[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 29 (Thursday, March 14, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E348-E349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CLEAN DIAMOND TRADE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 14, 2002

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to update my colleagues 
on recent progress made in the battle against the scourge of conflict 
diamonds. The U.S. House of Representatives has been at the forefront 
of this work, and I am proud of our action on the Clean Diamond Trade 
Act last year--landmark legislation that would advance this fight. 
However, this problem requires a broader solution than the United 
States can implement alone. I am pleased to report that yesterday, the 
United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Kimberley Process's 
efforts to craft a system of customs controls capable of ending this 
blood trade.
  International Efforts.--That work is far from complete, and a 
critical next step will be taken next week as representatives of civil 
society, the diamond industry, and more than 35 countries gather to 
finish the job. If they rise to the challenges conflict diamonds pose, 
we soon will have a mechanism for preventing rough diamonds that fund 
war from being traded as legitimate gems.
  Yesterday, the non-governmental organizations whose exposes of this 
blood trade instigated this work warned all involved in this work that 
a flawed agreement may be worse than none at all. More needs to be done 
on monitoring and enforcing the system, making it transparent through 
the publication of key statistics on the secretive trade, and on WTO 
issues will be critical. NGOs argue that neither embattled civilians in 
Africa, nor terrorist targets in America, nor the countries and 
companies that depend on the legitimate trade in diamonds can afford 
half-measures or complacent confidence that the situation magically 
will resolve itself. They are absolutely right.
  There is another grave flaw in this work: it depends upon a 
definition of conflict diamonds that senselessly excludes those mined 
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Under the terms of both the 
Kimberley Process and the Clean Diamond Trade Act, conflict diamonds 
are only those embargoed by the United Nations. That means that unless 
the United Nations imposes sanctions on diamonds originating in a war 
zone, as it has in the case of the wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and 
Liberia, trade in the diamonds that fuel conflict there cannot be 
checked by this new international system.
  A War for Plunder.--Diamonds are not the cause of what has come to be 
known as Africa's First World War, but they play a crucial role in 
sustaining it and spreading misery elsewhere--perhaps even to the 
United States, because Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other radical 
organizations reportedly have funded their terrorist activities with 
Congolese diamonds. There is ample evidence that diamonds and other 
resources have become the reason for the Congo's war, so ending their 
illegal trade essential. Some of the most compelling reports of the 
link between plunder and misery have been made by the United Nations' 
Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and 
Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here are 
a few excerpts from them:

       Parties to the war in the DRC are ``motivated by desire to 
     control and profit from the natural resources of the [DRC] 
     and . . . they finance their armies and military operations 
     by exploiting those resources.''--From the report of the 
     Panel of Experts of April 2001.
       The conflict in the [DRC], because of its lucrative nature, 
     has created a ``win-win'' situation for all belligerents. 
     Adversaries and enemies are at times partners in business. . 
     . . Business has superceded security concerns. The only loser 
     in this huge business venture is the Congolese people.
       Illegal exploitation of the mineral and forest resources of 
     the [DRC] is taking place at an alarming rate. The conflict 
     in the [DRC] has become mainly about access, control and 
     trade of five key mineral resources . . . Plundering, looting 
     and racketeering and the constitution of criminal cartels are 
     becoming commonplace in occupied territories. These criminal 
     cartels have ramifications and connections worldwide, and 
     they represent the next serious security problem in the 
     region.
       The link between the continuation of the conflict and the 
     exploitation of natural resources would have not been 
     possible if some entities, not parties in the conflict, had 
     not played a key role, willingly or not. Bilateral and 
     multilateral donors and certain neighboring and distant 
     countries have passively facilitated the exploitation of the 
     resources of the [DRC] and the continuation of the conflict; 
     the role of private companies and individuals has also been 
     vital.--From the report of the Panel of Experts of April 
     2001.
       The systematic exploitation of natural resources and other 
     forms of wealth of the [DRC] continues unabated . . . the 
     cease-fire is generally respected on the front line, leaving 
     the exploitation of the resources as the main activity of the 
     foreign troops. There is a clear link between the 
     continuation of the conflict and the exploitation of natural 
     resources. It would not be wrong to say that one drives the 
     other. The military operations and presence in the [DRC] of 
     all sides have been transformed into self-financing 
     activities. . . .
       The initial motivation of foreign countries or armies to 
     intervene in the [DRC] was primarily political and security-
     related in nature; over a period of time, and owing to the 
     evolving nature of the conflict it has become the primary 
     motive of extracting the maximum commercial and material 
     benefits. This holds true for both government allies and 
     rebel supporters.--From the report of the Panel of Experts of 
     November 2001.

