Washington, DC — The Washington Post newspaper reported Friday that over the past three years, Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has collected millions of dollars from the illicit sale of diamonds mined by rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. The gems were sold to "important" Al Qaeda figures at below-market prices and they resold them in Europe for great profit.
According to the paper, which cited intelligence sources, the deals were arranged at safe houses in Monrovia by Ibrahim Bah, a Libyan-trained former Senegalese rebel and the RUF's principal diamond dealer. Bah - who is also known as Ibrahima Baldé and Baldé Ibrahima - reportedly now lives in the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, and has close ties to Liberian President Charles Taylor and the now-jailed RUF leader, Foday Sankoh.
Much is known about illegal diamond mining and its link to regional violence; conflict or "blood" diamonds have long financed conflict in West Africa, as well as other parts of the continent. According to the United Nations, up to $1.2m-worth of diamonds are smuggled out of Angola every day. One third of these illicit stones are sold by the rebel group, Unita.
In Sierra Leone, despite an agreed peace process, continued mining by the RUF in the Tongo diamond fields worries many. The RUF is engaged in a false peace, editorialized the Standard Times newspaper of Freetown earlier this week, "and there is a real risk they are using the respite to stockpile diamonds and weapons."
The Concord Times newspaper quoted an RUF spokesperson, Gibril Massaquoi, as saying on the BBC's Network Africa last Sunday: "I am telling the world that we are mining and let the authorities go to hell or if they like, drink drums of water from the Atlantic Ocean and die."
At the end of last year, a United Nations panel of experts linked the governments of Liberia, Burkina Faso and the RUF rebels to trafficking that "keeps the region awash in small arms" and perpetuates warfare. Last week, a UN panel recommended extending sanctions against Liberia because of that nation's continued relations with the RUF and its role in diamonds-for-arms trafficking.
But surprisingly, the link between "conflict diamonds" in West Africa and the Osama Bin Laden network was ignored by the U.S. press on Friday morning as West Africa's most prominent leader, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo stood next to U.S. President George Bush in the White House Rose Garden, available for questioning by journalists. Bush was, instead, peppered with the same questions about the war on terrorism that have been continually asked during the past two weeks.
President Obasanjo was asked nothing about the newspaper's story, nor about what has become a steady stream of information, over the last month, about links between Middle Eastern terrorist organizations and West Africa, where Nigeria is the dominant economic and political force.
Nor was there any inquiry about about events in Nigeria itself, which has been rocked by escalating Islamist violence over the past year. Twelve states in northern Nigeria have instituted Sharia or Islamic law, with Kaduna state being the latest to adopt the code.
As President Obasanjo faced the press in Washington,DC, police in the northern Nigerian city of Kano were preparing for a massive anti-American demonstration and police had reportedly threatened to arrest all protestors. Throughouout Northern Nigeria, anti-American sentiment in Muslim communities appears to be growing.
The omissions are ironic, since the U.S.media has repeatedly said that it wants to understand why the United States seems so disliked in much of the Muslim world. Nigeria, which has been central to peacekeeping efforts in Sierra Leone, is also on the faultline of tension between Muslim and non-Muslim; to many observers, it may offer the best opportunity to begin to understand what is at play.
Nigeria, according to Administration officials, is the single most important nation in the complex relationship between the United States and Africa.
In the Rose Garden, President Obasanjo was asked only one question, and that related to the recent actions of the Nigerian military in east central Nigeria that resulted in over 100 civilian deaths. Clashes between two or three ethnic groups have been going on for 15 or 20 years, Obasanjo said, blaming "the lawlessness of young men".
Earlier Obasanjo and Bush held talks on what the U.S. President called "the totality of a war against terror." Part of what is needed, Bush said, is "economic prosperity throughout the world." This need had led him to support the African growth and Opportunity Act, Bush said, and was "why I believe we ought to start a new round at [the World Trade Organisation's upcoming meeting in] Qatar, a new round for world trade."
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In brief formal remarks, the Nigerian President restated his firm support for President Bush's efforts to build an anti-terror coalition. The "challenge" of the anti-terror coalition is to "make the world more wholesome, more equitable, fairer, and safer for all of us to live in," said Obasanjo. "And I believe we have a leader, President Bush, to ensure that the world achieves that objective."
In addition to President Bush, among those the Nigerian President met, in a long string of meetings, Friday, were Secretary of State Colin Powell, Congressman J.C. Watts, former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A scheduled meeting with boxing promoter Don King has observers wondering whether a championship boxing match in Nigeria could be in the works.
