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afrol News, 27 June - The Guinean government has started issuing certificate of origin for diamonds produced in the country, in accordance with international demands. The certificates will improve the control with the widespread smuggling, which has facilitated the financing of rebel groups such as the Sierra Leonean RUF. The Guinean state radio on Monday reported the measures taken by government, quoting the country's Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Cheick Amadou Camara. The certificate of origin for diamonds was to be a government guarantee that diamonds in fact had been produced in Guinea and not in a rebel-held area. Amadou Camara said the measure would help restore peace in the war-torn region. Guinea shares a 1,500-km border with both Liberia and Sierra Leone, countries from which diamond exports are prohibited. The UN has imposed sanctions on the Liberian government for supporting the Sierra Leonean rebel/terrorist group RUF by providing them with a conduit for swopping illegal diamonds for arms to destabilise the Sierra Leonean government. Earlier reports have documented that Sierra Leonean diamonds have been marketed as Liberian, Guinean, Ivorian and even Malian and Burkinabe. According to a UN report, the Liberian government profits from the war in Sierra Leone by indulging in illegal diamond trafficking. Liberian emissaries transact nearly 50 million US$ in business each year with the RUF, who get guns in return. Due to the documented direct link between diamond sales and the regions armed conflicts, the United Nations has prohibited all diamond exports from Liberia and Sierra Leone. The UN further issued guidelines aimed at stemming the flow of conflict diamonds from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Thus, all countries exporting diamonds should issue certificates of origin, produced in a transparent way to exclude the possibility of falsifications. However, also officers of Guinea's military have been accused of profiting from the war in the south by themselves fraudulently mining diamonds. The diamonds allegedly were of Sierra Leonean origin. Guinea itself is a big diamond producer. Most mines are however in the troubled south, where Sierra Leonean and Liberian invaders - now on the retreat - have caused instable conditions. According to Ibrahima Cherif Bah, the governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of Guinea, "more than 335,000 carats-worth of diamonds were traded during the year 2000, nearly 43.7 million dollars-worth, 1.3 million of which were collected as taxes by the Guinean treasury."
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