In parts of Africa rich in diamonds, the income from this treasure brings almost nothing to the local population. Or even make their life more difficult.
Kajongo Adelino (49) has been working as a garimpeiro – as unofficial diamond miners are called here – for more than a decade. Here, in the small town of Kafunfu in the north of Angola, the occupation is familiar to everyone.
The miners are looking for a "sponsor" who would finance their journey to the diamond area and then buy the goods.
The wholesalers keep half of the money for themselves, and from the other half they charge the miners what they "lent" them for the trip.
"The last diamond I sold cost $1.250," Adelino tells DW. "These are not real prices because the table they use for the garimpeiros is one, and the market where they sell is completely different."
Lust and greed
Greed and the powerlessness of corrupt state apparatuses to stop diamond smuggling are leading to instability, Mze Fula Ngenge, president of the African Diamond Council, tells us.
Ngenge says raw materials from Congo, Angola, Mozambique and other countries end up outside the continent. "Sometimes a lot of illegal diamonds are seized and then they become the property of the state that seized them," he told DW.
"So the developed world, as the Pope recently called it, is certainly guilty of turning a blind eye to all that," he adds.
One source, familiar with the geopolitics behind diamonds that also has ties to money laundering and terrorist financing, explains one of the mechanisms:
"Sometimes diamonds are stolen from mines in Angola and transported to Congo. Then they are exported to Dubai with documents claiming that the diamond is from the Congo," he says.
Worthless certificates
Rafael Marquez de Morai, a journalist and activist from Angola who wrote the book "Blood Diamonds", strongly criticizes both the authorities of his country and the international community. He says that the introduction of certificates of origin for diamonds does not prevent local communities from suffering, while the treasure is exported to Antwerp or Dubai.
"Suffice it to say that the diamonds are clean and that justifies everything. But they are not clean because they are still exploited with violence," Marques told DW.
Recently, the journalist reminds, in the north of Angola, a security worker near a mine was beaten to death. The perpetrators are allegedly informal miners from the Congo.
"There are conflicts, local communities are exploited and abused while, for example, the Russian Alrosa mines diamonds," adds the journalist, referring to the Russian company that is one of the largest producers of diamonds in the world. There is a connection with the Belgian port of Antwerp.
Our source familiar with this trade says it is strange that Belgium officially supports Ukraine "but continues to supply Russia with money from the sale of diamonds in Antwerp - blood diamonds".
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