Stones of Contention

by Cleveland, Todd

  A Geological Overview of Africa’s Diamonds

  What is a diamond? Quite simply, it’s carbon that has been subjected to intense heat and pressure. The products of this process are thrust toward the earth’s surface from depths of more than a thousand miles, embedded within what is known as a kimberlite pipe—named after Kimberley, the city that sprung up in the midst of the South African diamond finds. In Africa, these kimberlite eruptions brought diamond deposits to the surface as recently as a million years ago. Over time, wind and rain have slowly eroded these eruptive pipes so that they now generally blend into the surrounding landscape. During this erosive process, stones are washed out of the once-protruding pipes and into the surrounding countryside, as well as into streams and rivers, which often carry them far from their original points of emergence. As such, upwards of a third of the diamonds harvested from Africa’s soils have come from far-flung alluvial fields, rather than from the subterranean portions of the original kimberlite pipes.

  Kimberlite is a relatively “soft” rock, which over time breaks down into a mass of secondary clay minerals that contain resistant residual materials, including diamonds. The products of this process are found in both a superficial zone of “yellow ground” and a deeper one made up of more diamondiferous “blue ground,” which eventually transitions into “primary kimberlite.” During the weathering process, the diamonds contained in the pipe come to rest in both the yellow and blue grounds. Although fabulous riches are often extracted from both of these layers, the mining of the blue ground is ultimately the more lucrative undertaking.

  Unfortunately for prospectors and others interested in tapping the earth for diamond wealth, not every kimberlite pipe is diamondiferous. In South Africa, for example, roughly only one pipe in two hundred is worth mining, though in other places, such as Botswana, the ratio can be as high as one in fifteen. Moreover, the surface diameters of payable pipes are often only a hundred yards across. Even the Mwadvi diamond mine in Tanzania, among the largest in the world, is only a mile and a half long and a mile wide. Prospecting for lucrative deposits can, therefore, be a time-consuming project.

  In this respect, the case of Dr. John Williamson, who worked in colonial Tanganyika (Tanzania), comes to mind. Inspired by his find at Mwadvi in 1953, roughly three hundred prospecting engineers subsequently spent more than three years trying to identify additional regional deposits—almost entirely unsuccessfully! In order to avoid this type of inefficiency, contemporary prospectors now focus on what are known in the industry as “indicator minerals” that suggest the presence of diamond deposits.[3] Resistant and heavy, these minerals tend to work their way into drainage systems via processes such as downslope soil creep or rainfall runoff. They then radiate outward along drainage channels, trailing off the circular, superficial footprint of the kimberlite pipe.

  Diamond deposits are present throughout the continent. Although they are most abundant in Southern Africa, substantial lodes also exist in Central Africa, and to lesser degrees in Western and Eastern Africa. After the discoveries in South Africa in the 1860s, diamonds were subsequently discovered in a number of other locations on the continent, including the Congo in 1906; Namibia in 1908; Tanzania in 1910; Angola in 1912; the Central African Republic in 1913; Ghana in 1919; Sierra Leone in 1930; Guinea-Conakry in 1930; Liberia c. 1935; and Botswana in 1967, with lesser finds made in Zambia, Mali, Gabon, Lesotho, Mozambique, and Swaziland. Most recently, Zimbabwe has come online as a major diamond exporter. Both across and within these countries, diamond deposits can be located in drastically different terrain, such that a single country can feature both kimberlite and alluvial deposits, as well as an array of access conditions. In the case of Namibia, for example, many diamonds are “vacuumed” from the ocean shelf off the Atlantic coastline by workers operating behind massive walls that keep the powerful waters at bay. Although these stones constitute an extreme example, most onshore diamonds can be mined profitably even in the most remote and seemingly inaccessible locations, often with nothing more than a shovel and a sieve. This virtually guaranteed financial score is owing to the fact that bringing the product to a potential buyer does not require a vast or developed transportation infrastructure. Indeed, Hollywood constantly reminds us that a small pouch of stones can be easily moved around the world, often leaving a trail of cinematic intrigue, violence, and shadowy financial dealings in its wake.

  Africa’s Diamond Ascension and the Historical Importance of These Stones

  Neither the role of diamonds in Africa’s history nor the importance of the continent’s stones in global history can be overstated. The discovery of payable deposits anywhere in the world invariably prompts an immediate response. Yet, in Africa’s case, the series of actions and reactions following the discovery of the Eureka Diamond were both exceptionally decisive and continue to have momentous implications for the continent’s residents. Virtually overnight, thousands of Africans, Europeans, Americans, and Australians, among others, descended on the dusty, dry, scarcely populated terrain where the South African fields were located. The trading post of Kimberley that sprung up in the midst of these discoveries quickly grew to become South Africa’s second-most-populated city, behind only the long-established port of Cape Town. Going forward, this diamond-driven, demographic phenomenon would recur across the continent as countless individuals, a range of imperial states, and dozens of mining enterprises vied for the stones embedded in Africa’s mineral-rich soils. Indeed, it is from the long history of contention for these coveted stones that the book draws its title.

