U.N. The U.N. Security Council is working to ensure a reduction in arms supply to Afghanistan and
explore ways to improve the situation in that country, its president has said. Ambassador Anwarul Karim
Chowdhury of Bangladesh, which holds the Council's rotating presidency for the month of March, said discussions
on Afghanistan earlier this month have been very encouraging. "We all know that the situation in Afghanistan is a
very complex one, but we are working closely to see that at least the hostilities do not break out in Afghanistan,"
Chowdhury said. "We are also engaged in ensuring that arms supply to that country decreases, or at least it does
not increase," he said.
Chowdhury, however, did not explain how the Council was going to ensure reduction in arms supply to
Afghanistan, an issue which continues to be of concern to countries like India suffering from cross-border terrorism.
"We are encouraging Francesc Vendrell, SecGen Annan's personal representative to Kabul, to reach out and see how the situation can be helped," he said. Chowdhury said
the Council will continue its work with the UN development agencies to reach out to women in Afghanistan. On US-
UN relations, which have witnessed some strain in recent months, especially after US Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms slammed the U.N. during an address to the Council in January, Chowdhury
said that despite his criticism, the Senator admitted that he got to understand many issues better after visiting the
U.N.
Helms even invited the Council members to visit Washington so his colleagues in the Senate and in the House of
Representatives can acquaint themselves better with the problems facing the U.N. Chowdhury, who met the House
of Representatives Appropriations Committee chairman here, said the lawmaker showed interest in various U.N.
peacekeeping operations and the problems faced by the world body in various areas, inclung funding. "I think it
was a very useful meeting and in the context of the U.N.-US relations, I must say it was a major step forward," he
said. Chowdhury said on March 31, all 15 members of the Security Council will travel to Washington and will have
talks with Helms, his colleagues in the Senate as well as other Congressional leaders. Meetings are also scheduled
with Sec.State Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, he said.
"In the context of the US-U.N. relationship, this visit will be very important and will have the potential of putting our
relations on a much stronger and better foundation," he said. "In the context of the U.N.'s role in the next decade,
US-U.N. relations are very important," he added.
Major powers slammed for too few UN peacekeeping troops
11.13.00 Evelyn Leopold Reuters Online
Declaring U.N. peacekeeping operations were deteriorating, Bangladesh on Monday chastised the
5 major Security Council powers for letting others do their fighting for them.
Diamond trade targeted in Africa
10.31.00 AP
U.N. Accused of fueling Sierra Leone's civil war, Liberia & Burkina Faso
promised Tuesday to cooperate with investigations and asked for aid to end the illegal trade in
diamonds and arms in their countries. The U.S. and Britain charged Monday that the presidents of
the two West African countries were helping Sierra Leone's notorious rebels sell diamonds and
buy increasingly sophisticated weapons that have kept the 9-year war going. The 2-day open
hearing on the role of "blood diamonds" in the war, organized by the U.N. Security Council
committee monitoring sanctions against Sierra Leone, put the spotlight on Liberia and
Burkina Faso as conduits for the illegal trade in diamonds and weapons. Bangladesh's U.N.
Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, who chairs the committee, said it will examine the allegations
against the two countries before the Security Council makes a decision.
Economics, trade & development
8.9.00 AP/CNN
13 DIAMONDS: UN Approves Sierra Leone's Certification Plan
The UN Security Council yesterday approved Sierra Leone's efforts to certify its own diamonds,
paving the way for the country to legally export the gems. In a two-day hearing last week, Sierra
Leone outlined its proposal to monitor the legal mining and export of diamonds. In July, the
Security Council banned the purchase of diamonds from the country until such a certification
system was created. The Security Council's sanctions committee now says it wants the
certification system to begin operations as soon as possible. "I think this is a major step," said
Bangladeshi UN Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, chair of the sanctions committee. "It will really
bring in hopefully some legitimate earnings into the coffers of the Sierra Leone government, which
hopefully will be used for the well-being of the people."
Sierra Leone has said the certification program could take 90 days to become operational. The
certificates will be numbered and printed on forgery-proof paper, with a matching numbered label
on the sealed package (AP/CNN.com, 9 Aug). Revolutionary United Front rebels are believed to
control some 90% of diamond mining areas in Sierra Leone and have
used diamond profits to finance their brutal uprising against the government. Under the new
certification plan, diamonds will only be eligible for export if they are in sealed packages with a
certificate of origin guaranteeing their legitimacy (BBC Online, 10 Aug).
