Liberia re-starts diamond trade days after UN ban lifted

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Liberia on Tuesday re-launched its diamond mining sector just days after the United Nations lifted a four-year ban on trade in the precious gemstone.
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The government pledged to strictly abide by the conditions set by the UN to ensure the gem, blamed for fuelling a barbaric 14-year civil war in the country, does not slip out of the tight international diamond control system.

"I want to assure that the government will do all in its power to stop diamond from entering and leaving our borders illegally," Mines Minister Eugene Shannon said at a ceremony to formally restart trade in the lucrative stone.
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The UN on Friday scrapped a block imposed in 2003 on Liberian raw diamond exports, convinced that the west African nation had made progress in ensuring international safeguards in diamond trade.
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The ceremony was held in Tubmanburg town, formerly a diamond and iron ore mining hub, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the capital, where a newly built and one of 10 regional diamond offices to be established across the country, was inaugurated.
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President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the country would strive to make sure the gem is not used again to fund conflicts and to avoid fresh sanctions being imposed on the resource-rich but war ravaged and impoverished country.
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Trafficking in illegal "blood diamonds" is considered to have been one of the root causes of civil war, not just in Liberia, but also in neighbouring Sierra Leone where a 10-year brutal conflict only ended in 2001.
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"We must now pledge that never again will our country be put on sanctions because of the irresponsibility of any government, any official or any citizen," said Sirleaf.
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The top UN envoy in Liberia Alan Doss and the US ambassador to Monrovia Donald Boot attended the occasion. — AFP
Liberia on Tuesday re-launched its diamond mining sector just days after the United Nations lifted a four-year ban on trade in the precious gemstone.
.
The government pledged to strictly abide by the conditions set by the UN to ensure the gem, blamed for fuelling a barbaric 14-year civil war in the country, does not slip out of the tight international diamond control system.
.
"I want to assure that the government will do all in its power to stop diamond from entering and leaving our borders illegally," Mines Minister Eugene Shannon said at a ceremony to formally restart trade in the lucrative stone.
.
The UN on Friday scrapped a block imposed in 2003 on Liberian raw diamond exports, convinced that the west African nation had made progress in ensuring international safeguards in diamond trade.
.
The ceremony was held in Tubmanburg town, formerly a diamond and iron ore mining hub, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of the capital, where a newly built and one of 10 regional diamond offices to be established across the country, was inaugurated.
.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the country would strive to make sure the gem is not used again to fund conflicts and to avoid fresh sanctions being imposed on the resource-rich but war.

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