Stones of Contention

by Cleveland, Todd

  Today Namdeb’s “Diamond Area 1,” an expansive, 32,000 square-kilometer tract of sea, beach, and desert, is the intensely guarded home of Namibia’s most profitable deposits. The area’s borders mirror those of the original Sperrgebeit, or “forbidden territory,” first demarcated by Namibia’s German colonial overlords. In order to harvest diamonds from this zone, Ovambo “cleaners” sweep the crevices of the exposed bedrock with whisks or use vacuum machines that prevent them from touching the valuable targets—all the while operating behind massive, ten-story-high “retaining mounds,” at times hundreds of feet out into the ocean (fig. 6). Over time, Namdeb has moved even further out, mining, for example, in waters over four hundred feet deep. In these settings, massive drills mounted on specially designed ships break up the sea floor while pumps suck up the resultant diamond-rich debris into recovery plants (fig. 7). Unlike simple alluvial installations elsewhere in Africa, these operations require significant amounts of capital and technical knowledge. Thus, while De Beers certainly needed Namibia, the newly independent country also very much needed the mining enterprise—a perfect, diamond-sealed marriage.

  Figure 6. Namibian stamp: J. van Niekerk, ORANJEMUND Alluvial Diamonds, 1991. Courtesy of Odino Grubessi

  Figure 7. Namibian stamp: Namibian Marine Technology, 2002. Courtesy of Odino Grubessi

  Lustrous Challenges: Domestic Diamond-Related Problems and Concerns

  Constituting less than 10 percent of Namibia’s GDP, diamonds are not nearly as important to the country as they are to Botswana. But they have provided a valuable source of income and helped the country remain debt-free. At the same time, these stones have also generated numerous problems for Namibian governments, seated in Windhoek, the country’s capital city. As in Botswana, Namibia’s rapid development has been uneven. Although broad strides have been made in the provision of education and health care, roughly half the population still lives below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day, and unemployment lies somewhere between 20 and 33 percent. Moreover, although the country features a multiparty democracy, a single party (SWAPO) has dominated post-independence politics, just as in Botswana. Meanwhile, smuggling has long confounded Namibia’s diamond industry, which has otherwise been able to avoid many of the problems typically associated with mining operations in Africa. Although Windhoek is duly concerned, this assortment of challenges does not pose a lethal threat to the Namibian economy. Indeed, the country also has a lucrative uranium-mining industry and a strong tourism sector. Readers may recall that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, regular visitors to Namibia (though admittedly not average tourists), chose the country as the location for the 2006 birth of their daughter Shiloh.

  Given the difficulty in accessing Namibia’s diamond deposits and the expansive restricted entry zone that surrounds them, it is somewhat surprising that smuggling has been such a major challenge for the industry. Yet just as mineworkers in every setting throughout history have attempted to spirit diamonds away from extraction sites, the same has held true in Namibia. Although the country’s deposits certainly don’t lend themselves to rebel activity or diamond-fueled insurrection, losses attributable to smuggling have blighted an otherwise largely issue-free industry. Nor are the (suspected) sums of this contraband insignificant. At the commencement of the new millennium, Namdeb was reporting production of approximately 1.5 million carats annually, worth more than $400 million, yet estimates of the value of smuggled stones reached upward of $180 million, or roughly 30 percent of total output.

  Over the years, employees based in the highly secured mining center of Oranjemund have been especially creative in devising different smuggling techniques. Beyond “simple ingestion” (the stuff of amateurs), miners in the late 1990s were ingeniously using homing pigeons to carry off the stones from their mining hostels, over armed guards and perimeter fences.[132]The expression “the birds are flying” meant just that: a stream of diamonds was literally being flown out of Diamond Area 1. In fact, this system was exposed only after an overloaded pigeon attracted the attention of security guards. In response, Namdeb immediately banned the birds, and they are now shot on sight. No matter—at least for the miners, anyway. Workers replaced the birds with arrows and smuggled in crossbows, piece by piece, eventually launching hollowed, diamond-filled projectiles out, careful to avoid helicopter patrols. This otherwise crafty scheme ended only after an arrow hit a patrolling security jeep.

  Of course, raiding the workers’ hostels would have been the most expedient countermeasure to these smuggling ploys. Yet this option wasn’t politically palatable, as veterans of SWAPO’s heroic struggle for independence are well represented in the smuggling circles and half of Namdeb is owned by the SWAPO-led state. In other words, government officials’ former comrades-in-arms have been appropriating a portion of the state’s main asset, but for reasons of political delicacy, and corruption, no one has the appetite or will to halt it. As the stones continue to “fly out,” Windhoek just winks and nods. In fact, the smuggling organizations are so powerful that they effectively intimidate workers from turning in randomly found diamonds, even though employees are entitled to receive 70 percent of a stone’s value in reward money for this act. According to John Ward, a Namdeb geologist, speaking just prior to the millennium, no employee had voluntarily turned in a stone for decades: “The smuggling syndicates have crueler incentives, like breaking legs, to get people to not turn them in.”[133]Given this type of physical deterrent, it’s no wonder that the compensatory funds in Namdeb’s voluntary turn-in program have grown dusty over the years.