Liberian Exports Flood Into Switzerland
Meanwhile, a Swiss customs official said yesterday that diamond imports from Liberia have soared
in the past year, but many appear to be coming from rebel-held areas of Sierra Leone. Heinz
Baumann said diamond imports from Liberia have totaled almost $30 million so far this year,
compared with $15 million last year. The quality of some stones, he added, makes it
clear that they did not come from Liberia. Othmar Wyss, head of Switzerland's export
control secretariat, said the country will consider legislation to ban direct and indirect diamond
imports from Sierra Leone. Although it is not a UN member state, Switzerland has also said it will
apply the UN ban on Sierra Leone diamonds
Move on 'blood diamonds' / Fatal Transactions
7.10.00 Fin.Times
7.7.00 Mark Riley The Age
NY The UN has introduced a plan for "smart sanctions" in a bid to sever the link
between diamonds and death in Africa's civil conflicts. In a step away from traditional diplomacy,
the Security Council has imposed an embargo on the sale of rough diamonds from Sierra Leone in
the hope of preventing the country's rebels from trading gems for guns. The move follows several
weeks of closed-door meetings at the UN's New York headquarters, in which leading diplomats
and UN officials have sought new and more creative ways of combating Africa's rebel leaders. UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has encouraged the shift to smart sanctions after a succession of
failures by the UN's political and peacekeeping efforts in Africa.
Mr Annan has said that one of the greatest challenges facing the organisation is how it deals with
rebel leaders, such as Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh, who pay no regard
to traditional diplomacy. Mr Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front has overrun Sierra Leone's rich
diamond fields during the country's eight-year civil war. It has sold the diamonds through
neighboring Liberia and used much of the proceeds to buy arms and fund its
campaign to overthrow the govt.
Most of these so-called "blood diamonds" have been sold to the international diamond exchanges
in Antwerp, Belgium, and eventually found their way into pieces of jewellery sold around the world.
"I think if people realised that the diamonds on their engagement rings or on their necklaces might
have been sold to fund a campaign that butchered innocent
children, they would understand the importance of what the UN is doing," a senior UN official said.
A former Sierra Leone Govt minister, Amy Smythe, told a recent UN conference that
$A590 million in diamonds went from the rebel-controlled Sierra Leone mines to Liberia last year.
The UN suspects that much of that money found its way back to the rebel front and was used to
fuel its war machine.
"We have all watched in horror as the civilian population in Sierra Leone has endured
unimaginable suffering and hardship," the deputy US ambassador to the UN, Nancy
Soderberg, said in the Security Council on Wednesday. "In banning the illicit trade in
diamonds, we now take a strong stand against war and for peace." Britain's UN ambassador,
Jeremy Greenstock, drafted the embargo resolution, saying it took an unusual approach to
diplomacy by asking the diamond industry to block the trade in "conflict diamonds". "The aim is
ensure, eventually and at long last, that diamonds bring benefit and not misery to the long-
suffering population of Sierra Leone," Sir Jeremy said. UN inspectors will enforce the diamond
embargo and will supply regular reports to the Security Council.
The UN has also established a new sanctions committee, headed by Bangladeshi UN ambassador
Anwarul Chowdhury, to explore more ways of using sanctions as a weapon against rebels. The
Sierra Leone embargo will be seen as a test case, and will be reviewed in 18 months by the
Security Council to gauge its effectiveness. The US argued that the embargo should be
open-ended, warning that a time limit could be seen as giving the rebels "time off for bad
behavior". But most of the Security Council supported the 18-month limit, arguing that it could be
extended through a second resolution.
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Al Qaeda ¹ cash tied to diamond trade
Millions of dollars raised in virtually untraceable funds
11.1.01 Douglas Farah Wash.Post
Freetown, Sierra Leone The terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden has reaped millions of
dollars in the past 3 years from the illicit sale of diamonds mined by rebels in Sierra Leone, according to U.S.
