-Caveat Lector- Diamond Trade Fuels Africa's Wars By GEORGE GEDDA .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - It hardly is a coincidence that bloody African civil wars have broken out in Sierra Leone, Congo and Angola: Each boasts a rich reserve of diamonds that rebels have exploited to finance their quest for power. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright comes face to face Monday with the grim legacy of the eight-year war in Sierra Leone when she visits a camp housing some of the conflict's victims. It is the second stop on her six-country tour of Africa. That legacy can be seen in countless lost fingers, hands, lips and ears, which reflect the RUF rebel movement's fascination for mutilation. Some victims were as young as 3 or 4 years old. For Albright, the stop in Sierra Leone easily will be the most difficult of her weeklong tour. She also will visit Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya. The secretary of state will encourage both sides in Sierra Leone to abide by terms of a peace agreement negotiated three months ago. One meeting is planned with RUF leaders who oversaw the brutality. Susan Rice, Albright's top aide for African affairs, said the meeting is necessary because peace in Sierra Leone will be impossible if the insurgents are ignored. When the RUF, the acronym for Revolutionary United Front, took up arms eight years ago, they had just a few hundred men. But as they tapped diamond mines in areas under their control, the ensuing windfall reached $100 million to $150 million annually, and the number of combatants soon rose to 10,000 to 15,000, according to U.S. estimates. The diamond trade enabled the RUF to buy weapons as well as influence. The consequences were catastrophic for the West African nation, a former British colony. U.S. officials say almost half the population of 4.6 million has been uprooted from their homes - and these are the lucky ones. Thousands more have been killed or maimed in RUF attacks. As U.S. officials see it, the diamond trade tends to prolong conflicts in Sierra Leone and elsewhere on the continent. The struggle for justice becomes a struggle to maintain an economic enterprise, officials say. In Sierra Leone's case, diamonds often are transferred to neighboring Liberia, then flown to Europe. Much of the RUF's output ends up in shops in the United States, officials say. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of Zimbabwean troops protect rich diamond areas in the southwestern part of the country from encroachment by rebel forces fighting the government of President Laurent Kabila. Part of the diamond haul is used to pay the Zimbabwe military for its protection. Instability has kept eastern Congo in turmoil recently because the armies of both Rwanda and Uganda have been drawn there by diamond deposits. The competition has produced outbreaks of fighting. Profits from diamonds also have enabled Angola's UNITA rebel movement, a Cold War ally of the United States, to persist in its 24-year civil war. UNITA has been able to flout an effort by the United Nations to force a peace settlement through economic sanctions. According to U.N. estimates, UNITA has earned $4 billion from diamond sales since the sanctions took effect in 1993. David Newsom, a former deputy secretary of state, points out that not only are diamonds valuable, but they are often easy to transport and hide. Newsom said he was told of a Lebanese diamond merchant in Angola who moved from place to place with a pet boa constrictor, ``which conveniently swallowed and disgorged diamonds on demand.'' A U.S. official who monitors Africa's conflicts says the administration hopes to get an international movement under way to distinguish between the ``clean'' diamond trade, involving countries such as Botswana, Nigeria, Australia and Russia, and the ``dirty'' one that feeds Africa's conflicts. The latter trade is estimated to account for 30 to 40 percent of African production. Any such movement would require the cooperation of the De Beers diamond conglomerate, which controls about 70 percent of the world's rough diamond sales. A U.N. committee headed by Robert Fowler, a Canadian, is looking for ways to crack down on illicit UNITA diamond and arms trading. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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