Through The Looking Glass: Oil and Diamond are Africa's bane?

Through The Looking Glass: Oil and Diamond are Africa's bane?

Diamond, obviously, is a girl's best friend and it is only logical that
people might kill and love to get them. Imagine what is now happening in
many countries of Africa today which buttresses the fact that the precious
stone is the rebel's most covetous possession.

The lust for it has long sparked off bloody conflicts in Congo, Angola,
Liberia, and Sierra-Leone among other countries and once enmeshed in it the
citizens of these countries would throw caution to the dogs. War,
therefore, is a common vocation and with it comes the guns that confer power
on rebels and leaders. Diamonds, of course, provide the funds for them to
buy guns which in turn, they use to snuff out lives from many innocent and
hapless people while the vicious circle knows no bounds.

Only the penultimate week, Africa lost a major head of state, the Democratic
Republic of Congo's president, Laurent Kabila through assassination by his
personal bodyguard. On the face value, it would have been seen as a war
game but careful observers knew that without their huge deposit of lucrative
diamonds, the Congolese would have little or nothing to fight for.

Kabila and the Congo have a long link with diamonds; immediately the
Belgians left Kinshasa in 1960, independence brought bloody crisis while the
struggle was for leadership and control of the diamond-rich Katanga
province. Joseph Mobutu - a soldier soon won the day by seizing power and
of course, the diamond mines as well.

Not satisfied with Mobutu's misappropriation of power and the diamond
proceeds, Kabila soon took up arms against the president who renamed the
country Zaire. The president-for-life also named himself Mobutu Sese Seko
while the state and all its wealth became his private estate.

The result of the Kabila-Mobutu conflict was war and a thirty-year power
struggle which ended in 1997 with a great loss by Mobutu to Kabila. When the
latter assumed power and control of the diamond mines, it was thought that
the war would end but that was not the case. His comrades-in-arms soon
cried foul and marginalization since both the power and the diamonds were
not equitably shared. And so the conflict continued.

Congo-K is not alone in the diamond wars and there is no gainsaying the fact
that international efforts made by Nigeria, Britain and the United States
have since failed to end the war in Sierra-Leone. Now they know why; the
rebels controlling the diamond fields of the poor country shamelessly told
the world the truth that they waged the war for the diamonds", so that
explains why a dozen peace treaties would not end a long bloody war. For
sure, the wars in the Congo and Sierra-Leone have claimed thousands of lives
and any accurate calculation of the loss might prove difficult. The United
Nations would reel out imaginary figures but the organization itself knows
these cannot be exact. One sure thing however, is that reasons for most of
the bloody conflicts in Africa cannot be farfetched.

Mindful of the importance of diamonds to the Sierra-Leonean rebels, the
international community last year, brokered peace there. They conceded the
country's vice presidency to Corporal Foday Sankoh, leader of the rebel,
Revolutionary United Front (RUF). To this also was added the ministerial
portfolio overseeing diamond mining. But if they thought they could appease
Sankoh and his rebel allies with a piece of Sierra-Leone's diamonds, they
were soon proved wrong because war broke out again with attendant loss of
limbs, lives and properties. This is with the rebels on the giving end.
Sankoh and some of his fellow rebels were captured but did that end the war?
No. More deadly rebel groups by different names soon emerged and the
diamond mining continues unabated till today.

Angola's is said to be Africa's longest war in history. Officially it has
started since 1974 while the guerrilla war that broke out and lasted till
the country gained independence. Yet the bad news is that that there is no
end in sight for the bloody conflict.

Dr. Jonas Savimbi was the leader of the rebel National Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (UNITA) and he still is. Since he went to war in
1974, he has failed to liberate Angolans the way he might have promised but
has since settled for the liberation of the country's rich diamond fields
which has been under his control for decades.

A recent BBC account tried to calculate UNITA's gains from Angola's diamond
war. The rebel group has mined diamonds worth over two billion United
States Dollars in six years alone said the published report and there is no
reason to believe that the loot is not more than that in value.

Diamonds are easy to smuggle and difficult to track. Five thousands carats
of the precious stone having the weight of a bag of sugar can fetch a
million of dollars, said the BBC. A handful of the precious stone, easily
fits into the breast pocket can make someone rich overnight.

The mining is something close to forced labor continued the BBC; it added
that the man with the gun easily becomes the master. The laborers only take
to pilfering, smuggling the stones even trough their rectums if they are to
share in the largesse and because it is a dangerous game, the diamond
business attracts the most dangerous, greedy and determined buyers and
sellers. The trade has since expanded and now includes heads of state who
have been accused of sponsoring wars in exchange for the precious stones.

Among those often mentioned as diamond war sponsors are Liberia's President
Charles Taylor, Togolese leader, Gnassingbe Eyadema and Libya's Colonel
Muammar Gaddafi. The Sierra-Leone war is now spreading to Liberia and Guinea
while the accused deny complicity but the US and UN insist they have
incontrovertible evidence implicating them.

The world, especially the UN wants to stop the trafficking in blood diamonds
and many countries have tried to help by declaring illegal diamond
trafficking as an offence. This is why those supporting diamond-peddling
rebels risk international sanctions but everybody knows that the illicit
trade would be difficult to control because ending the wars looks even more
difficult if not impossible.

Rebels account for over 20% of the diamonds clandestinely supplied to the
global market. With these dissidents not known to be conformists, it is
hard to stop them hence the reason is simple; the UN does not have the
military muscle to police the world and the rebels knowing this very well
run free without fear. With their diamond wealth, they buy guns so easily
and their favorite is the AK-47 rifle which is very cheap, common and easy
to use even by children.

Looking at the problems associated with lucrative minerals like diamonds,
Tanzania's late President, Julius Nyerere, in his lifetime, said he thanked
God that Tanzania had no diamonds, gold, silver or crude oil.

He was damn right because many wars have been fought over diamonds so have
they been on crude oil while many are obviously yet to come. Today there is
an easy calm in Nigeria after bloody struggles over crude oil in its Niger
Delta and so it is not just diamonds.