& European intelligence officials and 2 sources with direct knowledge of events. Diamond dealers working
directly with men named by the FBI as key operatives in bin Laden's al Qaeda network bought gems from the
rebels at below-market prices and sold them for large profits in Europe. Investigators in the U.S. & Europe are
still trying to determine how much money al Qaeda derived from its dealings with the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF), but they estimated the amount to be in the millions. Since July, the sources said, the diamond dealers have
changed their tactics, buying far more diamonds than usual and paying premium prices for them. Investigators said
that is a strong indication that al Qaeda, perhaps anticipating its accounts would be frozen after 9.11.01, sought to protect its money by sinking it into gemstones, a commodity that can be easily
hidden, holds its value and remains almost untraceable. "When prices go up and supply goes up, it means
someone is seeking to launder or hide cash, and we believe that is the case here," a U.S. official said. "Diamonds
don't set off alarms at airports, they can't be sniffed by dogs, they are easy to hide, and are highly convertible to
cash. It makes perfect sense."
U.S. & European intelligence officials, overwhelmed after 9.11.01 and with very few agents in W. Africa, said
they realized only recently how important the diamond flow was to fund al Qaeda & other terrorist
organizations. "I now believe that to cut off al Qaeda funds & laundering activities you have to cut off the
diamond pipeline," said a European investigator. "We are talking about millions and maybe tens of millions of
dollars in profits & laundering." The diamonds are mined by RUF rebels, who became infamous during the civil
war for hacking off the arms & legs of civilians and abducting thousands of children & forcing them to
fight as combatants. Sierra Leone's alluvial diamond fields, some of the richest in the world, were the principal prize
in this country's brutal civil war, and they have been under RUF control for the past 4 years.
Small packets of diamonds, often wrapped in rags or plastic sheets, are taken by senior RUF commanders across
the porous Liberian border to Monrovia, according to sources. There, at a safe house protected by the Liberian
govt, the diamonds are exchanged for briefcases of cash brought by diamond dealers who fly several times a
month from Belgium to Monrovia, where they are escorted by special state security through customs &
immigration control. The diamond dealers are selected by Ibrahim Bah, a Libyan-trained former Senegalese rebel
and the RUF's principal diamond dealer, the sources said. The buyers' identities are known only to Bah & a
few others. Bah's contacts & sympathies were forged on the battlefield, according to intelligence reports
& sources who know him well. After fighting with the Casamance separatist movement in Senegal in the
1970s, Bah trained in Libya under the protection of Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi. Like bin Laden, he spent
several years in the early 1980s fighting alongside Muslim guerrillas against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Bah then
joined the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia to fight Israeli forces in southern Lebanon before returning to Libya at
the end of the 1980s. In Libya, Bah met & trained several men who would go on to lead rebellions in W.Africa,
incl Chas Taylor of Liberia & RUF's founder Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone. Bah himself later fought in both
Liberia & Sierra Leone.
According to intelligence sources & 2 people who have worked with him, Bah now acts as a conduit between
senior RUF commanders and the buyers from both al Qaeda & Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim organization linked
to Lebanese activists who kidnapped numerous Americans, hijacked airplanes and carried out car bomb attacks on
U.S. installations in Beirut. Bah, who lives in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou, declined through
intermediaries to be interviewed for this article. In the past, he has refused to talk to U.N. investigators probing the
region's weapons-for-diamonds trade. Senior RUF officials, who are overseeing the disarmament of the rebel
movement as part of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement, said this week in response to a query from Washington
Post that they were shocked by allegations of Bah's dealings with terrorist organizations and would thoroughly
investigate the matter. How much of the money terrorist organizations made in diamond sales brokered by Bah is
difficult to ascertain. A U.N. panel of experts estimated the market value of RUF "blood diamonds" sold in 1999 to
be about $75 million. But since Sierra Leone govt & the RUF agreed to a cease-fire last year, diamond mining
has greatly accelerated. Sources in the diamond trade estimate that the RUF actually receives less than 10% of
market value for the diamonds it sells, paid mostly in the form of weapons, food & medicine. Taylor, who is
now Liberia's president, receives a commission on each transaction in Monrovia, and Bah & the other brokers
share the rest, according to sources involved in the dealings. Taylor repeatedly has denied involvement in illicit
diamond dealings. "Even if only 10% went to terrorist organizations, you are talking about millions of dollars in
virtually untraceable funds, every year," said a European investigator. "That is enough to keep a lot of people
going."