  One of the primary impetuses for the European colonization of Africa at the end of the nineteenth century was the continent’s storied mineral wealth. Following the diamond discoveries near Kimberley, Great Britain moved to consolidate its control of South Africa, fighting a series of wars against indigenous populations and Dutch descendant, or “Boer,” settlers. Other European powers subsequently mimicked this aggressive approach elsewhere on the continent, forcibly establishing control over previously sovereign African spaces. The particular geographical targets of these military advances were based on claims made leading up to, during, and following the 1884–85 Berlin Conference. In this fashion, the European imperial states literally mapped out the future occupation of Africa. Profound investment in and exploitation of the continent’s mineral riches marked the ensuing colonial period.

  As investors poured more and more capital into the continent following a succession of diamond discoveries, Africa’s place in the global diamond industry rapidly ascended. As early as 1872, for example, South Africa was already producing six times the quantity of stones that Brazil had produced just a decade earlier. And with the emergence of South African–based De Beers in the 1870s, Africa was to become synonymous with diamonds. Legitimate rivals began to appear only in the middle of the twentieth century, following significant discoveries in the Soviet Union and, more recently, Canada. Yet, once these major non-African producers came online, De Beers strategically negotiated to purchase most of this new production and, thereby, maintain its legendary (near) monopoly. Meanwhile, during the colonial era in Africa, this type of supply-side manipulation of the market helped generate sorely needed funds for a number of white minority governments, including in Angola, Sierra Leone, and the Belgian Congo.

  During the 1930s, as purveyors of the ultimate luxury item, the diamond industry naturally suffered due to the worldwide recession. Even De Beers was forced to cease production in a number of its mines for approximately five years in response to severely reduced global demand. However, following the outbreak of the Second World War, Africa’s diamonds regained their importance, though this time primarily in a martial rather than aesthetic sense. Indeed, you may be surprised to learn that these deposits were invaluable to the Allied powers’ war effort. During the peak years of the conflict, not only did Africa supply significant portions of the world’s gold, manganese, copper, cobalt, and uranium, but also 98 percent of the industrial diamo
nds, which were newly essential for the production of military hardware. The production of “industrial” diamonds—that is, small and/or low-quality stones and, thus, not “gem quality”—was centered on the Belgian Congo, from the mines of the Forminière company. With production soaring to 10,386,000 metric tons in 1945, the Congo alone supplied over 65 percent of the Allies’ industrial diamond and “bort” (low-quality industrial) needs during the war. Meanwhile, the Axis powers were forced to rely on prewar stocks and on a number of lesser sources, including French Guinea (Guinea-Conakry) in West Africa, which was controlled by France’s sympathetic Vichy government, and a much smaller stream of stones smuggled out of the Congo.[4]So, did Africa’s diamonds win the war for the Allies? Not quite. But, they did provide the victors with an important edge.

  The Congo (DRC) continues to be a leading producer of industrials, which constitute roughly 80 percent of all mined diamonds, and are nowadays used in a variety of commercial applications. Given a diamond’s unparalleled hardness, industrials are often used for cutting and grinding, including as drill bits and in various types of saws. In fact, every time you ride in a car, industrial diamonds have helped facilitate that journey, as they are used in highway construction and repair; in gas, mineral, and oil exploration; and in the production of every car made in the United States (the manufacturing process for each automobile consumes over one carat of industrial diamond).

  Since their invention in the 1950s, synthetic diamonds have steadily replaced natural-forming industrials, but they perform essentially the same tasks. Today, synthetics annually account for some 98 percent of the industrial market, and the United States is both a major producer and a consumer of these stones. Synthetics are less expensive, can be produced in almost unlimited quantities, and can be customized for specific applications. Synthetic industrials also show great promise as semiconductors in the construction of microchips and as heat sinks, which are used to cool down electronics, such as laptop computers. Given all of the current and potential usages for synthetic industrials, this industry is fast rivaling the overall value of the gemstone market.

  Although synthetic stones, which can cost as little as 40 cents per carat, dominate the industrial market, buyers still insist on the “real thing” when seeking diamonds for jewelry or other ornamentation. Global demand for gem-quality stones resumed soon after the Second World War ended. Facilitated by De Beers’s monopolistic buying and selling schemes, extractive colonial mining companies quickly resumed pumping the wealth out of the continent’s soils and back into European coffers.

  As the political “winds of change” blew across Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time virtually the entire continent achieved independence from its European colonial overlords, the African leaders of the newly independent states adopted various approaches to diamond revenues. In some cases, including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), novice statesmen aggressively moved to nationalize domestic output. Yet, these measures typically met with dismal results for a number of reasons, including a lack of technical knowledge; an inability to prohibit access to alluvial supplies; operational mismanagement and corruption; insufficient capital to replace aging or broken equipment; and even civil conflicts. Conversely, other governments, in Botswana and Namibia, for example, proceeded down a different path by establishing successful public-private mining enterprises. It should be noted, though, that the circumstances in these two cases are somewhat unique: in Botswana, diamonds were discovered only in 1967, one year after political independence, and, in Namibia, independence arrived only in 1990. Furthermore, in both cases, deposits were in hard to access/easy to cordon off locations, which allowed for easier governmental control.

