The diamond trade has always had its dark side, with smugglers and gunrunners too often lurking behind the sparkle and glitter. Now, revelations that gem sales are feeding some of Africa's nastiest civil wars have forced change at the heart of the global diamond business. Antwerp's diamond trade stands accused of allowing rebels from Angola and Sierra Leone to sell billions of dollars of gems on the international market to pay for arms. ''Extremely lax controls and regulations governing the Antwerp market facilitate and perhaps even encourage illegal activity,'' said a stinging report presented to the United Nations last month by Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler. The report on how Angolan warlord Jonas Savimbi defies UN sanctions to fund his guerrillas reads like a post-Cold War thriller, with a cast of shadowy South African arms dealers, Ukrainian mercenaries, eastern Mediterranean gem traffickers and African leaders bribed with packets of diamonds. According to the report, many of the strands in this web lead to Antwerp, where 85 per cent of the world's rough diamonds are traded.
Trading is cosmopolitan.
Hasidic Jews in black coats and hats mingle with sharp-suited dealers from Bombay to Beirut. Little jewelry stores on the neighbourhood's fringes are run by newcomers from Georgia. There are Kosher delis, Lebanese cafes and Bollywood movie posters. At Antwerp's High Diamond Council, the UN report was met with consternation and claims the city is being made a scapegoat for an illicit trade that's impossible to control. Mark Van Bockstael heads the Angolan task force set up by the Diamond Council after the UN banned trade in Savimbi's diamonds in 1998.