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Blood still stains Angolan diamonds
Press release :
report to be launched: Wednesday 9 March 2005 18h00
Fundação Mário Soares,
Rua de S. Bento 160,
Lisbon, Portugal
www.fmsoares.pt
+351 21 396 41 79
Thursday 24 March 2005; 10h00-11h30
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars,
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20004
www.wilsoncenter.org/africa
Blood still stains Angolan diamonds
Murder, torture and arbitrary detention by the authorities have become the norm in the rich diamond fields of Angola’s northeast, according to a new report by Angolan human rights activists.
The report, entitled Lundas – the stones of death, examines patterns of human rights abuses in the provinces of Lunda-Norte and Lunda-Sul during the course of the year 2004. The reports’ authors, journalist Rafael Marques and lawyer Rui Falcão de Campos, link the violence to lawlessness and corruption that ensure only a privileged few benefit from the region’s diamond wealth.
While the trade in “conflict diamonds” from Angola and elsewhere has been diminished by international co-operation – including the Kimberley Process agreement that links diamond-producing governments and companies – the report argues that such measures have done nothing to ease the suffering associated with the diamond industry in the Lunda provinces.
It calls on the international community to “reconsider the objectives of the Kimberley Process, so as to include within the category of ‘conflict diamonds’ all those diamonds that come from areas where diamond mining is based on the systematic violation of human rights.”
It further recommends that foreign countries should “consider imposing sanctions on the international trade in Angolan diamonds until the Angolan state guarantees a labour and social standards compatible with the human rights values of the UN system, namely the prohibition of slavery and of inhumane and degrading conditions, and basic standards of freedom of movement and communication, and of personal security.”
Murder, torture and rape
The report focuses in particular on two cases in the Lunda-Norte diamond towns of Muxinda and Cafunfo, both involving multiple deaths as a result of police action.
In Muxinda, 12 people died in December 2004 as the result of imprisonment in an unventilated cell described as “a cupboard”, attached to a police station.
The report quotes a police commander who admitted the presence of “10 people in the cell, where there should only be four or five”, and that “the place is small, without ventilation”. He attributed what happened to the “negligence of the guards who had left.” The failure of the police to produce case records both demonstrated the arbitrary nature of the detentions, and meant that the police themselves had no accurate account of either the numbers or the names of the dead. Many of those who died were Congolese migrants who worked as informal diamond diggers in Angola.
In the Cafunfo case, 11 people died as a result of police action, while 18 were wounded by shooting or beating. A further 18 people arrested at the time have been in “preventative detention” without trial for more than one year. Police claimed that most of the shootings and detentions were the result of an attempt to quell a riot, which had been sparked by attempts by diamond company security guards to remove electrical generators that supplied electricity to the town. However, the report reveals that some of the detentions occurred before the riot started, and that several of the dead were bystanders unconnected with the protest action.
In addition to these two specific incidents, the report documents 11 cases of murder, and three cases of sexual assault. In all of these cases, the perpetrators were Angolan police, or the employees of the private security companies employed by the large diamond concessionaires to guard their workings. One of the sexual assault cases involved the rape of four young teenage girls by two policemen.
The report also documents more than 30 cases involving arbitrary detention, shooting, and / or beating; again, the perpetrators are invariably police or security company operatives.
System favours the rich
The report argues that while the Lunda region offers few economic opportunities other than diamond mining, the outlawing of informal mining forces most diggers to operate on the margins of the law, vulnerable to extortion, imprisonment and even murder. Evidence is presented to show how private security companies employed by the large mining concession holders operate with impunity as a paramilitary force.
At the same time, the report argues, opaque and monopolistic practices in the diamond marketing system mean that diggers receive only a fraction of their diamonds’ worth. A 2003 agreement gave the exclusive purchase and export rights over Angolan diamonds to SODIAM, a company associated with Lazar Kaplan International, although ASCORP, the previous concession-holder controlled by Lev Leviev, continues to buy diamonds from informal diggers in the Lundas.
Diamond transactions take place in cash, and the lack of accurate data on the value of diamonds mined in the Lundas provides a smokescreen for the government’s failure to invest in a region that still lacks even the most basic infrastructure.
*Supported by the Fundação Mário Soares, Open Society – Angola and the Netherlands Institute for Southern African (NIZA), the report draws on the testimony of the victims and witnesses of incidents, and research done by activists based in the Lundas, and by the authors during six weeks of fieldwork in the region.
For further information contact:
Rui Falcão de Campos - +351 91 6580702 rui_lis@hotmail.com
Rafael Marques -
+351 91 949 14 01 rafael@snet.co.ao
Selected cases
23 February 2004 At 07h30, Baptista Paulo followed his brother, Justino Popi, in the direction of the generator installations, with the aim of protesting against their removal. In the street of Capango, members of the National Police accosted him with kicks, cuffs and blows from rifle butts. He did not even manage to reach the gathering and place of the protest.