  United Nations is Dithering.--Despite the eloquent words of the 
United Nation's experts and diplomats, the impassioned calls for action 
made by virtually everyone who has examined the situation in the DRC, 
and the full knowledge that each day of delay has serious consequences 
for innocent Congolese, the United Nations has continued to dither.
  Three months ago, the Security Council ``strongly condemned the 
continued plundering of the [DRC's] natural resources . . . which it 
said was perpetuating the conflict in the country, impeding economic 
development and exacerbating the suffering of the Congolese people.'' 
But then, instead of acting on the incontrovertible evidence that had 
been painstakingly gathered, it gave U.N. experts six more months to 
come up with yet more information and to propose solutions.

[[Page E349]]

  Given the complexities of the resource trade, the shifting alliances 
involved in the war, the thorny issues of sovereignty, and--perhaps 
determinative--the clear preference of Security Council members to buck 
tough decisions to a later time, it is not surprising that the Panel 
concluded in November that:

     exploitation of natural resources in the [DRC] cannot be 
     viewed and dealt with in isolation . . . This is one part of 
     the problem which is inextricably linked to other serious 
     issues in the region.

  However, in his presentation to the Security Council, the Panel's 
Chairman, Mahmoud Kaseem, also warned that ``failure to follow up on 
the recommendations would send a message to traffickers and profiteers 
that they could continue their activities with impunity.''
  Few could quarrel with what the Panel advocates: ``a resolution of 
the broader conflict in the [DRC] and the region'' and a ``rebuilding 
of the State institutions [which] will require a systematic and 
sustained approach stretching over many years, and with the full 
assistance and cooperation of the international community.'' And of 
course it is good news that yet another round of peace talks is 
underway today, and better news that, save for low-intensity conflicts, 
a cease-fire has largely held for nearly a year. But the report's bad 
news is what's at issue: that, at the present rate, it will take longer 
to stop the plundering phase of the war than its shooting phase.
  Given the richness of the Congo's resources and its horrifying 
history since the late 1800s, there is little reason to hope the 
current era of misery will be either short or less deadly than prior 
ones. Belgium's exploitation of the Congo left 7-10 million dead and a 
record of viciousness that almost matches that of the drug-addled 
rebels who've turned Sierra Leone into a nation of amputees and war 
victims. Then, after the Congo's independence, Mobutu Sese Seko, the 
strongman who ruled it with full U.S. support for decades, became one 
of the world's richest men from the trade in resources that are his 
people's rightful patrimony. Now, in the years since the Congo 
descended into chaos and war, these same resources again have turned it 
into a battleground. As respected journalist Richard C. Hottelet put 
it:

       One hundred years ago, novelist Joseph Conrad called what 
     was then King Leopold II's private property the ``Heart of 
     Darkness'' and its exploitation a horror. This vast land is 
     now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and what is 
     happening there eclipses Conrad. . . . The Congo, as big as 
     the United States east of the Mississippi, with 50 million 
     people, has become a carcass being chewed at by its elite and 
     its neighbors. They have looted and sold its natural 
     resources on a scale without precedent. This, with the direct 
     or tacit complicity of pious governments and corporations 
     around the world. . . . For Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Uganda and 
     Burundi, the Congo is too rich a cash cow to abandon. From 
     the Christian Science Monitor, May 16, 2001.

