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General Assembly Urges States to Aid UN in Banning Conflict Gems
The 55th General Assembly session adopted a resolution Friday, December 1, calling upon all countries to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions to ban the gems used by rebels to fuel conflicts in such countries as Angola and Sierra Leone.
The 189-member General Assembly "calls upon all states to implement fully Security Council measures targeting the link between the trade in conflict diamonds and the supply to rebel movements of weapons, fuel or other prohibited material."
The General Assembly "urges all states to support efforts of the diamond producing, processing, exporting and importing countries and the diamond industry to find ways to break link between conflict diamonds and armed conflict, and encourages other appropriate initiatives to this end," including improved international cooperation on law enforcement, the resolution said.
The resolution stressed the need to create and implement "a simple and workable international certification scheme for rough diamonds" mainly on the basis of national certification schemes.
The General Assembly welcomed the offer by Namibia to convene a workshop of the world's leading diamond exporting, processing and importing countries to discuss the problem of conflict diamonds.
The draft resolution was jointly proposed by Belgium, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In introducing the draft to the General Assembly on behalf of the cosponsors, South African permanent representative to the United Nations Dumisani Kumalo said, "Conflict diamonds consist of about only 4 percent of the total world diamond market."
"This means that 96 percent of the world's diamonds are in fact 'prosperity diamonds,'" he said. "This legitimate trade in diamonds is critical to economic development in many countries."
"The cosponsors of this resolution firmly believe that the UN must take steps to address the issue of conflict diamonds," he said. "We believe this can be done through concerted international coordination and action."
"This will prove that the international community is neither powerless, or silent, on conflict diamonds," he said.
Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Angola's National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) are widely blamed for smuggling diamonds to buy weapons and ammunition to drag on the conflict in their respective countries.
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