European & American intelligence sources have long known that Hezbollah has raised significant amounts of
money in W.Africa through the largely Shiite Muslim Lebanese communities in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina
Faso and Togo. There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese in West Africa, mostly involved in import-export
businesses. "Hezbollah is active in all these countries and are deeply involved in many businesses across the
region," said one European official tracking the movement. "It is only a small part of the Lebanese community that
is sympathetic, but many people contribute to them just to keep Hezbollah off their backs." For at least 20 years,
Hezbollah had also raised some cash through the sale of diamonds from Sierra Leone, intelligence sources said.
Bah, they said, was long suspected of brokering diamond deals through buyers connected to Hezbollah, assisted
by sympathetic Lebanese businessmen across the region. After 9.11.01, U.S. officials began focusing more intently
on the W.African diamond network. Transcripts from court cases against al Qaeda members produced evidence
that the network has people with expertise in the diamond business and who previously dabbled in the gemstone
trade in Tanzania.
The connection to al Qaeda was cemented in Sept. 1998, when Bah arranged for Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah to visit
Monrovia, according to 2 sources. Abdullah was described on the FBI's recent poster of most wanted terrorists as a
"top bin Laden adviser" who "helped plan a number of Al Qaeda's attacks." After spending one night in Monrovia,
the sources said, Bah & Abdullah flew in a Liberian govt helicopter to the town of Foya, on the border with
Sierra Leone. There Abdullah met with a senior RUF commander, Sam Bockerie, better known as Mosquito, to
discuss buying diamonds on a regular basis. The sources said the RUF did not know who Abdullah was but agreed
to do business with him because of Bah's presence. A few weeks later Bah arranged a visit for 2 more al Qaeda
operatives now on the FBI list, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani & Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the sources said.
Together, they also met Bockerie, taking him $100,000 in cash and receiving a parcel of diamonds in an
introductory deal, the sources said. Ghailani, the FBI alleges, is an al Qaeda operative from Tanzania who helped
buy the truck used in the 1998 truck bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Fazul, from
the Comoros Islands, is identified by the FBI as the "head of Al Qaeda's Kenyan cell" and trained at a bin Laden
camp.
Since the 1998 contact was made, Bah, through several Lebanese businessmen based in Belgium, has steadily
expanded his operations in Monrovia. Sources identified the key brokers working with Bah as Aziz Nassur &
Sammy Ossailly, two Lebanese diamond dealers based in Antwerp, Belgium. Nassur did not respond to numerous
messages left on his voice mail. Ossailly's telephone was not in service. By the summer of 2000 Ossailly moved to
Monrovia, the Liberian capital, to oversee Bah & Nassur's diamond operation, according to people who knew
them. They stayed until April. In January, the buyers signed a 3 year lease on a 4 bedroom house in Monrovia.
Ghailani & Fazul returned to Liberia, then spent at least 2 weeks in the Kono mining fields in Sierra Leone,
according to RUF members who identified them from photographs. They said the 2 had a satellite telephone they
used to talk to "Alpha Zulu," the code name given to Nassur, according to sources. Sources said that because
Ghailani & Fazul were light-skinned strangers who spoke little English, and therefore attracted attention, Bah
asked Nassur to send in darker-skinned people, at which time he brought in Africans from Senegal.
The Senegalese now staff the Monrovia safe house, where they watch videos of Hezbollah suicide attacks on
Israeli troops and have plastered the walls with pictures of bin Laden & Hezbollah posters, according to 2
people who visited the house. 2 sources with direct knowledge of a meeting at the Monrovia safe house in mid-July
said Bah's Nassur visited and asked the RUF to step up its mining activities. "At the meeting, Aziz Nassur, whom
we call Alpha Zulu, asked the RUF to double its mining production and offered to pay a better price for what we
mined," a source said. "Gen. Bah sent Nassur to Monrovia to meet with us because he said it was very important."
Nassur, according to the sources, was met at the airport by senior Liberian security officials and escorted through
the VIP lounge without going through immigration or customs formalities. Now, said a U.S. investigator, "Antwerp is
awash in Sierra Leonean diamonds, and they are going through Monrovia."
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