Informal diamond mining first erupted in Angola on a very large scale from September 1991, following the signing of the Bicesse Accords between the government and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels as well as an agreement to hold the country’s first general elections.
The Kimberley Process (KP) chairperson Bernardo Campos said in a foreword of paper titled, “Outlook and priorities for the Angolan chairmanship of the Kimberley Process in 2015”, that with the advent of peace at the time at least 100 000 diggers principally from the then Zaire, flooded Angola’s Cuango Valley, then the richest source of diamonds, as well as Lunda Norte.
Angola then passed a new diamond law in October 1991 that made it legal for Angolan citizens as well as individuals to possess and trade in diamonds acquired from areas outside mining concessions, and sell through government-recognised buying offices.
A setback was registered when UNITA rejected the United Nations supervised elections in 1992.
This re-fuelled the civil war and the rebel group went on to seize the Cuango Valley and much of the Lundas.
UNITA briefly withdrew from the main mines in the Cuango Valley five years later, but started attacking diamond projects in 1998.
The UN, despite its flaws, had to put measures in place to ban the trading of UNITA’s diamonds.
The end of the civil war in 2002 brought some normalcy in the country, although no regulations existed for artisan mining until 2009.
Since then a lot of progress had been made.
Angola is currently the largest artisan producer by value in the world, although second to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the number of carats produced.
It indicated last year that it had granted mining passes or permits to 594 artisanal miners by end of 2013.
The country’s registered artisanal miners were said to have produced about 935 000 carats last year.
Angola produced 8.75 million carats of diamonds last year realising about $1.3 billion in revenue.
Geology and mining minister Francisco Queiroz told delegates at a mining conference in Cape Town last month that the artisanal output raked in $332 million and attracted an average price of $355 per carat.
However, the country was not immune from criticism.
Angolan human rights activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, who had been investigating rights abuses connected with the diamond industry in Angola since 2004, said with the end of the war in 2002, the Angolan government granted mining concessions to companies owned by senior military figures and others with close links to the regime.
He alleged that illegal miners and villagers alike were routinely stripped naked and beaten with the flat side of machetes.
This was all happening under the nose of the Kimberley Process, which he said was seen in Angola as “worthless”.
"Under the Kimberley Process the state has the responsibility of certifying that diamonds mined in its national territory comply with ethical standards," Morais said.
"In Angola, the process is worthless, since senior state officials have been complicit in some of the worst human rights abuses associated with the diamond industry: the destruction of livelihoods as well as torture and murder."
Despite these accusations, nothing was done to Angola, rather it was this year elected to chair the diamond watchdog.
Knowing its strength, Angola wasted no time, as declared that one of its priorities this year as the KP chair was the implementation of the Washington Declaration to develop artisanal and small scale diamond mining.
The goals of the Washington declaration on artisanal and small scale diamond mining included improving formalisation of artisanal mining, lower fees and increase accessibility of mining licences, enhance data collection and analysis, strengthen property rights as well as improve financial transparency.
The Working Group on Artisanal and Alluvial Production (WGAAP) had been focused on these issues and concluded that there was much the KP can do to support these efforts.
Artisanal and small-scale mining of diamonds represents approximately 25 percent of the world’s rough diamond trade.
The sector presented challenges to initiatives such as the Kimberley Process because it often operates outside the formal economy and often escapes the internal controls that form one of the pillars of the Kimberley Process.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