  Destructive Engagement: Namibia and the Regional Diamond Landscape

  Regardless of the smuggling problem within Namibia’s diamond industry, the country continues to be perceived as a prudent steward of its domestic mineral assets, responsibly and transparently developing the nation. Beyond its borders, though, Namibia’s record is not so sterling. In its diamond-related interactions with the DRC and Zimbabwe, for example, the government in Windhoek has made decisions that are inconsistent with its domestic policies and actions. Indeed, although a great number of African countries have been sucked into the seemingly endless civil conflict in the Congo, not all of them actively looted that troubled country’s natural resources. In addition to supporting rebel leader-cum-DRC president Laurent Kabila (now deceased), the Namibian military’s “official” duties in the DRC included diamond exploration and mining in Forminière’s former concessionary area, only in part to offset the costs of its intervention. After denying allegations regarding this activity for over two years, in 2001 Windhoek finally admitted that a Namibian firm, curiously named “August 26 Holding Cargo,” was involved in this exploitation and, moreover, was a subsidiary of a parastatal entity formed by the country’s Ministry of Defense. This admission provides the missing logic necessary to understand why Windhoek became involved in the DRC in the first place, a nation in which it has no clear strategic interests and which is situated some five hundred miles from its closest border. As is so often the case, it was all about the money.

  Namibia’s record in Zimbabwe is little better. Windhoek rushed to Robert Mugabe’s defense as he came under increasing international criticism for the violent manner in which his regime was exploiting the Marange deposits. Pursuant to the dispatch of a Kimberley Process (KP) team of investigators, Namibia, along with the governments of India, Russia, and China, warned against calling attention to human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. As rotating chair of the KP at the time (2009), Windhoek openly absolved the Zimbabwean government before the team even began its investigation. Namibia’s deputy minister of mines even went so far as to vow that Zimbabwe would never be suspended from the KP “family” and that the outside world should give the embattled country “the benefit of the doubt.”[134]By then, however, the time for giving Robert Mugabe the benefit of the doubt had tragically long since passed. Southern African governments have long defended Mugabe, in great part because of their shared histories battling op
pressive white regimes in the region, but Namibia’s advocacy while serving in such a pivotal position exceeded the traditional, knee-jerk expressions of support. Shortly thereafter, Namibia drafted the annual KP resolution to submit to the UN General Assembly, but made no mention of either Zimbabwe or human rights. This action undermined the Kimberley Process, making it appear toothless. Thus although Namibia has engaged with its own diamond resources both responsibly and peacefully, the same cannot always be said regarding deposits located elsewhere in the region.

  In contrast to the protracted violence that plagued Sierra Leone and Angola, Botswana and Namibia serve as largely refreshing “blood diamond-less” counterexamples. Although not devoid of either internal or regional challenges and controversies, these two major diamond-producing countries have acted as reasonable stewards of their significant deposits, allocating sizable sums for domestic investment and development in a transparent manner. Remarkable accomplishments, for sure, but not the sort that are likely to attract attention from either the global media or, certainly, Hollywood. But, that may well be exactly how the two countries like it, even if Namibia has benefited from the significant attention it has derived from repeated visits to the country by the celebrity supercouple, “Brangelina.” Both Botswana and Namibia have benefited from small populations and the absence of sprawling, land-based alluvial deposits that rebels in Sierra Leone, Angola, and elsewhere have so easily accessed and exploited. The post-independence governments in Gaborone and Windhoek have also carefully secured their diamond assets and aggressively negotiated and renegotiated deals with their natural production partner, De Beers. The success of both Debswana and Namdeb offers hope that public-private mining endeavors elsewhere in Africa will similarly be able to transform diamond deposits from domestic liabilities into national treasures.

  9: Africa’s Diamonds

  A Rough Past with a Brighter Future

  Yes, diamonds every time. I think people buy diamonds out of vanity and they buy gold because they’re too stupid to think of any other monetary system which will work—and I think vanity is a more attractive motive than stupidity.

  —Harry Oppenheimer’s response when asked if he had a preference for diamonds or gold, 1957

  Despite all the mineral wealth that has been removed from Africa’s soils over the centuries, the continent still has much more “vanity” to offer. In fact, the extraction from Africa of a range of natural resources, including mineral ores, is poised to increase dramatically in the coming years, with legions of covetous outsiders as eager as ever to access and haul them away. As Paul Collier has reminded us, “Africa is the last frontier for resource discovery, having long been relatively neglected by mining and other resource-extraction companies, owing to difficult political conditions. But rising commodity prices are overcoming reluctance, and prospecting is generating a multitude of new discoveries.”[135]Diamonds fit squarely into this latest African mineral revolution, and it will be up to the continent’s leaders to ensure that the wealth is properly managed and equitably divided. But will they? After reading the preceding chapters, it’s easy to see how greed and the quest for power will strongly influence these proceedings. Yet there is also reason to be optimistic, as it appears that African countries striving to imitate Botswana’s restrained model of resource management will far outnumber those nations mimicking Zimbabwe’s more aggressive, repressive approach.

