Global Policy Forum

By Evelyn Leopold

U.N. Security Council members decided on Wednesday to drop sanctions on "blood diamonds" from Sierra Leone when the global ban expires this week, its president reported.

Council members reviewed the sanctions, first imposed in July 2000 when the Freetown government was barely functioning and rebels were financing a brutal war by smuggling gems to Liberia in exchange for arms. The ban on diamond exports from Liberia, however, remains intact. "It was decided not to extend them and a special statement on this will be made Thursday," Russia's U.N. ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, this month's council president told Reuters after consultations. The sanctions expire on Friday.

The Security Council had imposed bans on illicit diamond exports three years ago until the Freetown government could set up a proper certification system for the gems -- as well as regain access to diamond-mining areas then under rebel control. Members now believe that Sierra Leone has devised its own system to certify diamonds, which, despite problems, could function with international support but without punitive measures.

Nevertheless, a March report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that "diamond trading is yet to be adequately regulated" by the government although legal exports last year increased to $41 million from about $26 million in 2001.

However, council diplomats said the situation no longer merited sanctions as it did not pose a threat to international peace and security. Instead, they said foreign groups, such as the U.S. Development Program, the World Bank, British mining experts, the U.S. government and others were assisting Sierra Leone in regulating the gems. Diamonds, gold, iron ore and bauxite accounted for about two thirds of Sierra Leone's exports before war in the 1990s wrecked the economy of the former British colony.

Some 70 diamond producing countries agreed in April to curb trade in "blood diamonds," which originate in conflict zones and have helped to fund Africa's wars. They have until July 31 to meet monitoring requirements or face a trading ban from other participants in the plan, agreed to in South Africa and known as the Kimberley Process Certification scheme.

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