Liberian Ships First Diamonds Since U.N. Ban Lifted

MONROVIA - Liberia has shipped its first consignment of diamonds since the United Nations lifted an embargo on gem exports imposed to curb a 1989-2003 civil war, the information minister said on Tuesday.

The first shipment, worth $220,000, left the poor West African country on Thursday, ending a six-year hiatus in gem exports after the United Nations ruled in 2001 that "blood diamonds" were being used to fund conflicts across the region.

"Though small, this tells you that the country can properly manage its diamonds," Lawrence Bropleh told Reuters. "Unlike in the past, this time we can account for every diamond that leaves the country."

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously in April to lift the ban after Liberia complied with the Kimberley Process, a mechanism to stop diamonds from funding conflicts by requiring government certificates for gems to show they came from legitimate sources.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's cash-strapped government lifted its own moratorium on exports in July.

Diamond sales, 3 percent of which will go to the government, represent a valuable source of hard currency for a country seeking to rebuild its devastated economy and infrastructure after one of Africa's most brutal wars.

Bropleh did not disclose the destination of the diamonds. Most of the gems were mined in western Liberia, close to the border with Sierra Leone where rebels sifted diamonds from alluvial deposits in riverbeds and pits to fund a 1991-2002 civil war.