The Central African Republic (CAR) slid into chaos when the Seleka fighters seized the capital Bangui in March this year, ousting president Francois Bozize.
The rebels unleashed a wave of retaliatory violence as their leader Michel Djotodia was installed as transitional president.
The Kimberley Process (KP) reacted the following May by suspending diamond exports from the country.
Official data shows that the country’s annual diamond production between 2008 and 2011 averaged 328,530 carats, although this was feared to be grossly underestimated.
KP, the CAR authorities and the World Bank, estimated that 30 per cent of the country’s diamonds leaves its territory secretly.
Outgoing KP chairperson Welile Nhlapo said at the time that diamond monitoring and controls in the CAR had ceased since the toppling of Bozize.
This fuelled fears that diamonds were being used to fund the Seleka rebels’ operations in the conflict prone African country given that the rebels had seized control of a major diamond mining center in the country in December 2012.
Six months have lapsed since the suspension of CAR’s diamond exports, but officials from the African country are now asking KP to lift the trade embargo.
CAR said it needs tax revenues from diamond sales to help restart its crippled economy.
"Diamonds have nothing to do with the situation in Central African Republic," Herbert Goyan Djono-Ahaba, mines minister in a transitional government was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"Our country was suspended based on risks but there was no proof that diamonds financed the war."
Djono-Ahaba said that CAR had fulfilled the requirements to be reinstated but KP experts declined to visit to verify the government's efforts.
However, Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) research director Alan Martin said that the verification mission was unable to visit the country as there was no guarantee for its safety.
"Instability exists in both eastern and western diamond mining areas. It is also evident that the government is not in control of the diamond fields," Martin said.
Perhaps, the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition was aware of CAR’s request when it said last month that the diamond watchdog body should uphold its ban on the country’s gems.
The coalition coordinator Shamiso Mtisi said diamond zones in the east and west of the CAR remained unstable and outside official control.
“We note the effort laid out in the proposed work plan sent by the Kimberley Process to the CAR, but believe it is premature until the country (and the diamond zones) are stabilized. As a result the embargo must remain in place,” he was quoted as saying by Business Report.
The timing of CAR’s requisition was poor, as fresh violence had erupted.
Senior UN officials had warned that the CAR was at risk of spiralling into genocide, as armed groups incite Christians and Muslims against each other in the virtually lawless country.
Reports say thousands of villagers recently fled clashes between former rebels and local militias.
The latest violence began just south of the town of Bouca – 290km to the north of Bangui.
In September, around 100 people died in fighting between Seleka fighters and local Christian militias in Bouca and Bossangoa, 100 km to the east, which is Bozize's home region.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations was preparing to possibly deploy peacekeepers, but regional powers had requested to combat the crisis themselves first.
French troops had also started to deploy to the strife-torn country, airlifting men and equipment to Bangui in preparation for an intervention to restore order, AFP reports.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced plans to deploy 1 000 soldiers to help halt mounting violence in the country.
Paris had presented the UN Security Council with a draft resolution aimed at reinforcing a regional African military mission in the CAR (Misca), with the goal of turning it into a UN peacekeeping force.
This surge in violence, despite efforts to quell it, makes it difficult for the diamond watchdog to even consider visiting the country, as Martin pointed out.
CAR officials were just wasting their breath asking KP to lift the diamond trade embargo, while violence continues to flare like veldt fire.
CAR should focus on putting its house in order.
Until the country achieves that, they should forget about a KP re-think on the diamond exports ban.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