  This chapter reflects on what we’ve learned about Africa’s diamond past, introduces some promising recent developments that have failed to make headlines, and, with these lessons and insights in mind, considers what the continent’s diamond future might look like. As should be clear by now, Africa’s mineral resources must be considered in a global, not just a continental, context. From the original “rushers” to Kimberley, to the colonial-era mining enterprises, to the contemporary international consumers of Africa’s diamonds, the continent’s stones have always had global dimensions. And even more so now, given our increasingly integrated, globalized world. So although much of the burden to administer the revenues from this impending mineral windfall lies with Africa’s leaders, the international community of states, mining corporations, and, ultimately, consumers also has a key role to play. The Kimberley Process provides an excellent example of how different entities within this diamond-linked community can work together to enhance, or even just protect, the lives of Africans in diamond-producing nations. Yet much more needs to be done if the corruption, looting, and squandering of Africa’s mineral resources is to be relegated to the past.

  Lessons from the Histories of Africa’s Diamonds

  By now you know a great deal about what’s transpired in Africa’s dynamic “diamond past.” As should be obvious, the film Blood Diamond dramatized only a small, albeit disturbing, part of this history. Many of the movie’s themes, however, including acute violence, greed, and exploitation, are regrettably consistent with the continent’s roughly 150-year engagement with these “stones of contention.” As we move forward in time from Africa’s diamond origins at Kimberley, these themes continue to hold, even if mining in the colonial era was significantly less chaotic. In fact, in many cases, the monopolistic companies that dominated the diamond landscape during the colonial period were more broadly beneficial to African societies than what succeeded them. In addition to an absence of wide-scale violence and the above-average wages and benefits that these companies provided, they also offered Africans a sense of stability in an otherwise rapidly changing world. During my own research in Angola, for example, former employees of Diamang openly shared with me their fondness for the Portuguese colonial period given the chaos that beset the country’s diamond-yielding areas following independence in 1975.

  During the period when colonial capital was exploiting African labor, the system was easier to comprehend, or was at least more straightforward: mining companies provided wages, housing, and, at times, even educational opportunities and pensions, in exchange for workers’ compliance and performance. The racial configuration of these scenarios was also clear: white-run companies operating in white-ruled colonies oversaw black manual labor forces. Fast-forward into the independence era, and the racial dynamics have become much more muddled. From “blood diamonds” to the current situation in Zimbabwe, Africans have been at the forefront of the exploitation and oppression of fellow Africans: greed and the quest for power are apparently color-blind.

  At the very least, it appears that the era of “blood diamonds” is over (even if “blood coltan”—a highly contentious mineral mined in the DRC—and other African “conflict minerals” continue to emerge). Although there will always be buyers unconcerned with a diamond’s provenance or how it arrived on the market, the Kimberley Process has eliminated the large-scale sale of stones to finance revolution or destabilize a sovereign state. As we have learned, though, the KP as it currently stands is only a half-measure. It addresses “traditional” blood diamonds, as they were originally, narrowly defined, but none of the other forms of violence associated with contemporary diamond mining and trading. And even if the definition is revised, and there is little to suggest that it will be, what can we realistically expect from the KP? Don’t authoritarian regimes always find markets for coveted exports? Don’t, for example, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Iran have regular, eager buyers of their crude? Meanwhile, for their part, global consumers seem to consider diamonds to be more like “essential” oil than “shunned” fur, so it’s highly unlikely that retail sales will sag due to any popular concern over the KP’s current limitations. These realities notwithstanding, shouldn’t attempts be made to at least try to sanction sales of diamonds by hostile regimes? It seems that certain governments, organizations, and elements within the diamond industry think that the answer is “yes,” though any changes to the current system will certainly be gradual, if they happen at all. In the meantime, although the KP’s detractors are both numerous and understandably dissatisfied, given what the system has already accompl
ished during its brief existence, these critics have probably been a bit harsh.

  Promising Developments: A Brighter Future?

  With each passing day, Africa’s diamond industry is further removed from the “blood diamond” era, and, in many respects, its future looks rather promising. The series of “diamond wars” have mercifully concluded, the KP is firmly in place, and prospecting and excavation continue apace. Moreover, African employees, including women, are assuming ever-higher positions within the diamond industry—a far cry from the colonial days when indigenous workers were almost exclusively found shoveling earth under the relentless sun. For this transformation to be complete, though, the industry will have to assist the one group that continues to operate on the margins: artisanal miners. Many Africans continue to engage in informal, or artisanal, mining—an often unjustly illegalized and thus highly vulnerable undertaking—often as a last resort. In an attempt to improve the plight of these miners, the Diamond Development Initiative, an international collaborative effort reminiscent of, and linked to, the KP, has been formed, but much more on this front will be required going forward. For all the success that increasing numbers of Africans are enjoying within the industry, mining for diamonds must benefit all those involved if the entire continent is to develop.