【Bangui, Cent】Towards “the Lifting of the Kimberley Process Sanction” on Central African Diamonds

The normal trade of Central African diamonds will soon resume following the lifting of the Kimberley Process sanction, which had prohibited all related transactions, according to the Minister of Energy and Mines, Olivier Malibangar.
Returning from Beijing, he announced the news on Tuesday evening before a large gathering of journalists and actors from the diamond sector.

The minister then announced that a Kimberley Process mission will soon visit the Central African Republic to inquire about the security situation and progress recorded on the ground.

Mr. Malibangar further insisted on the role to be played by international peacekeeping forces in the CAR to facilitate the arrival of the said mission, which will be tasked with finalizing its work and then publishing its report on the CAR. A report based on which the sanction imposed on Central African diamonds will be lifted, according to him.

In addition to the security question and the guarantee of a certain stability, the country’s authorities are called upon, he added, to send strong signals to the international bodies of the Kimberley Process, which would favor the lifting of this sanction. From this point of view, he returned to the resumption of normal functioning of the mining administration and the redeployment of civil and military services, among other things.

According to the latest official statistics, the Central African Republic produced 312,000 carats in 2011, and the most well-known diamond-bearing regions are the Carnot formation, located in the west of the country, and Mouka-Ouadda, in the eastern part of the CAR.
The Kimberley Process is an international certification scheme for rough diamonds, bringing together governments and diamond industry players, with the aim of avoiding, among other things, trading on the world market diamonds presented by rebel movements to finance their military activities.