations assume responsibility for the key diamond areas and manage them as a UN Trust Territory;
- that UNAMSIL be deployed to the diamond areas to protect them from future incursions and from illicit mining;
- that the Sierra Leone diamond industry be closed down completely for a period of five years in order to encourage non-Sierra Leoneans involved in the industry to leave, and to provide the government and people with the time required to devise new investment codes and more open systems of transparency and accountability, so that the diamond industry can benefit the people of the country, rather than the few who have enjoyed its rewards over the past three decades.
153. The Panel includes these civil society recommendations in the report for two reasons. The first is that they reflect widespread public concern in Sierra Leone about the connection between diamonds and the war, and about the lack of progress in resolving the conflict. The second is that they reflect a widespread concern, shared by the Panel, that once the conflict is settled, Sierra Leone's diamond industry should not be allowed to lapse back into the corruption and mismanagement of earlier years. The objective of the UN peacekeeping effort, the new diamond certification scheme, and the work of the Panel of Experts should not be a return to the status quo of earlier years. Rather the aim should be to help Sierra Leone move forward to a situation in which diamonds are a widespread public good, becoming an engine for development and peace rather than one of war and destruction.
B. Further Research
154. There is reason to believe that a certain amount of diamonds have been traded by the RUF with officers of the former West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, in return for cash or supplies. The Panel did not see this issue as part of its mandate and so did not examine it in any detail, but repeated accounts, many of them first-hand eyewitness reports, made the stories impossible to ignore. If the issue is thought to be important, it will require further investigation.
155. The issue of 'illicit' diamonds and their implications for the diamond industry, as well as for the tracking and discovery of conflict diamonds, is an important one. This report has touched on it, but on-going research and monitoring may be required in order to do the subject justice.