---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 22:10:05 -0700
From: David Mozer <[log in to unmask]>
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To: wa-afr <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [wa-afr] FW: ACTION: Conflict Diamonds legislation needs support
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 5:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ACTION: Conflict Diamonds legislation needs support
ADNA Action: 000816
Message from: Physicians for Human Rights
For contact information see also:
http://www.africapolicy.org/adna
Dear ADNA members,
Following find the latest action alert from Physicians for Human
Rights(PHR) regarding conflict diamonds. Please feel free to share
this widely with your own networks. Contact PHR for further
information as indicated in the body of the message.
Thank you for supporting this action.
Regards,
Vicki Ferguson
ADNA Communications Facilitator
Date sent: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 09:08:29 -0700
From: Holly Burkhalter <[log in to unmask]>
Send reply to: [log in to unmask]
Organization: Physicians for Human Rights
URGENT ACTION: IMPORT RESTRICTIONS
ON CONFLICT DIAMONDS
For more Information:
Contact Holly Burkhalter/PHR at 202-728-5335
August, 2000
When Congress reconvenes in September after Labor Day,
Representative Tony Hall plans to reintroduce the so-called “Carat
Act,” a bill that places import restrictions on diamonds. We urge
everyone concerned about the role of diamonds in fueling cruel
conflict in Sierra Leone and Angola to immediately contact the
Members of Congress listed below, and urge them to act favorably
on the revised “Carat Act” if and when it comes before them.
Here are the four things that organizations can do:
1) Please write a letter to the following members on your own
stationery as soon as possible. Talking points are listed below.
2) Please place any portion of this Urgent Action or other material
you may have in your organization’s newsletter, weekly mailings, e-
mail communication with members, or other material that you send
out. Any mailing up through mid-September would be very helpful.
Please contact me if you would like additional material or
assistance in drafting a diamond message that would particularly
suit your constituency.
3) Please mail or e-mail this Urgent Action to your own
membership in the states listed below. (To find out what member
represents your city,town or area, go tohttp://www.vote-smart.org
and type in your zip code.)
4) Write a letter to the editor of local newspapers where your
members are represented, or ask them to. The letter should call
upon the Member or Senator to take action on diamonds, talking
points below.
5) Call the offices of the Members and Senators listed below and
ask to meet with their staff some time this month. If you are
interested in having such meetings, I am going to be organizing
some, and will tag along. It would be nice to have a representative
delegation of humanitarian, human rights, and religious groups
visiting each and every office named below.
Because the revised Carat Act provisions are most likely to be
considered on a trade bill, we are targeting members of the Trade
Subcommittees in the House and the Senate. We have also
added the chairman and ranking members of House and Senate
Appropriations.
We particularly urge that the humanitarian and religious
organizations that signed our letter to the World Diamond
Congress alert their membership in the states and districts of the
following Representatives and Senators, so that each of these
individuals hears from a large number of concerned individuals from
his own state or Congressional district over the next month.
Please note: office room numbers are listed after the member’s
name. The zip code for Senators is 20510; the zip code for
Members of Congress is 20515.
Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX),1236 Longworth House Office Building, Rep.
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), 2354 Rayburn House Office Building,
Rep. Phil Crane (R-IL), 233 Cannon House Office Building, Rep.
Sander Levin (D-MI),2268 Rayburn House Office Building, Rep. Jim
Ramstad (R-MN), 103 Cannon House Office Building, Senator
Chuck Grassley (R-IA), 135 Hart Senate Office Building, Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), 464 Russell Senate Office
Building, Senator William Roth (R-DE), 104 Hart Senate Office
Building, Senator Jim Jeffords (R-VT), 728 Hart Senate Office
Building, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), 522 Hart Senate Office
Building, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), 311 Hart Senate Office
Building, Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), 2407 Rayburn House Office
Building, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), 2314 Rayburn House Office
Building.
Talking Points:
1. I am deeply concerned about the importation of diamonds from
Sierra Leone and Angola that has enriched rebel groups that
commit gross abuses against unarmed people. I strongly favor
import controls so that American consumers, who buy 65% of
diamond jewelry sold internationally, do not unwittingly help these
insurgent forces.
2. It is my understanding that legislation to require some form of
labeling on diamonds imported by the U.S. will be considered by
the Congress this fall. I urge you to favorably support legislation
that requires either a country-of-origin certificate or an assurance of
diamond industry controls on the handling of rough stones.
3. I strongly favor an American boycott of diamonds imported from
rebel-controlled Angola and Sierra Leone, and from countries which
launder diamonds from these conflict zones, namely Liberia,
Burkina Faso and Congo.
Background: As you know, control of Sierra Leone’s diamonds by
the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) turned a band of thugs into a
formidable fighting force that virtually destroyed an entire country.
Diamonds have similarly enriched UNITA, Angola’s rebel group.
Human rights, religious, and humanitarian groups have been deeply
concerned about the role that diamonds have played in fomenting
conflict and human rights abuses in Africa. Seventy organizations
joined Physicians for Human Rights in signing an open letter to the
World Diamond Congress, which met in mid-July. We are very
pleased at the commitments made there by the industry to a
comprehensive program to assure that the diamonds they are
cutting, trading, and exporting are from legitimate sources. This
program of “Rough Controls” would set in place a forgery-proof
delivery system and computer data-base for the tracking of
shipments of uncut stones. Once inside cutting centers the
stones would all be certified as legitimate, and traded and sold.
Representative Hall’s revised “Carat Act” contains three provisions
that address the problem of conflict diamonds. A summary of the
bill follows:
Title I: Language implementing the U.N. embargoes against RUF-
controlled Sierra Leonean diamonds and UNITA-controlled Angolan
diamonds, as well as well-known transhipment points, including
Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Congo.
Title II. This will be an updated version of the “Carat Act,” requiring
certificates of origin for every diamond imported by the U.S. over a
certain weight, to take effect in 2002. The Customs Service could
delay implementation of this provision if 1) technology did not
permit the origin of cut/polished diamonds to be determined; and/or
another system was in place to sever diamonds funding link to
wars. (The other system is the Rough Controls regimen, see Title
III, below.)
Title III. This title will prohibit the importation of diamonds from any
cutting or exporting center that does not have in place “Rough
Controls,” which is the system that the industry agreed to in
Antwerp. Rough controls would include forgery-proof packaging and
computer database, export and import controls and inspection,
criminal sanctions against abusers, international inspection of the
process, and an international accreditation process for diamond
exporters and importers.
Rep. Hall’s proposed legislation makes a very valuable contribution
to the process that has already begun by the diamond industry. It
does call for “birth certificates” for finished diamonds entering the
U.S. within two years, but waives that provision if the industry
makes good on its commitments at Antwerp, in a timely way.
Again, there is a two-year phase in period, which should allow the
industry (which had promised that rough controls could be in place
within six months) ample time to put its own house in order.
Maintaining the threat of certificates of origin on finished diamonds,
the Hall legislation would keep the pressure on both industry and
diamond producing, finishing, exporting, and importing countries to
move forward with the Rough Controls process. It also provides a
valuable nudge to the industry to more quickly develop means of
sourcing cut and finished diamonds – technology that is currently
still in the developmental stages.
***
This message is distributed from Physicians for Human Rights for
the Advocacy Network for Africa (ADNA).
Vicki Lynn Ferguson
Advocacy Network for Africa
Communications Facilitator
c/o Africa Policy Information Center
110 Maryland Ave, NE #509
Washington, DC 20002
Ph: 202-546-7961
Fax: 202-546-1545
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.africapolicy.org/adna
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