Word: unita
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...easy to stop the trade. UNITA has already amassed a fortune from illicit diamond sales, enough to continue its hostilities virtually indefinitely. Diamond analysts calculate that UNITA made more than $2.5 billion from diamond sales between 1992 and 1997, and last year collected at least $225 million. U.N. researchers and human-rights lobbying groups put the figure far higher. By any estimation, Savimbi's 40,000-strong UNITA must be the richest rebel movement in the world...
...sanctions since mid-1998 against UNITA's diamond dealing have had little effect. Canada's U.N. ambassador, Robert Fowler, head of the Angolan sanctions committee, now has two panels of experts investigating UNITA's sanctions-busting operations and searching for a way to plug the embargo's holes. Fowler plans to put expert monitors in key trading centers to identify gems that could emanate from UNITA-held areas. He will also put U.N. customs officials at points in Africa where UNITA might move diamonds, money or weapons. At the same time, human-rights and environmental lobbyists have been pushing...
...nearly impossible to mark each one in a way that could be retained from mine to showroom. Says Willy Nagel, a top De Beers broker in London: "The certification of diamonds is not foolproof. Smuggling is so widespread and so difficult to combat that one way or another, the UNITA diamonds are going to get on the market...
...anything, Savimbi seems to be attempting to expand his diamond operations. This fall he launched a violent push into the diamond-rich northern Cuango Valley that has forced the state mining company to withdraw most of its staff. In recent weeks the Angolan army has claimed successful attacks against UNITA--most notably a powerful strike that destroyed Savimbi's military headquarters at Bailundo. UNITA's attack on the Cuango diamond holdings is seen as a retaliation and a bold attempt to re-establish control over the area that produces Angola's most valuable precious stones...
Diamond traders on the Zambia-Angola border also say UNITA still has a rich source of diamonds at Mavinga, in southeastern Angola, long a UNITA stronghold. Mavinga's proximity to the Zambian and Namibian borders makes it ideal for the transfer of diamonds for money, goods or weapons. The border between the countries is just a cut line in the bush, with few fences, and runs for some 625 miles through remote scrubland. It's the kind of majestic rural space where you can see Africa at its best. Or, from the front seat of a diamond trader's truck...