According to statements from the victim's brother, who witnessed the events: “They beat him until about 08h30. We carried him into the house already wounded, where he died in the evening. The following day we went to request a death certificate. As they were many cases, the police officer only attended to five requests, and later he received orders not to issue any more death certificates”, Justino Popi said.
17 August 2004
National Police patrol confronted Tximuanga Jonasse on the banks of the River Cuango, while he was on his way to the main centre of Luremo commune, carrying a motorised pump used by artisanal diamond diggers. After an exchange of words, one of the police shot him at close range in the right foot, according to the testimony of other diamond diggers who witnessed the event. He subsequently died as a result of the wound, without receiving first aid.
2 September 2004
About 03h00, members of the Rapid Intervention Police raided the Luanganzo artisanal diamond mining area next to the River Lué. They attacked the diamond diggers they found there, kicking them and beating them with rifle butts and machetes. Some escaped in the darkness.
According to the victims’ accounts, the policemen thoroughly searched their belongings, taking what they wanted (diamonds, clothes and money) and burnt the rest. According to Kissongo and Alexandre, as the soldiers were leaving after beating the diamond diggers, they lined up ten young men and forced the other ten – including those who are identified here by name – to have sex with the others. The police held the group at gunpoint and beat them with machetes on the backs and buttocks.
13 September 2004
The young woman [Margarida] was bathing with other women on the banks of the River Chicapa. A guard from Teleservice approached the bathing area, and with his gun in his hand singled out Margarida and attacked Margarida, while the others fled. He raped her there.
“We were not able to lay a charge with the police because we would have had to pass through the Teleservice checkpoint. And we were afraid to complain to the company itself. For this reason, and to protect the husband’s good name we kept quiet,” a local activist said.
2 December 2004
Five agents of the national police, under command of detective Francisco da Cruz, went to knock on the door of Miguel “Bate-Comando”, who was suspected of having obtained a large diamond from the alluvial mining site. After a short exchange of words, the police began a beating session. He ended up in the Muxinda cell. “We were kept there in a very cruel manner. We were more than 20 people.” On 6 December he counted seven dead in the cell. “I was one of the few survivors.”
29 December 2004
Eduardo Felipe, according to the testimony of his companions, recognised the policemen known as Tomé and Jony, and refused to hand over his documents to the police. According to the witnesses, “the policeman Jony said to Eduardo, ‘you’re causing trouble for us. I’m going to shoot you’ and took out his gun.” A fourth person, Fató Gabriel, Eduardo Felipe’s sister-in-law, who heard the commotion and arrived at the scene , confirms that she begged the policemen not to shoot since the people in question were known to her.
Eduardo tried to flee, and then, according to Fató Gabriel, “Sergeant Jony ordered Tomé to shoot, Eduardo was hit first in the arm and then in the chest”. Eduardo Felipe died instantly.
Historical background
The provinces of Lunda-Norte and Lunda-Sul in north-eastern Angola contain the highest concentration of diamond reserves in the country, and are in fact one of the richest diamond-bearing areas in the world. While some of the diamonds lie deep below the surface in geological structures known as kimberlite pipes, other diamonds – alluvial diamonds – are to be found on the surface, in the mud and gravel of the region’s rivers.
Long before the colonial period, the local Lunda-Chokwe people would gather diamonds from the rivers, and use them to decorate their houses. But the commercial exploitation of diamonds in the Lunda region began in 1912 under Portuguese colonial rule, and for several decades diamonds were Angola’s most lucrative export. After Angolan independence in 1975, diamond mining continued under the auspices of the state diamond company, ENDIAMA, though development was restricted by the civil war. Informal diamond digging continued on a moderate scale throughout this period.
The promises of peace and democratic openness in the early 1990s attracted foreigners from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and from as far away as Senegal to try their luck as informal diggers in the Lunda diamond fields.
With the return to war following the 1992 elections, the UNITA rebels quickly seized control of large parts of the Lunda diamond fields, including the Cuango valley. Diamond diggers found themselves under the control of whichever army happened to be in occupation at the time. UNITA’s share of the diamond trade became essential to the funding of its war campaign, yet generals from both armies took advantage of their military position to profit from diamond digging.
The role of diamonds in perpetuating the wars both in Angola and in Sierra Leone let to the implementation of sanctions against diamonds that originated in conflict zones. Towards the late 1990s, the Angolan government gradually re-established control over the diamond fields. Together with sanctions, this contributed to the weakening of UNITA’s forces, the death of its leader, Jonas Savimbi, in 2002, and the end of the Angolan civil war.
While the end of the war once again raised hopes of peace and prosperity, the report reveals that the Lunda diamond industry is still managed in much the same was as during the war. Increasing tracts of territory have been conceded to foreign mining concerns, while the authorities have used violent tactics against informal diggers. Although Angola has officially been at peace for three years, exploitation, fear and poverty remain as much part of the daily reality for the people of the Lunda region as ever before.
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