BLOODY conflicts being fought by rebels in Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have one thing in common: they are financed by the illegal sale of diamonds from deposits in the areas they control. International efforts to halt this trade focus on the newly agreed Kimberley Protocol, which requires all diamonds to come with a certificate of origin.
Though the scheme is not even in operation yet, 快猫短视频 has learned that the human rights groups which brokered it are concerned that bogus certificates will make it almost useless. But perhaps the plan can be made to work: two teams of geologists are this week announcing possible ways of pinpointing where a particular diamond was mined. The success of the schemes will depend on governments being persuaded to fund a global database of the characteristics of stones from different regions.
Their work could make a crucial difference in curbing the rebels who run a lucrative trade in diamonds to buy arms for terrorising local people as part of their war on recognised governments. In Sierra Leone, for example, the Revolutionary United Front is believed to make up to $100 million a year from selling diamonds illegally. If it were possible to tell these diamonds apart from legitimate ones, much of the rebels鈥� funding would dry up.
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Two separate research teams, one from South Africa and one from Tennessee, are this week presenting work at the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC that they hope will lead to ways to identify a diamond鈥檚 origin. It鈥檚 a turnaround for the field where until recently geologists and the diamond industry declared such a goal impossible.
The best that geologists have managed till now is to break open flawed or coloured stones and look for characteristic impurities. But that won鈥檛 work for most diamonds. And despite spending millions on research, the big diamond companies have never found a way to trace gem-quality stones back to the source, perhaps because they were happy not to know. De Beers and others admit that they traded in 鈥渃onflict diamonds鈥� until 1999, though they were unaware of their origin at the time.
Instead, the industry puts its efforts into developing tagging schemes that can be used to mark the stones to brand them. De Beers uses a focused ion beam to convert part of the diamond surface into graphite in the shape of a bar-coded serial number that jewellers can see under a microscope that the firm supplies.
But bar-coding won鈥檛 tackle the problem of conflict diamonds. Small mining operations can鈥檛 afford the technology needed to apply bar-codes, and even the big mining and trading companies would find it difficult. Marking and continually re-examining every one of the billion diamonds mined legally every year would be an almost impossible task.
But the two new techniques could change all that by making it possible to match a diamond鈥檚 physical properties to its source. The first comes from Eva Anckar and colleagues at the University of Cape Town, who are analysing and cataloguing thousands of diamonds. As well as shape and colour, they are looking at the precise infrared wavelengths the diamonds absorb, and the pattern of light they emit when an electron beam is fired at them.
Diamonds are ultimately brought to the surface by volcanic activity, in cone-like rock formations called kimberlite pipes. The variation in properties should depend on the length of time the diamond spent in the mantle while forming, and that would be different for particular pipes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 looking hopeful that one can say something about groupings of diamonds from the same area,鈥� she says.
Meanwhile a group at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is focusing on the thin surface coatings of rough diamonds. Larry Taylor takes microscopic samples from the coating and measures levels of trace elements such as magnesium, iron and calcium. 鈥淭he assumption is the coating picks up these traces from the kimberlite they were in,鈥� he says. Taylor has already distinguished samples from the Yakutia region in Russia from stones originating in Canada鈥檚 Snap Lake deposit. He hopes eventually to be able to say what the probability is that a diamond is from a particular source.
Neither method has yet been tested on West African diamonds, because authentic samples are difficult to find. UN sanctions prevent diamonds leaving most West African countries legally, and few geologists are brave enough to visit in person. 鈥淚 think there are differences in the physical properties of diamonds from different parts of the world,鈥� says Jeff Harris, a geologist at the University of Glasgow who is also a consultant for De Beers. 鈥淏ut without a global database we simply have no proof.鈥�
If geologists could identify even a rough diamond鈥檚 source, it would be a huge boost to existing plans to stamp out the illicit diamond trade. These centre on the protocol drawn up last month in Ottawa, Canada, following a meeting two years ago between human rights groups and the diamond industry in Kimberley, South Africa. Known as Kimberley Protocol it will require diamond-producing countries to issue certificates for legally mined diamonds detailing their place of origin, starting in November 2002. It will also be illegal for anyone to export or import diamonds without a certificate.
But already there is concern that the protocol isn鈥檛 working. In particular, a lack of adequate controls inside countries in conflict could lead to bogus certificates. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no independent monitoring of the countries involved,鈥� says Alex Yearsley of Global Witness, a London-based NGO that helped initiate the Kimberley Protocol. Stephen Haggerty, a geologist from the University of Massachusetts who has also worked as a consultant for mining operations in West Africa, has even less faith in the system: 鈥淐ertificates can be forged and manipulated. I don鈥檛 think a certification process is at all meaningful.鈥�
The Kimberley process has the backing of the handful of companies that dominate world diamond production: De Beers of South Africa, Alrosa of Russia, Argyle of Australia and BHP Diamonds of Canada. They hope that supporting it will distance them from the stigma of conflict diamonds. Yet without adequate controls, it could become little more than a branding exercise.
The new forensic geology techniques could make a vital difference. Even if they couldn鈥檛 link a gemstone to the mine it came from, they would start to make life tougher for illicit traders. Customs and law enforcement officials would be able to check that a gem matched the certificate it came with. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 do random checks,鈥� says Yearsley. 鈥淚f it says Russia on the form but it鈥檚 West African in origin, you鈥檇 investigate.鈥�
Haggerty, who experienced the horrors of human rights abuses first hand in 1980 when he was imprisoned and tortured by rebels in Liberia, insists it鈥檚 vital for governments to fund a database project. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a debt to be paid to the people of West Africa,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e need to get those diamonds out and we need to study them.鈥�
As a start, the database could simply identify stones by their continent of origin. But to put it to the ultimate test, the database would need to hold profiles linking stones to a particular location or mine. Only then will it be possible to distinguish conflict diamonds from those mined legally in the same region.