Diamonds from CAR Fueling Conflict

(IDEX Online News) – Gold and diamonds are helping to fuel the Central African Republic’s (CAR) religious violence, according to an article by Reuters.

The Ndassima goldmine, which is owned by the Canadian mining company Axmin and which was overrun by the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels more than year ago, forms “forms part of an illicit economy driving sectarian conflict,” the article says.

Axim suspended activity at the mine in late 2012 after it was occupied by the rebels.

Despite a ceasefire being signed last week, the article says that many fear that the warlords on both sides will resist attempts to break their hold on CAR’s many resources, especially the gold and diamond mines. 

"Commanders on both sides are profiteering from this conflict. Both the anti-balaka militia and Seleka are involved in gold and diamonds," Kasper Agger, field researcher for the Enough Project, a Washington-based think-tank told Reuters. "If we are going to make peace, we need to offer them an economic alternative."

Last year, the Kimberley Process imposed an export ban on the CAR. Reuters said the transitional government of President Catherine Samba Panza is trying to enforce a "traceability" scheme to prove that diamonds are not mined in rebel territory.

Despite the ban, Reuters reported that diamonds from the country are still being traded. “[D]iamond fields around Bria and Sam Ouandja provide revenue for rebels, who extract protection money and sell diamonds to dealers in Sudan and Chad, experts say. From there, the gems are trafficked to Antwerp, Dubai or India.”

The trade has been warned against buying goods from CAR. "Illicit trading in diamonds from the CAR not only undermines the efforts of the international community to restore peace in the country, but it challenges the reputation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and the efforts of our industry, government and civil society to eliminate the trade in conflict diamonds," the World Diamond Council president, Edward Asscher, said recently.