  Given the Congo's current situation and decades of experience, the 
question before members of the international community today is 
straightforward: How long do we intend to wait to act? A small and 
anemic contingent of UN troops are there now, in a situation that 
echoes the one in Sierra Leone in the weeks before 500 UN peacekeepers 
were kidnapped there two years ago. The international community did 
little until it suffered that humiliation, then hastened to sanction 
the diamonds rebels used to fund their brazen attacks. Is yet another 
crisis what the United Nations is waiting for? Can it instead act on 
the ample evidence of suffering and plunder before the situation takes 
another turn for the worse?
  I share the fervent hopes of many concerned people at the United 
Nations and elsewhere that a comprehensive approach to ending the 
plunder of the Congo and securing a lasting peace will be found. But I 
strongly disagree with the United Nations' apparent conclusion that--if 
it can't do everything--it shouldn't do anything. The Congo's people, 
and others threatened by the problems that fester in its chaos, can't 
want for an over-arching system of controls on every valuable resource 
this rich country produces. They can't afford another six months of 
expert investigation of problems that obviously exist, and grand 
solutions that will take even longer to devise than the Kimberley 
Process has spent on its system of controlling rough diamonds.
  In truth, neither can we Americans. A December 2001 account by 
Washington Post investigative reporter Douglas Farah detailed the way 
Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other radical Islamic groups are funding their 
terrorist attacks by trading conflict diamonds and other Congolese 
resources. Africans and Americans have learned together in recent 
months the hard lesson that averting our eyes is not the way to deal 
with a problem, however intractable.
  Congo: The Next Focus.--The United Nations has tied itself in knots 
trying not to infringe upon any nation's sovereign rights. I understand 
its dilemma in trying to determine which nations are participating 
defensively and which are aggressors, but enough is enough, 
particularly when it comes to diamonds. I suspect what matters most to 
consumers is that diamonds' image differs from reality. To Americans in 
particular--who buy half of the world's diamond gems and jewelry, and 
10 percent of its rough diamonds--the fact that a diamond might be 
funding war is what matters. Whose blood stains their token of love, 
whether it belongs to a Rwandan soldier or a Zimbabwean, probably isn't 
nearly as important.
  When Kimberley Process nations, the diamond industry, and members of 
civil society complete the first phase of their efforts against 
conflict diamonds next week, I hope they will turn their energies to 
the DRC's forgotten war. Finding a way to close the Congo-sized 
loophole that threatens to undercut their good work on a global system, 
and that is leaving the Congolese people untouched by an approach that 
has proven constructive in other countries torn by wars over diamonds, 
is essential.
  Together with other leaders of the work against conflict diamonds in 
the House of Representatives, I am drafting legislation that aims to 
support responsible action on this pressing problem. Unfortunately, 
this is not something the United States can do unilaterally. Nor is it 
an issue that should continue to be subsumed to the interests of some 
U.S. allies who are involved in the Congo's war. The precedent we set 
in the deadliest war of this decade should not merely serve the narrow 
interests of any one nation; it should support future work to put 
diamonds beyond the reach of thugs and terrorists.
  I look forward to working with Congressional leaders, the Bush 
administration, the diamond and jewelry industries, human rights and 
humanitarian organizations, and others to address this flaw in 
international efforts to combat conflict diamonds, and to ensure we 
reach our goal by ending this scourge.
  Clean Diamond Trade Act.--In closing, I want to give our colleagues 
an update on H.R. 2722, the legislation we endorsed 408-6 last 
November. My hope and that of other sponsors was that the Senate would 
act quickly on this landmark legislation, both to push other countries 
to meet their Kimberley Process obligations and to serve as a pilot for 
this project so any flaws in this approach could be corrected through 
the legislation the Administration plans to introduce this year.
  To my great dismay, that has not happened, and the extraordinary 
coalition of industry and activists that supported the Clean Diamond 
Trade Act has collapsed over differences in how Congress should 
proceed. I remain hopeful that the Senate sponsors of H.R. 2722's 
companion--which represents a compromise that I brokered between the 
human rights community and the diamond industry--will find a way 
through their differences with the Bush Administration and the House so 
that this bill can be enacted at the earliest opportunity.
  I don't quarrel with our Senate partners' preference for stronger 
legislation; in fact, I share it, and want the record to be clear that 
their differences are honorable ones grounded in the bill's substance. 
This is not a partisan issue, as Congressmen Wolf, Houghton and Rangel 
and Senators Durbin, DeWine, Feingold and Gregg's combined efforts 
demonstrate.
  However, having worked steadily on this issue since I first met the 
victims of one war over conflict diamonds, and sponsored six different 
bills aimed at resolving it, I am convinced that there simply is no 
silver bullet capable of stopping this criminal trade. Giving our 
Customs agents weapons to battle it, giving activists tools to expose 
shortcomings in enforcement, finding ways to complement the law through 
development and diplomacy, and remaining vigilant until this scourge 
ends are the only real solution.
  I hope this work can begin soon, with the United States at the 
forefront and supported by the international community and this 
Congress.

                          ____________________