  While African states contemplated how to manage their diamond resources following independence, both formal and informal miners continued to pry, dig, dislodge, and remove in every other conceivable way, these precious stones. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Africa had endured a series of devastating diamond-related developments, including “resource conflicts” and the emergence of “blood diamonds”—an occurrence that threatened to spark a consumer backlash reminiscent of that against the fur industry in the 1980s. Well beyond Africa’s control, though, a series of global recessions had also reduced demand for both gem and industrial stones. Yet despite these formidable challenges, Africa continues to be the premier continent for diamond production, with Botswana leading the way (see table 1).

  Table 1. Estimated production by value of top producers (in US dollars), 2011

  Botswana 3,902,115,904

  Russia 2,674,713,800

  Canada 2,550,875,198

  South Africa 1,730,323,570

  Angola 1,163,625,471

  Namibia 872,567,637

  Zimbabwe 476,218,677

  Australia 220,720,063

  Congo (DRC) 179,608,541

  Source: http://geology.com/articles/gem-diamond-map/. Data source is the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries.

  Regardless of the periodic headline-grabbing discoveries of diamond deposits made far from Africa’s borders, De Beers’s ongoing, if slightly eroded, dominance ensures that the continent retains its preeminence in the industry. In 2004, for example, De Beers sold $5.7 billion worth of rough diamonds—or 48 percent of the world’s total—and reported earnings for the year of $652 million. Via production from its own mines, as well as a series of strategic agreements and partnerships with other mining operations, De Beers currently controls roughly 45 percent of the global output of diamonds. Through its vast commercial network, which as of 2002 also newly included dozens of high-end retail stores located around the world, the enterprise and its practices affect millions of diamond-industry employees worldwide. This combination of De Beers’s high-profile, global impact and its historic and well-publicized South African roots ensures that Africa’s association with diamonds is continually highlighted and reinforced.

  Diamonds in Africa: A Blessing or a Curse?

  Much has been made about whether Africa’s natural resources constitute a “blessing” or “curse” for the countries (un)lucky enough to possess them. Have Africa’s diamonds been, as Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in the film Blood Diamond declares, all about “bling bang,” that is, death and destruction? Or, do these stones offer a viable means to economic development and social improvement, as suggested in the quote by Botswana’s former president, Festus Mogae, which also led off this chapter? In practice, the answer is probably: both. Or, perhaps: neither. In certain settings, including Angola, Sierra Leone, and the DRC, the presence of diamonds has resulted in significant harm for resident populations. This damage has been physical, measured by the thousands of casualties and millions of people displaced by the diamond-fueled conflicts that have raged in these countries. The damage has also been economic, as large inflows of foreign capital and the attendant inflation of local currency rates—the symptoms of so-called “Dutch Disease”—have either crippled or precluded the development of other potentially promising sectors of national economies and thereby deepened resource dependency.[5]Yet in other countries, such as Namibia and Botswana, diamond deposits have generally improved the overall standards of living, failed to critically distort national economies, and, if anything, helped keep the peace rather than disrupt it.

  At first glance, these contrasting examples appear reasonably clear-cut. However, a closer look is warranted. Consideration of shifting historical contexts and particular subsegments of national populations tends to muddy these otherwise seemingly clear waters. For example, with the diamond-fueled conflicts now over in both Sierra Leone and Angola, local populations are increasingly benefiting from diamond revenues, whereas in Botswana, if one were to invite commentary about the country’s diamond industry from the “Bushmen,” many of whom were forcibly relocated in order to facilitate formal prospecting, it’s unlikely that they would share Festus Mogae’s sanguine assessment. Thus even if on balan
ce diamonds may appear to constitute either a “blessing” or “curse” for Africa and its peoples, it is probably neither prudent nor analytically useful to spend too much time trying to shoehorn the broad range of Africans’ lived experiences into these types of binaries. After all, diamonds are just inanimate objects, as incapable of launching a violent rebellion as they are of establishing prudent ministerial resource management policy. In this book, I provide in-depth examinations of the individuals, enterprises, and countries involved in order to provide more insightful understandings than those attainable via the simplistic formulation blessing or curse?

  Book Content and Chapter Outline

  The book features a series of loosely chronological chapters that seek to highlight the significance of Africa’s diamonds during different historical periods. To tell this story, I have drawn upon a wide range of primary source materials, oral interviews, African and international newspapers and other popular media sources, as well as the significant body of existing literature dedicated to diamonds the world over. The text attempts to weave these disparate sources together to highlight the key developments in the global history of the continent’s “stones of contention” up through the present day and, whenever possible, to place Africans at the center of this narrative. This approach entails consideration of Africans situated in an assortment of historical and geographical contexts, but does not include systematic coverage of every diamond-generating venue on the continent. Rather, specific examples are drawn from a variety of settings to illustrate broader themes and trends; consequently, some sites receive more attention than others. The chapters unfold as follows: