Us Firm Accused Of Illegal Mining

US firm accused of illegal mining

Sapa-AFP

19th April 2007

MONROVIA - Liberia's main diamond union has accused an American mining company of violating a United Nations ban on the mining of diamonds in the war-torn west African nation.

"The American Mining Associates (AMA) is engaged in intensive mining of diamonds in the Kumgbor area in Gbarpolu county," said Shedrick Wisner, secretary general of the Gold and Diamond Workers Union of Liberia.

Wisner told a press conference that government officials were "secretly giving out diamond licenses to miners in the field".

Liberia-based AMA officials could not be reached for comment, but Eugene Shannon, Liberia's mines and energy minister, denied the allegations.

"There is no mining going on in Gbarpolu or anywhere in Liberia," Shannon told AFP, adding that the government had asked for United Nations (UN) help to control illicit mining from people crossing its border regions.

Wisner also alleged that AMA had recently dug up a massive diamond believed to be worth millions of US dollars in Gbarpolu, which is on the northwest of Liberia.

"The diamond is being camouflaged with the consent of the minister (for) mines," he said.

This charge was again refuted by the minister.

"At no time did I connive with the American Mining Associates to camouflage a diamond valued (at) millions of dollars," said Shannon, who acknowledged that AMA had been operating in Gbarpolu for several years with an exploration licence.

The UN Security Council in December renewed for six months an embargo on the trading of rough diamonds from Liberia. The ban was initially imposed in 2001.

Trafficking in illegal diamonds is considered one of the root causes not only of the back-to-back civil wars in Liberia since 1989 but also the decade of brutal conflict in next-door Sierra Leone.

Warlord and ex-president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, is at The Hague facing war crime charges for allegedly arming and training rebels in Sierra Leone in exchange for diamonds.

The diamond sector is vital to the rebuilding of the economy of the war-shattered west African state.

Since taking up office last year, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been lobbying for the lifting of the sanctions.

But the UN wants Monrovia to set up an effective and verifiable regime for documenting the origin of rough diamonds so it can rejoin the Kimberley Process, an international system designed to prevent so-called "blood diamonds" from entering the market.

"We are very hopeful that the sanction will be lifted at the end of April," Shannon told AFP.