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Photos and information is from www.cryfreetown.org. All rights are reserved to them, 2005.

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History: Pre 1990s

SIERRA LEONE: A HISTORY LINKED TO DIAMONDS

Sierra Leone has nothing going for it - except diamonds. Before their discovery in 1930, the former British Colony was just a dumping-ground for freed slaves. The legal and illegal trade in diamonds has shaped the history of the nation and its people. Every significant twist in the story of modern day Sierra Leone can be seen through the lens of its diamonds.

Top-quality gem diamonds have characterised production since significant output began in 1935. By 1937 Sierra Leone was mining one million carats annually and by 1970 production had reached a peak of 2 million carats.

Between 1930 and 1998, approximately 55 million carats were officially mined in Sierra Leone. At an average price of US $270 per carat (1996 dollars), the total value is close to US $15 billion, money which has never benefited the majority of Sierra Leonians.

In 1935, the colonial authorities concluded an agreement with the DeBeers mining company giving it exclusive mining and prospecting rights over the entire country for 99 years. But by 1956 there were an estimated 75,000 illegal miners in the heart of the diamond area. This lead to smuggling on a vast scale - by mainly Madingo and Lebanese traders - and a general breakdown of law and order.

Increased insecurity in the early 1950's forced Lebanese smugglers to re-route their trade through Liberia. Belgian and Israeli diamond buyers soon established offices there. Battling to keep control of the trade, DeBeers set up a buying office in Monrovia in 1954. By 1955 the colonial authorities had scrapped DeBeers' nation-wide monopoly, confining its operations to just two fields. The next year a scheme was introduced under which both mining and buying licenses were granted to indigenous miners. These licenses could be traded and inevitably, many ended up being owned by Lebanese merchants whose families had settled in Sierra Leone at the turn of the century.

Siaka Stevens became Prime Minister seven years after independence in 1968. A populist, he quickly turned diamonds and the presence of DeBeers into a political issue, tacitly encouraging illegal mining. In 1971, Stevens effectively nationalised the DeBeers operation with all important decisions being made by himself or his close associate, Jamil Mohammed, a Lebanese businessman.

From a high of over two million carats in 1970, legitimate diamond exports dropped to 595,000 carats in 1980 and then to only 48,000 in 1988 as illegal trading eroded the official figures. In 1984, DeBeers sold its remaining shares to a company controlled by Jamil. Stevens retired in 1985, handing over power to Joseph Momoh, who placed even greater responsibility in the hands of Jamil.

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, aspects of Lebanon's civil war were played out amongst the Lebanese factions in Sierra Leone. This was of great interest to Israel, in part because the leader of an important Beirut faction had been born in Sierra Leone and was a boyhood friend of Jamil's. In 1987 Jamil was forced into exile amidst allegations of a coup plot. Suddenly, a number of Israeli 'investors' with connections to the Antwerp diamond trade, and Russian and American crime families, became involved with the government's diamond enterprises.

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Photos and information is from www.cryfreetown.org. All rights reserved to them, 2005.