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Why Naomi Campbell's Hague appearance matters

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 05 August 2010

As Naomi Campbell testifies at a war crimes trial against former Liberia leader Charles Taylor, a former diamond smuggling investigator writes for Channel 4 News about how the precious stones became valuable assets in civil war.

Naomi Campbell testifies at a war crimes trial against former Liberia leader Charles Taylor. ((Sierra Leonean fighters, 2000. Picture: Reuters)

Alex Vines is Director of Regional and Security Studies at Chatham House.

As a diamond smuggling investigator for the UN from 2001-2003 in Liberia, I saw at first hand the importance that diamonds had on providing funds for the vicious rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, and for maintaining Charles Taylor in power in neighbouring Liberia.

Diamonds were perhaps the most valuable assets available to all parties involved in the conflict in Sierra Leone.

It took the ground-breaking work on blood diamonds in Sierra Leone by the NGO, Partnership Africa Canada, to convince the UN to take action. UN sanctions were finally imposed towards the end of the civil war in July 2000 under resolution 1306, banning the trade in Sierra Leone of rough diamonds until such a time as the Sierra Leonean government had effective certification scheme in place.

Until this point, the RUF had, with the support and encouragement of Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Front of Liberia, exported relatively large quantities of diamonds every year. Official exports of 'Liberian' diamonds had sky rocketed from Monrovia in 2000.

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The Sierra Leone diamond embargo was extended by the Security Council until June 2003, when the president of the council announced the ban would not be extended, given the success of the Kimberley Process certification scheme, which had come into operation in 2002.

While the Kimberley process was not a UN mechanism, it was the scheme for exporting diamonds legally from Sierra Leone recognized by the Security Council. We should credit the success of Kimberley for contributing peace and stability to Sierra Leone.

UN sanctions, including a diamond embargo on Liberia from May 2001 also contributed to reducing the trade in Sierra Leonean blood diamonds.

Charles Taylor was forced back from Sierra Leone and in 2003 was finally forced from power into exile in Nigeria and in March 2006 he was extradited to Liberia, and handed over to the Sierra Leone Special Court.

Naomi Campbell gives evidence at the Charles Taylor war crimes trial. The supermodel told the court she had received diamonds in 1997, which the prosecution says were given to her by the former Liberian leader.

Thankfully today blood diamonds are almost extinct. Only in Côte d’Ivoire do you still have a UN diamond embargo on exports because rebels control diamond mines.

The Sierra Leone Special Court trial of Charles Taylor trial in the Hague reminds us that diamonds are not just symbols of love and beauty, but are valuable commodities that can in the wrong hands fund conflict.

Diamonds 'not the cause' of the Sierra Leone war
SOAS fellow Dr David Harris tells Channel 4 News that while Sierra Leone's civil war was long and brutal, the issue of diamonds needs to be kept in perspective.

"They were not the cause of the war. They were fuel for the prolongation of the war and most likely one of the reasons that it turned so mercenary and nasty. The causes of the war, however, are far, far wider in scope.

"Diamonds have been more of a curse than a blessing to the country and Charles Taylor has played a part in this conflict, but there is much more to the war than these two factors."

To read more click here.


Because of Sierra Leone, we have the Kimberley global certification system for diamonds. It is not perfect, but the industry is in better shape than in the late 1990s, when brutal rebels in Sierra Leone and Angola funded their actions from sales of diamonds to dealers based in Antwerp, London, Dubai, Tel Aviv and Mumbai. 

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